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  • From: Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network <lakinroe@silcom.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Making barren lands bountiful Geoff Lawton Permaculture CNN
  • Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 07:35:36 -0700


Making barren lands bountiful
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/07/going.green.lawton.permaculture/
* STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Geoff Lawton is using renewable natural resources to enrich ecosystems
* Permaculture can turn the most arid, nutrient-free soil into thriving habitats
* Lawton's friend and mentor, Bill Mollison developed the technique in the 1970s
* Lawton has turned deserts in Jordan and Morocco into rich
oases

updated 12:51 p.m. EDT, Wed October 7, 2009



(CNN) -- It is midday and Geoff Lawton is hard at work at Zaytuna Farms in New South Wales, Australia. But the real work, he says, is going on inside the center of the compost.

Geoff Lawton says that permaculture "revs up" systems of soil creation.

"There's lots of things breeding in there," Lawton says.
Compost may not seem a sexy subject, but within this steaming pile, life is being created.
"There's organisms breathing and dying and reproducing very quickly," he says. "It's all very hot and steamy."
That rich soil lays the groundwork for Lawton's revolutionary method of food production. It's called permaculture.
Lawton's friend and mentor, Bill Mollison, developed the process back in the 1970s. Since then he and Lawton have traveled the globe preaching the value of permaculture and its aim to create harmony between the landscape and the people who live on it.
"Nature exists in an incredibly rich form, and enriching form and does so without any energy inputs from mankind," Lawton explains. "Permaculture does the same thing."
"We've taken the systems of soil creation and soil life and we've revved them up. We've speeded up nature itself and we've improved the system." Watch Geoff Lawton at work »
So what does it take to improve the system?
Lawton says it's about rehabilitating areas that have been damaged by pollution or overuse by recycling nutrients and energy back into the soils.

Fact Box
Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.
Source: Permaculture Research Institute of Australia

Permaculture also takes all the things we need -- our housing, energy sources, food and water supplies -- and tailors them to fit into the natural rhythms of the ecosystem. The idea is to work with, not against, nature.
Lawton says that during the first few weeks and months you don't see the real benefits, but after a year to 18 months you really start to see the difference.
"Within two or three years you can see a system that is really something that's got great opportunities and possibilities," he said.
The gardens at Zaytuna Farms bear fruit and vegetables of all that hard work. The real measure though isn't how it works, but where.
Lawton claims this permaculture method can work anywhere in the world, including the desert.
"Almost all the deserts on earth at one point were forested," he said. "They all have different types of oasis systems. What you're doing is picking different points in the desert and turning them into a rich oasis."
On a DVD created by the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia, Lawton shows us what happened when he took this method to places like Morocco and Jordan -- just 80 kilometers from the Dead Sea.
"People were amazed to see an area that was salty, sandy ground, turn into a lush green forest, that had mushrooms growing from the soil," Lawton said.

The ability to "green" the desert is not only having an impact on the communities where these gardens are grown. Interest is also sprouting among young people.
Dozens come to Zaytuna Farms every year to learn about the permaculture
method.
"I've only been doing it a year and once you hit upon the principles it's basically observations," said intern Jonathan Chan.
"You have to look at the land and which way the wind is blowing and see where the sun angles are and design around that and it does seem quite simple."
For Chan it's as much about cultivating a new way of life as it is about cultivating the land.
"I think people are getting to the point where they have to make change and permaculture is a good direction to go," he said.
Still, permaculture isn't without its critics. They argue the method is time-consuming in the early stages and that makes the system hard to get off the ground in many places.
It can be made even more difficult if the people living around the site aren't familiar with the process.
But Lawton argues the time and energy expended in a permaculture garden is offset by the quality of the experience, and the richness of the end result.


"A good organic farmer works a thousand hours a year. The industrial mankind works two thousand to three thousand hours a year. What do we have to show for it? Gadgets.
"We don't have community, we don't have clean water, clean air or sensible housing. As negative as we currently are, we can be equally positive," Lawton said. "It's not just self-reliance or self-sufficiency, it's absolute abundance." E-mail to a friend

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From jasonbrown644@hotmail.com Thu Oct 8 13:45:21 2009
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Subject: [permaculture] Permaculture in Panama
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Is anyone or does anyone know of groups/practitioners in Panama?





Jason Minton Brown Candidate, Master of Forestry, Master of Religion and Ecology, 2011
Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale Divinity School (714) 261-5616
Jason.brown@yale.edu




From: permaculture-request@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: permaculture Digest, Vol 81, Issue 4
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 13:21:29 -0400

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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
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Today's Topics:

1. check this syllabus (Patrick)
2. Re: check this syllabus (Justin Hahn)
3. Web Owls (Lawrence F. London, Jr.)
4. Knol - a unit of knowledge: share what you know, publish your
expertise. (Lawrence F. London, Jr.)
5. AskPhilosophers.org (Lawrence F. London, Jr.)
6. Making barren lands bountiful Geoff Lawton Permaculture CNN
(Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2009 21:32:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: Patrick <forgeadams@yahoo.com>
Subject: [permaculture] check this syllabus
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Message-ID: <628134.60038.qm@web57616.mail.re1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

http://p2pu.org/Afforestation-Syllabus
This's a syllabus for a currently filled Land Restoration & Afforestion pilot e-course. My inner Illich hopes open source education gets off the ground in a real way.
enjoy,
Patrick O'Connor Oakland(Raider Nation), CA







------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 13:49:20 +0900
From: Justin Hahn <justin.hahn@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] check this syllabus
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID:
<a71d876d0910072149s67985bas5a80101926d4ed98@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

There are some grammatical errors in the syllabus. But just from a quick
glance, I like it.


On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 1:32 PM, Patrick <forgeadams@yahoo.com> wrote:

> http://p2pu.org/Afforestation-Syllabus
> This's a syllabus for a currently filled Land Restoration & Afforestion
> pilot e-course. My inner Illich hopes open source education gets off the
> ground in a real way.
>
> enjoy,
> Patrick O'Connor
> Oakland(Raider Nation), CA
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subscribe or unsubscribe here:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
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>


------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:50:10 -0400
From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
Subject: [permaculture] Web Owls
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
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Web Owls
http://web-owls.com/
"How to search, how to research - tips and techniques, tales from the trenches, and wonderful discoveries. Contains 20% whimsy."


------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:54:32 -0400
From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
Subject: [permaculture] Knol - a unit of knowledge: share what you
know, publish your expertise.
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Message-ID: <4ACD7088.20805@bellsouth.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

http://knol.google.com/k/knol#


------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:54:45 -0400
From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
Subject: [permaculture] AskPhilosophers.org
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Message-ID: <4ACD7095.6080208@bellsouth.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

http://www.askphilosophers.org/


------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 07:35:36 -0700
From: Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
<lakinroe@silcom.com>
Subject: [permaculture] Making barren lands bountiful Geoff Lawton
Permaculture CNN
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <p06240805c6f3a92cf2dd@[67.150.174.163]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed"


Making barren lands bountiful
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/07/going.green.lawton.permaculture/
* STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Geoff Lawton is using renewable natural resources to enrich ecosystems
* Permaculture can turn the most arid, nutrient-free soil into thriving habitats
* Lawton's friend and mentor, Bill Mollison developed the technique in the 1970s
* Lawton has turned deserts in Jordan and Morocco into rich oases

updated 12:51 p.m. EDT, Wed October 7, 2009



(CNN) -- It is midday and Geoff Lawton is hard at work at Zaytuna Farms in New South Wales, Australia. But the real work, he says, is going on inside the center of the compost.

Geoff Lawton says that permaculture "revs up" systems of soil creation.

"There's lots of things breeding in there," Lawton says.
Compost may not seem a sexy subject, but within this steaming pile, life is being created.
"There's organisms breathing and dying and reproducing very quickly," he says. "It's all very hot and steamy."
That rich soil lays the groundwork for Lawton's revolutionary method of food production. It's called permaculture.
Lawton's friend and mentor, Bill Mollison, developed the process back in the 1970s. Since then he and Lawton have traveled the globe preaching the value of permaculture and its aim to create harmony between the landscape and the people who live on it.
"Nature exists in an incredibly rich form, and enriching form and does so without any energy inputs from mankind," Lawton explains. "Permaculture does the same thing."
"We've taken the systems of soil creation and soil life and we've revved them up. We've speeded up nature itself and we've improved the system." Watch Geoff Lawton at work ?
So what does it take to improve the system?
Lawton says it's about rehabilitating areas that have been damaged by pollution or overuse by recycling nutrients and energy back into the soils.

Fact Box
Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.
Source: Permaculture Research Institute of Australia

Permaculture also takes all the things we need -- our housing, energy sources, food and water supplies -- and tailors them to fit into the natural rhythms of the ecosystem. The idea is to work with, not against, nature.
Lawton says that during the first few weeks and months you don't see the real benefits, but after a year to 18 months you really start to see the difference.
"Within two or three years you can see a system that is really something that's got great opportunities and possibilities," he said.
The gardens at Zaytuna Farms bear fruit and vegetables of all that hard work. The real measure though isn't how it works, but where.
Lawton claims this permaculture method can work anywhere in the world, including the desert.
"Almost all the deserts on earth at one point were forested," he said. "They all have different types of oasis systems. What you're doing is picking different points in the desert and turning them into a rich oasis."
On a DVD created by the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia, Lawton shows us what happened when he took this method to places like Morocco and Jordan -- just 80 kilometers from the Dead Sea.
"People were amazed to see an area that was salty, sandy ground, turn into a lush green forest, that had mushrooms growing from the soil," Lawton said.

The ability to "green" the desert is not only having an impact on the communities where these gardens are grown. Interest is also sprouting among young people.
Dozens come to Zaytuna Farms every year to learn about the permaculture
method.
"I've only been doing it a year and once you hit upon the principles it's basically observations," said intern Jonathan Chan.
"You have to look at the land and which way the wind is blowing and see where the sun angles are and design around that and it does seem quite simple."
For Chan it's as much about cultivating a new way of life as it is about cultivating the land.
"I think people are getting to the point where they have to make change and permaculture is a good direction to go," he said.
Still, permaculture isn't without its critics. They argue the method is time-consuming in the early stages and that makes the system hard to get off the ground in many places.
It can be made even more difficult if the people living around the site aren't familiar with the process.
But Lawton argues the time and energy expended in a permaculture garden is offset by the quality of the experience, and the richness of the end result.


"A good organic farmer works a thousand hours a year. The industrial mankind works two thousand to three thousand hours a year. What do we have to show for it? Gadgets.
"We don't have community, we don't have clean water, clean air or sensible housing. As negative as we currently are, we can be equally positive," Lawton said. "It's not just self-reliance or self-sufficiency, it's absolute abundance." E-mail to a friend

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  • [permaculture] Making barren lands bountiful Geoff Lawton Permaculture CNN, Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network, 10/08/2009

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