permaculture

["Michael Kramer" <MKramer@hawaii.rr.com>]

The La'akea Permaculture Gardens website (www.permaculture-hawaii.com) also 
has a Global Permaculture Database where people can enter their own courses, 
search by instructor, etc. It's pretty sophisticated and self-maintaining, 
was designed by Mark Olson. I see Greg chiming in (hi Greg!, and he's been 
trying to build up  www.permaculture.net as a clearinghouse site for many 
years and we've yet to utilize this resource as a movement. It seems to me 
that there's a great opportunity here to get the great minds together to 
create the definitive directory website, and much more... 

As many of you know from my article last year in the Activist, I'd like to 
see a more coordinated effort in our community. We could be so much more 
effective if we planned things together. I realize that geographic distance 
is part of the problem, but still there's too much operating in a vacuum. 
People do great work locally, and perhaps we need to look at zones 3-5 now. 
I'd like to recommend again that we consider holding a North American 
Permaculture Convergence to look at the infrastructure needs of the 
permaculture movement. There's plenty of strategic planning to be done: 
creating a continental pc organization (with high-profile Board), curriculum 
development and publishing, targeted design courses for specific professional 
audiences, media pr, conferences, teacher certification, venture 
capital/business incubators, public demonstration sites and tours, 
grantmaking programs, a national pc barter network and chamber of commerce 
(like the Coop America Green Pages), bookwriting, publications, municipal and 
regional sustainability indicators policy initiatives, development of a 
permaculture legislative caucus and political platform development, a 
national pc radio program, academic programs, and a coordinated clearinghouse 
website of all regional guilds, teachers, courses, etc. 

Organizing is hard work, but it could create the change we wish to see in the 
world.

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Michael Kramer
Natural Investment Services
P.O. Box 390595
Keauhou, HI 96739

www.NaturalInvesting.com
888-779-1500

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