permaculture

[Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network <lakinroe@silcom.com>]

Bruce Charles 'Bill' Mollison 1928-2016

Graham Bell
Sunday, 25th September 2016
Graham Bell's moving tribute to Bill Mollison, who died today, a true pioneer 
who gave up a promising academic career to challenge the status quo and 
establish the global Permaculture movement. 

Bruce Charles 'Bill' Mollison (born 1928 in Stanley, Tasmania, Australia and 
died today, 24 September 2016 in Sisters Beach, Tasmania).

A few people are born who are world class heroes to those who know them and 
unkown to the great majority, until one day their inescapable influence 
floats to the surface and is generally recognised for the cream it is. In 
hindsight such leaders go on to become household names.

Such a man was Bill Mollison: backwoodsman, academic, storyteller, lady’s man 
and to many just ‘Uncle Bill’, but doing all these things par excellence. In 
consequence he has left a worldwide movement of remarkable resilience. He has 
left much useful information and not a few words of guidance and 
encouragement for those who will miss him most.

Growing up in Stanley, Tasmania, he left school at fifteen to help run the 
family bakery and before 26 went through the occupations of shark fisherman 
and seaman (bringing vessels from post-war disposals to southern ports), 
forester, mill-worker, trapper, snarer, tractor driver and naturalist. 

His lack of formal education gave him many learning opportunities in how the 
real world works. 

Bill joined the CSIRO (Wildlife Survey Section) in 1954 and gained extensive 
research knowledge. His time in the Tasmanian rainforests gave him the 
founding structure for what became his life’s passion - Permaculture. The 
idea that we could consciously design sustainable systems which enabled human 
beings to live within their means and for all wild life to flourish with us. 

A spell at the Tasmanian Museum in curatorial duties, a return to field work 
with the Inland Fisheries Commission took him back to college in 1966 living 
on his wits running cattle, security bouncing at dances, shark fishing, and 
teaching part-time at an exclusive girls' school. Upon receiving his degree 
in bio-geography, he was appointed to the University of Tasmania where he 
later developed the unit of Environmental Psychology. During his university 
period (which lasted for 10 years), Bill independently researched and 
published a three-volume treatise on the history and genealogies of the 
descendants of the Tasmanian aborigines. 

In 1974, with David Holmgren, Bill developed the beginning of the 
permaculture concept, leading to the publication of Permaculture One. He 
became fixated on proving and promulgating what he saw as a world renewing 
concept. Leaving the University in 1978, abandoning a secure academic tenure 
at the age of fifty (an unheard of move) Bill devoted all his energies to 
furthering the system of permaculture and spreading the idea and principles 
worldwide. He has taught thousands of students, and has contributed many 
articles, curricula, reports, and recommendations for farm projects, urban 
clusters and local government bodies.

In 1981, Bill Mollison received the Right Livelihood Award (sometimes called 
the "Alternative Nobel Prize") for his work in environmental design. In 
recent years, he has established a 'Trust in Aid' fund to enable permaculture 
teachers to reach groups in need, particularly in the poorer parts of the 
world, with the aim of leaving a core of teachers locally to continue 
appropriate educational work.

We are helped in remembering Bill by his 1996 autobiography Travels in 
Dreams. Typically he laughs at himself: “This book is a work of fiction: most 
if not all of it is lies. Even the lies are imprecise reports of old lies 
overheard.” He wasn’t universally liked. One ason being he was committed to 
disrupt the status quo of misguided unfeeling management. “First feel fear, 
then get angry. Then go with your life into the fight.” He was eloquent about 
the need for peaceful ‘warriors’ as he called them to challenge the stupidity 
of ill-governance on a global scale. His own fears about being ineffectual 
were misguided: “Nobody takes any notice of me and even my friends 
continually criticise me.” In reality he engendered a massive global respect 
which will endure and grow as others develop his foundation thinking. 

The pinnacle of his career to his students was the publication in 1988 of The 
Permaculture Designers Manual, honoured to this day by devotees as 'The Bible 
of Permaculture'. If devotees suggests falsely some religious connotation 
it’s really that Bill pioneered a deep respect for the planet and for more 
sensible approaches for how we could live on it: “We are true time scouts 
finding places now for what will be needed then.” 

Bill asked: “Are we the public or the private person?” The truth of the 
matter is that for all seasons we are both. Perceived as challenging, a huge 
harvester of great ideas from around the world (and not always crediting 
their sources) Bill was also a sensitive man, eloquent raconteur, poet and 
appreciative of the poetry of others. He knew how to provoke others to 
action, but also when to withdraw and let others carry on the work. He 
paraphrased Lao Tzu: “True change is to so change things that it seems 
natural to everybody but no-one knows who thought of it.” And: “Our best will 
not be our children’s best.” 

Though often outwardly gruff and challenging there was real heart to 
everything he did.

Bill Mollison founded the first and original Permaculture Institute, which 
was established in 1979 to teach the practical design of sustainable soil, 
water, plant, and legal and economic systems to students worldwide. Bill’s 
legacy is that hundreds of thousands of past students have created a 
world-wide network to take his concept forward. This is a world in which we 
are acutely aware of our environment, its capacity and its limitations, and 
we design systems to meet human needs which respect that.

Bill spent his final years in Sisters Beach, Tasmania. The final words must 
go to him in true classical tone: 

“If you hear that I am dead tell them they lie.“

Graham Bell is the author of The Permacultiure Way and The Permaculture 
Garden <http://www.green-shopping.co.uk/books/pp/graham-bell.html> and has 
been teaching permaculture internationally for over two and a half decades. 
He has one of the oldest forest gardens in the Borders of Scotland.

Cross-posted from grahambell.org 
<http://grahambell.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Bill-Mollison-Obituary-25.9.16.pdf>
 with our thanks.

Help spread the permaculture word…




https://www.permaculture.co.uk/news/14748130637497/bruce-charles-bill-mollison-1928-2016
 
<https://www.permaculture.co.uk/news/14748130637497/bruce-charles-bill-mollison-1928-2016>
 





 


 
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