permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@bellsouth.net>]

On 10/27/2010 8:09 PM, Robyn Francis wrote:
On 10/27/2010 6:29 PM, Andrew Millison wrote:

I have a lengthy reply in the works but I will cut to the chase and
bring up the subject of the need to spread adoption of permaculture 
throughout our societies
around the world wherever it is needed by all people. This obviously will 
involve many people
acquiring knowledge of many aspects of permaculture with the intent of 
becoming mentors in
their communities and regions and through this bring about beneficial change 
in the societies
they are part of. Many of these people will learn permaculture through 
literature available to them,
hardcopy or online, free to them, i.e. opensource because that is all they 
can afford. They will then
proceed to organize permaculture support groups in their communities and 
share his knowledge with them.
Those who benefit from this can then go on to organize other groups and educate them. This way of sharing and preserving 
an indigenous knowledgebase is ageless. This time it is permaculture that has entered their traditional knowledgebase.

So...here we have dedicated permaculture practitioners turned teachers who have had no formal training, no PDC, no 
accreditation and no certificates but are doing much needed, valuable work and helping many people, permaculture ethics 
in action.

My thoughts: those working to define and maintain permaculture standards and oversee professionalism in teaching, design 
and consulting, need to consider the situation these many millions of folks all over the world will find themselves in 
as they seek to become part of the greater global permaculture community or family, without having
taken the standard "required" coursework. Some may even reach the goal of 
being able to put real permaculture to work
for themselves and their community members without even having read Mollison's books (because they do not have access to 
it in any form). We got into this at length a while back during discussion of the copyright issue and the need to get 
the PDM to indigenous folks in remote regions of the world. As publicity spreads, many people in urban areas as well as 
rural folks will find out about permaculture and will want to know more about it and how they can make it work for them; 
mentors will facilitate this. This is likely a somewhat random, informal process, driven by hope and enthusiasm and 
should be encouraged by the entire permaculture community.

How will any emerging permaculture professional oversight group or organization incorporate these people into the 
movement, encourage them and possibly make educational resources available to them (pro bono work, monetary donations, 
grants, scholarships, etc. perhaps) knowing that they have become practitioners and teachers without folloowing the 
standard procedures? They need to be encouraged and helped in order to spread the permaculture word in all the places 
that is can be spread.

LL