permaculture

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

With regards to Robyn's thought on internationally-recognized ground rules
for permaculture courses, all I can say is that in this country these rules
are not recognized by many people, and there is no way to assure this even
if we wanted this recognition either. There are as many versions of the
Basic Permaculture Design Course in this country as there are teachers. It's
just the way it is. And at this point I'm not sure we should insist on
maintaining a nonexistent standard simply because some of us are very
comfortable teaching it. For as I have tried to point out, the course is
becoming obsolete, it's just that not all of us can see it. But I'm not
suggesting that the course be abandoned, but rather that there be different
versions of it that qualify as certificate courses.

With regards to Toby's observations:

> I agree that many who have taken a PDC don't understand what Pc is. Some
of
> it is because lecture courses are not very effective relative to other
> formats. But I believe the reasons have much more to do with 1) a 72-hour
> PDC offers less time spent on the subject than a single college course (a
> tough college class is roughly 32 hours in class with 2-4 hours of
> homework/study for every hour in class--far more than a PDC and another
> reason I can't accept the 9- or 10-day format); and 2) Pc often is so
wildly
> at variance with any other knowledge that the student has that there is no
> place for Pc knowledge to "sit." It doesn't fit, and takes more than one
> exposure for most people to grasp it. So given the very short exposure to
> some hard-to-incorporate ideas, it's no wonder that many students simply
> don't get it. I mean, a basic drawing course doesn't create many artists.
I
> don't think the PDC curriculum is a major reason people have difficulty
> "getting" it. (Though I'm glad to see the curriculum evolve; yield can
> always be improved through better design).

It is because it takes more than one exposure for people to grasp
permaculture that it is probably more meaningful that the course focus on
design in all aspects of humanity rather than serving as an individual site
planning exercise. This particular version of the course is great for those
who wish to grow their own food or build their own house. My suggestion is
to create several different kinds of certification courses so that the one
we currently use doesn't have to be the only certification entry point for
curious students. Certificate courses could be customized for a wide range
of people (young children, schoolteachers, architects, builders, credit
union officials, gang members, forest service personnel, union organizers,
etc).And the only reason I offer this suggestion is so that we can make
permaculture more accessible to a wider range of people.

> > The Ecopsychology, Ecological Design, Natural Capitalism,
> > and Natural Steps folks came well after us and have managed to really
get
> > their message out there in a great way, tackle significant projects, and
> > generate credibility. We have not.
>
> I've often wondered about this, both as to why that is, and also to what
> extent it is true.

We just haven't organized ourselves or tried to get a lot of attention. We
seem to be content to sit on the fringe with our critiques of society and
just wait for people to show up at our course. Think for a minute about how
inaccessible the Permaculture Credit Union or Permaculture Activist are to
the mainstream. It's hard for people to find these great resources. Remember
when Eric Utne went from a 4-page subscription newsletter to a huge color
magazine available at most major newsstands? That's what permaculture needs.
So I only call our efforts a "failure" because of my own impatience to see
permaculture more widely accepted and at a much quicker rate. Yes,
permaculture as a concept is getting out there, but that doesn't mean we
can't adopt new strategies to accelerate this even more.

I don't consider some of the other ecological design approaches top-down
just because their audience tends to be institutions or corporations. I had
a conversation with Brian Nattrass recently (author of " The Natural Step
for Business"), and he's working with the Navy of all places as a
sustainability consultant to completely transform most of their operations.
So while it's certainly bizarre to apply principles of sustainability to a
war machine, it's still an important aspect of building over time an
American culture of ecological action. Why would this not be an appropriate
permaculture strategy? I guess my primary point is that we have a design
course that would definitely not work for the Navy or a corporation or a
local government or a school, and because of that we are missing
opportunities to be effective. Others have managed to be savvy enough to
figure out how to couch their message in terms their particular audience can
hear, so I'm merely suggesting that we would be wise to consider doing the
same. Sometimes we need to look for leverage points in a system in order to
manifest the greatest opportunity for change. A national permaculture
organization could serve this function, but it takes a certain degree of
collaboration and professional skill to build such an entity. I also fail to
see why permaculture shouldn't become engaged in top-down approaches to
saving civilization. Permaculture has a role to play in policy and power
politics, so I guess I don't see why permaculture must be grassroots or why
grassroots is somehow more desirable. Don't we need change and permaculture
practiced on all fronts?  Capitalism isn't going away and we're not going to
revert back to all-local economies, so why not apply permaculture to making
capitalism reflect the triple bottom line to include social and ecological
criteria - this is a capitalism we could all believe in. Getting in there
and trying to change corporate practices and government regulations is just
as important as each of us finding peace at home with our gardens and solar
panels, and our certificate courses could reflect that.

Michael Kramer