permaculture

["Nicholas Roberts" <nicholas@themediasociety.org>]

hi all

below are some notes, on some big, long-term projects, that I am going
to focus on over the next few years... ...  I am especially focussing
on where I perceive gaps in the permaculture community worldwide, the
global problems that we face, and areas that I think I have expertise
and interest

I am heading to Robyn's Nimbin early in January and will be using the
library there and consulting Robyn and other permaculturalists
regarding a collection of project ideas.. perhaps also spending time
with Jude and Michel at Seedsavers...

the projects below...

1. Permaculture.Tv - a web video editorial, educational and marketing
website - a prototype was online, but its been down for a week - I ran
out of money - and hope to get in online ASAP... this project ran for
about a month and was generally well received... have interest from
Chile, USA, Australia, Africa, to continue this.. participate etc

2. Permaculture Cooperative - a global permaculture cooperative for
all producers and workers doing permaculture.. Permaculture.TV will be
a cooperative project.. and it seems that a unified marketing project
for permaculturealists producers, educators, workers, designers; the
entire spectrum of permaculture producers could greatly benefit from a
global cooperative... start to compete against the global
multinational corporations.. I had some inetrest from Sweden, NYC and
San Francisco regarding this.. I would suggest that the main activites
of the Permaculture cooperative be marketing *online via an ecommerce
website*, the Permaculture.TV video website. Also education, activism,
lobbying and research and development project streams be developed

3. Permaculture Workers Cooperative - a workers coop that does
permaculture farming and work of various kinds... decentralised urban
farming, permablitzes/permabees, permaculture maintainence etc ...
this is Tom's social and economic justice permaculture

4. Permaculture Hostels - permaculture plus WWOOF youth hostel network
... personally I think this is a no-brainers, and should be easy..
cant understand why they dont already exist... you could combine PDC,
WWOOFing, permaculture farming, local and global youth hostelling
etc,.. disadvantgaed youth, global tourists, perhaps out bush,,...

5. Permaculture Design Tools - there have been a number of requests on
the email lists  *especially from the US for a computer based design
tool for permaculture farmers, designers, educators etc... I see this
as a software application like an existing computer-based farm design
tool, that is open sourced, and perhaps is linked and/or creates a web
database - perhaps like a wikipedia system - that contains data on
tools, species, landforms, market data, polucultures etc...

6. Gaia Permaculture - how do we globalise the local solutions ?
perhaps using the above Design Tools, cooperative, etc? how does
permaculture help with geo-engineering, abrupt and extreme climate
change, global justice? militarisation ? multinational corporations
and a disembodied elite ? fair trade etc ? ? ?

7. Permaculture Law : what would a Permaculture Law introduced into
Australian parliament look like ? what would it say ? how do we write
one >? how would it work if every country on earth promoted such
permaculture law's ? who would be the enemies of such laws ? how would
the lobbying proceed etc

personally, I've just applied to Southern Cross university *Lismore*
to study Environmental Science *Land Resource Management* by distance
education - and am also hoping to get into Robyn's APT accredited
Permaculture design course.... perhaps exchanging my IT/internet
skills for some course fees

I am looking at working on the above projects as Masters
Thesis/projects, overseas study type projects.. basically I am looking
a the above inter-related collection of projects and being something
like 5 years work for me in a role as a creative driector, research
and project consultant ... kind of like a designer, but more focussed
obn the busienss analysis and product design.. also structuring the
project and getting the first couple of versions out the dooor

as you know, I've had a pretty decent career in IT/internet/media and
am fairly confident about the above projects... it will take time...
and they are big, complex global projects...but these are the problems
that we have

the main bottlenecks for me,
1. getting some personal permaculture, i.e. a stable place to live and
work.  stable lifestyle... etc
2. putting some framework and structure around this R and D
3. developing an editorial, marketing, communciations etc strategy
i.e. who is the enemy? how outspoken should one be against say
corporations, governments ? etc
4. funding... not so much getting it, but more, who and why ? and with
what obligations implicit and explicit
5. organisational : I favor global and local cooperatives

peace and love

-N