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permaculture - [permaculture] Re: permaculture Digest, Vol 20, Issue 30

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Subject: permaculture

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  • From: Scott Pittman <pci@permaculture-inst.org>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] Re: permaculture Digest, Vol 20, Issue 30
  • Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 11:31:05 -0600

permaculture-request@lists.ibiblio.org wrote:


Subject:
[permaculture] the legitimacy of certification
From:
"Michael Kramer" <MKramer@hawaii.rr.com>
Date:
Wed, 15 Sep 2004 21:03:48 -1000
To:
<permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>

To:
<permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>


As a decentralized movement, permaculture is a movement that survives
primarily on trust, because it is not controlled by anyone or any
organization, at least not in the States. People pay for the design course
experience and, upon graduation, they earn the right to call themselves
permaculturists and use this term in their work or life. The money people
pay is for this right, and that's it. The courses may vary in teachers,
content, style and depth, but they are introductory so they are not meant to
be an identical catch-all; nor are they designed to give everyone all the
tools and strategies they need to apply permaculture in all its facets.

I must beg to differ with Michael on the above. Anyone can call themselves a permaculturalist, and do, and as a result we have some very disreputable, predatious, and opportunistic individuals using the good name to their advantage. It was with this in mind that Bill Mollison and others established the system of certification, so that we at least had some basis on which to challange those who have no ethics, or shame. For the most part this has worked, the movement as a whole has sucessfully challenged people who have sought to trade on the permaculture name to sell items not consistent with pc teachings. The certification was to enable the pc community to assess and challenge the legitimacy of someones claims when they were using permaculture to market, or derive financial benefit. I'm sure there must be other ways but I have never been able to come up with one. A good capitalist would say that the market will eliminate bad products over time, and that has proven true of teachers, but I don't know about other services. So certification has always meant that one could now derive financial benefit from using the name permaculture. I know of no strictures on calling oneself a permaculturalist, it is quickly obvious whether one is or isn't by what/how one manifests.

Another benefit of certification has been the tradition that once one is certified one is welcome to participate in any further pc design courses free of charge, except for direct costs like food, housing, and etc. This has allowed many certificate holders the opportunity to study with a variety of good teachers and practicioners before venturing out on their own. Unfortunately this aspect of the tradition is not widely known or practiced. I have been able to take multiple courses for free and benefited greatly from the experience..

The certification course content should contain the basic information covered by "Permaculture, A Designer's Manual", by Bill Mollison. That does not mean that other things aren't covered but the basics have to be covered, to my mind, or it is not a pc course. Content may differ only within this context as far as most of the teachers I know are concerned. I do, however, agree that they differ radically in style and depth. The lack of depth of many of them is disturbing

Scott





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