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permaculture - [permaculture] Hierarchies and certification..

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  • From: Marsha Hanzi <mhanzi@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] Hierarchies and certification..
  • Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2003 03:48:02 -0700 (PDT)

The dilemma is how to guarantee quality witout at the same time creating a hierarchy? It seems to me that now that Bill is moving out of the scene there is a certain maneuvering to  see "who will be at the top now that he is gone"...I think this is well-intentioned, based on the fear of the movement "losing quality".

But the spirit of Permaculture at its founding was that of local and personal empowerment, and that must also mean including material from our own experience and lives, and not just slavishly repeating Bill´s manual ( and having to shell out to someone who may not even know our work...)

(An aside-  Ianto Evans once said that in Bill´s manual it is difficult to distiniguish material which is just"good ideas" from material which has actually been tested.  With time I have found this to be true...)

The probelm arises when this body of information- a design system- needs to be transformed into  a recognized profession, or even a recognized course within a professional context...

In my experience , if the person teaching Permaculture has some sort of academic accreditation ( like a Masters in anthropology etc...) that somehow validates their Permaculture course in the academic world...It´s not necessarily fair, but it functions...

Here in Brazil there is a new window of opportunity in that the ministry of Education is now validating two-year technical courses at the university level ( before there were only highschool-level technical courses).  We see this as a perfect scenario for inserting Permaculture as a profession in the academic scene... As soon as I get my roots down in my new place, we should be developing this proposal... I think most Permaculture Institutes would have enough academically-qualified people to develop such a course ( agronomists, educators, etc.),  while incorporating those professionals who don´t have the academic status but do have practical skills and experience . IPEC, a PC Institue near Brasilia, has started a "Ecoversity" which is a similar proposal of a long-term course.  I am not sure whether they have actually got it academically accredited or not.  I believe not, but am not sure..

Marsha Hanzi

Instituto de Permacultura da Bahia

www.permacultura-bahia.org.br

 


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