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  • From: Holger Hieronimi <holger@tierramor.org>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] From Mexico - Thoughts on PDCs
  • Date: Sat, 12 Dec 2009 07:19:56 -0600

This discussion on the PCDs is as old as the PCD, I think

at least it´s around since I made my PCD, some thirteen years ago-

al allways, there are those who think that the PCD is the ONLY way of teaching and learning Permaculture

sometimes wishing even to "centralize" the issuing, having only acredited teachers from some central institution, at best copyrighting the word and having everything "under control".... forgetting about some basic system principles, that also apply to the so-called "permaculture movement"-

as an old rebel from academia, I do not really know, what a piece of paper "certificates" .... somewhat, I hold a design certificate and even a diploma (but here I allready will get in trouble with some of the centralizers and "purists", since my diploma was part of a somewhat self-issued version, that was created once and never again in 1999, for the first generation of mexican PC activists, to celebrate ouselves and our projects, credited by the now extinct PC drylands institute, Earthcare education, and the now extinct mexican PC institute...)

the only time when I used those papers, was to get a working permit as a PC designer and teacher from the mexican migration offices .... I prefer not to weave around with them too much....

maybe we should apply PC principles on the permaculture teaching isuue (well, then we maybe have a problem, that now there are quite a few different sets of principles around,....personally I stick on Holmgrens set, which, in my case, proved to be an incredible help as a thinking tool...)

whats happening with the principle Nr 10 "Use and value diversity...."?

personally I tend to accept this, in this context I remember a comment made by darren Doherty a few weeks ago:

Otherwise the clear option is to make your own institutes, your own certificates and deliver the course (s) that the people in your markets need. Sure the imprimatur of giving a TPI PDC certificate is great but it is not the be all and end all....

Here in mexico, I found the traditional PCD-sceme rather limiting. First of all, you need people having time and money to pay for it. Then, the TPI curriculum discourages explicitly bioregional expressions. Then, quite easy, it seems that you just copy the content of the designers manual and call it curriculum, send it to australia, pay 2.50 dollars for each "original" certificate, prove your own certification, and THATS IT.... ????

How somebody from Australia can certificate what I´m doing here ??? How can they charge for that ???

We do not need necesarily more Design certificate holders, *we need more Permaculture Activists. *Its your action that certificates you. Master designers like Darren or Geoff Lawton dont need to walk around showing their certificates and diplomas. For them, as for me and many other PC-teachers/ practitioners, the PCD was the STARTING PIONT for serious learnig and action. And this I hope to communicate in our courses and workshops

Since i facilitated my first two week course, seven years ago, we found out that its easier to stay marginal to this PCD sceme, allthough those first courses were problably closest to the original DesignCertificate sceme we did, since the Designers Manual was by then nearly the only textbook we used- luckily, my bibliografy as well as the content and scope of the courses, widened a lot since then-

For many years, we were lucky that there was no discussion on this topic here in mexico, but now there are quite a few people who travelled all the way to australia, took courses there, and come back claiming to be the only REAL permaculturists, credited legally and internationally to be the only authorized PC teachers here, by the way ignoring all the work done by the pioneers during more than twenty years. Possibly, this is a sign, that the mexican permaculture scene gets finally "mature", but in my case its making me consider, if I should drop the word permaculture once again from my activities.

saludos

Holger Hieronimi







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