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  • From: Pacific Edge Permaculture + Media <pacedge@magna.com.au>
  • To: Intl permaculture list <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Open letter to the Australian permaculture movement
  • Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 11:33:57 +1000

CHANGING REALITIES - THE CENSUS, DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE AND THE FUTURE OF
PERMACULTURE

The release of data from the 2001 Australian census poses a real challenge
to permaculture designers, educators and advocates. Unless the demographic
changes disclosed in the census are internalised by permaculture people, the
design system risks become irrelavent.

Released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the census figures paint a
vivid picture of a society in change and support demographic trends
identified by demographer Bernard Salt in his 2001 book 'The Big Shift'
(Hardie Grant books, South Yarra).

For permaculture practitioners, especially those teaching permaculture, the
changes underway in Australian society bring into question a number of ideas
promulgated through permaculture design and introductory courses.

I thought that, as a Sydney resident, focusing on changes in that city would
be a little atypical. But given the fact, disclosed in the census, that
Sydney accommodates around a quarter of the total Australian population
(with a population approaching 4 million out of a total population close to
20 million) , the metropolis is perhaps more 'typical' of contemporary
Australian life than not. Cities like Melbourne seem to be following trends
similar to Sydney, and given Sydney's status as Australia's global city and
portal to the world, its dominance is likely to influence the rest of the
country profoundly.

FOOD, NOT JUST GARDENING
The permaculture preoccupation with gardening is one of the 'sacred cows' of
the design system that remains important but is declining in relevance to
Australians living in the big metropolitan centres such as Sydney . Its
relevance is being reduced for a number of reasons:

- fewer urban people have gardens

- many detached houses in the newer, outer-urban suburbs, the growth areas,
have only small gardens with the dwelling occupying most of the land

- around 70% of new dwellings in Sydney are apartments; apartment and
townhouse living is becoming more popular because an increasing number of
people do not want the work that comes with a house and garden due to long
hours of employment, lifestyle or simply disinterest; apartment living is
also being popularised through the ageing of the Australian population - the
number of people over 65 is now 12.6% of the population, according to census
data, and the total will grow substantially over the next 20 years

- a significant number of people are moving into the inner-urban ring within
five kilometres of the CBD of our major cities where they occupy small
detached houses, town houses with small courtyard gardens and apartments;
the census disclosed the process well underway in Melbourne; in Sydney,
large scale urban apartment developments such as those around Green Square
and Alexandria are replacing the 'old economy' of manufacturing and
processing with populations employed in the 'new economy' of information
technology, finance, media, entertainment, education and other service
industries

- in the middle ring of Sydney suburbs, town houses with their tiny court
yard gardens are replacing the older detached family dwellings.

Apart from their influence on a new urban cityscape, what these trends mean
is that it is no longer relevant for permaculture teachers to strongly focus
on permaculturre's formula pattern for 'backyard' home gardens because fewer
people have them or all they have in a small inner-urban garden (pocket size
in some cases), a tiny courtyard garden or an apartment balcony. Sure, the
suburban garden remains very common and the formula permaculture design for
this remains relevant, especially if you teach permaculture in an area where
most people have such gardens. It's just that it is not relevant for a
growing number of urban people and if these people are not catered to
through changing the content of permaculture courses then the design system
will be well and truly irrelavent to them. Why this demographic is important
is because it is articulate and influential and could play a role in
promoting permaculture if it could see that it was relevant.

What I propose is that permaculture educators and designers focus more on
container and balcony gardens and community gardening without forgetting the
orthodox, larger home garden where the majority of students have these, and
that the gardening segment of permaculture courses becomes a sebset of a
wider subject area of 'food systems'. Included would be ideas about
alternative urban food systems such as food cooperatives, community
supported agriculture and farmer's markets as well as how to buy food
responsibly from supermarkets (where most people will continue to get their
food supply because the alternative models are thinly strung through the
suburbs and take time to use).

Promotion of organically grown food could be part of a new permaculture
course structure because of the reduced ecological impact of organic farming
methods, but this would be balanced by the concept of how 'food miles' - the
transport of organic food interstate and from other countries - which
impacts in terms of pollution and cost. A lot of organic food in Australia
is imported. Much of the processsed organic food on sale is packaged in
non-recyclable materials and, in terms of reducing urban waste flows, is no
different than non-organic food from the local supermarket. Promotion of
local food would help establish urban markets for food from the region or
grown within the state.

URBAN DEVELOPMENT
With the rise of medium density apartment living, permaculture teachers
might make their material more relevant by moving beyond the example of the
detached energy and water effficient dwelling to promote lobbying for the
adoption of progressive legislation by local government, such as NSW's
Energy Smart Homes scheme. Such legislation, by mandating a minimum 3.5
energy stars as the minimum energy performance for dwellings, can achieve
more than simply relying in educating motivated home owners to introduce
energy saving measures on their own. Education can go only so far and its
adoption requires time and/ or money; legislation brings widespread change.

Examples that could be promoted include the energy, water and materials
efficient town houses at Stringybark Grove and the Kogarah Town Centre
apartment developments in Sydney. Smaller municipal systems of wastewater
treatment and other technologies rather than private, home-based systems
would get around the issue of maintenance when houses change hands and would
be appropriate to medium density development.

The upsurge in apartment living and in urban consolidation has brought with
it the demand for more public open space. It appears that people want the
low maintenance and convenience of apartments but also want outdoor space
for their recreation, relaxation, and in the case of those interested in
gardening, for community gardening. The question of open space has now
become a political issue in some parts of Sydney.

For permaculture advocates and teachers, Melbourne's CERES model of multiuse
open space incorporating active and passive recreation, education, small
business (a permaculture plant and bush foods nursery) and other aspects,
and Brisbane's model of Northey Street City Farm with its community food
growing, chooks, organic farmer's market, commercial urban organic market
garden and state government supported employment training schemes are
examples that serve the real needs of people. Perhaps the models could be
introduced on a smaller scale in urban areas.

Greater focus on sustainable urban systems by permaculture teachers would be
validated by the growing population, political and economic dominance of
what the census commentators described as the Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne
triangle.

RURAL TOWNS AND GROWTH AREAS
To imagine that permaculture can reverse or even influence the drift from
the country to the city is misplaced and foolish - it simply does not have
the influence.

Demographer Bernard Salt has asserted that the decline of rural towns cannot
be stopped and should be accepted. The growth areas, he found, were the
metropolitan and some regional cities and, increasingly over the coming
quarter century, coastal areas as people opt for a beachside lifestyle, a
process presently underway.

This brings into question the point of teaching permaculture's zone three,
four and five landuse design concepts in any detail in permaculture courses
made up mainly of urban people. Better to focus on urban development and how
that can be made more sustainable, both ecologically and socially.

Cities and the coast are the future demographic foci and the sooner it is
accepted by the permaculture movement the better. It's no good appealing to
some romantic notion of rural living if you can't get a job or start a small
business there. Better to participate in life in the metropolises or at the
beachside and to provide examples and ideas of how this reality could be
made more sustainable.

BUILDING COMMUNITY
There's been a lot of talk about building community in permaculture circles
and some progress made through strategies like community associations and
community gardens. Commenting on the census findings that the nuclear family
is well and truly in decline and is on its way to becoming atypical of
Australian families, and that the number of one and two person households is
increasing, social researcher Hugh Mackay proposed that this could be the
key to recreating a sense of local community.

Mackay, who heads Mackay Research, is a researcher with a lot of credibility
whose record spans over 25 years. He says that the traditional (now smaller)
family is no longer a 'community', but because humans are 'herd animals'
they would seek a sense of community elsewhere.

"We do not have domestic herds like we used to have", Mackay was quoted in
the Sydney Morning Herald. He said that people claim that they want to live
in villages

Mackay predicted a boom in medium density housing as the average household
size shrinks, particularly town houses close to a village green. This would
make possible living alone but be close enough to the company of others.

Surely this notion can provide a clue for Australian permaculture advocates
and teachers about the type of urban development they should be pushing.

TIME TO CHANGE
The changes disclosed by the census and by Salt's work are important to
permaculture's future ut

The census data supports moves by some in the movement to distance
themselves from the restrictions imposed by the Permaculture Institute on
teaching a so-called curriculum based on a book written back in 1988 that
takes no account of contemporary mindsets, psychologies, scientific
findings, demographic trends or the realities faced by people everyday.

But even the advocates of permaculture change pushing the accreditation of a
permaculture course as recognised vocational training (Permaculture
International Ltd) will have to ensure that the proposed course contains a
large proportion of material relevant to the majority of Australians - who
live in cities - that it is less about growing your own food and more about
obtaining food for a nutritious diet ...that its graduates will understand
community development as much as they understand horticulture ...that they
develop people and group skills as much as they learn how to make a house
energy efficient ...that they learn how to wield influence through lobbying,
negotiating and educating people as much as they can design a community
garden.

If we are to move into a sometimes troubled and tumultuous future, to seek
out points of influence and set up practical examples of technologies and
processes - solutions, that is, compatible with sustainable development -
then it is time to dump what is of no further use, adapt that from the past
which is worth keeping and adopt and invent that which we will need.

All too often, permaculture has failed to take notice of new information,
including scientific research, infrmation such as the trends identified in
the 2001 census and by researachers like Bernard Salt. This encourages us to
promote old solutions, those of the past, while remaining ignorant of the
present and the future the trends are leading us into.

We ignore new information at our peril. It's time we considered it and took
on board that which is useful. We won't do that while tied to the movement's
past methods and preoccupations, by allowing our educational services to be
restricted by unchangable regulation, to be limited by old ideas that have
long passed their utility, by texts that have not been updated no matter how
good some of the information remains.

The future beckons, and in our part of the world the 2001 census has given
us a glimpse of the trends in the society in which we are embedded and in
which we teach, offer permaculture services and participate.

In permaculture, it's time for a change... a change to our teaching and what
we promote. Let's recognise the passing of the traditional Australian house
and garden, to the opportunity for many for growing their own food... to the
viability of country living... and let's run with the reality of Australian
life that the census and Salt say is becoming reality before our eyes.

That's where the future lies, whether we like it or not... but let's try to
like it because it is real, because it's the social matrix in which we live
and because permaculture cannot deflect such widespread change.

...Russ Grayson, Sydney, Australia





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