permaculture

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

Declan Kennedy about Bill Mollison – from Declan’s facebook

A better translation than what Google offered - from German

 

I am mourning my friend Bill Mollison.

 

 In 1981, my wife Margrit (+) and I got to know one of the most important 
approaches to networking environmental measures - from the individual house 
or smaller settlements to the planning of entire regions. A year later, we 
brought Bill Mollison from Australia to Europe. This approach is called " 
Permaculture " (put together from the two word “permanent” and Agriculture) 
and, for me, it transmits the principles of ‘closed’ ecological cycles in 
nature to the planning of               

 

Although I had known Bill for almost 24 years - and Sepp Hölzer just one day, 
I was really surprised to see a resemblance in their attitude to change and, 
at the same time, the contrast between these two men. Similar : both as 
"Agrarian-Rebels ", as creative practitioners, in their " gardening with 
nature ", in their discerning gruffness, their love for story-telling and 
their charisma – two men in completely different climate zones who were 
innovative, far-sighted and practically at the same time and dedicated to the 
problems at hand as long as was necessary for a solution to be found. The 
contrast was for me  was in the concentration on his own project by  Hölzer 
who was just then 64 years old, whereas Mollison despite his old age, with 
78, had still the same global openness with which he had gotten involved in 
new projects (over the decades) no matter where they were or how challenged 
they might be.

 

I would like to concentrate now, however, on my friendship with Bill and go 
back to the beginnings of our intensive collaboration – he was very generous 
in sharing his experience, he was as six year older man immediately both a 
friend, and teacher. He was an uncomfortable visionary who, for instance, in 
1982  in Canada at one of the largest and most successful ecological meetings 
in North America of that time, coined the the phrase as a motto: "think 
globally - act locally".

 

Born In 1928 in Australia, he lived between his 15th. to 28th. years of age 
alone in the Australian Bush, and worked as a trapper, lumberjack, fishermen 
and farmer - often together or in close neighbourly relationship with the 
Aborigines - the Australian indigenous people. From that time he had a wealth 
of stories, all of which were received by his listeners with great 
enthusiasm. From the kangaroo-hunting, where the aborigines made contact with 
the animals and gave them appreciation, explaining

why they had to have to kill them, so that virtually the animal would lay 
itself down at the hunter’s feet. Or from the story of the black swans, that 
Bill was observing - and how they came to him and sat themselves down in a 
circle around him. The stories were always about man and nature in deep 
contact and harmony with each other, something that hardly exists in our 
western civilization.

 

After Bill found out that this civilization destroyed the territories of the

Aborigines, more and more, he went back to study again in 1955 - in order to 
stop this development. Already during these studies, he went into research 
and academic teaching and– as an environmentalist - began to actively 
participate in the environmental policy of his country. He helped prevent dam 
projects, fought for the declaration of nature conservation reserves and 
supported the aboriginal people in their fight for their rights.

 

As an incorrigible optimist, he wanted to restore the Garden of Eden - for 
everyone. Furthermore, he tried to create the basics for a concept, which was 
not only open to new information, but also could integrate the knowledge 
about sustainable, ecological techniques from all parts of the world.

 

During the campaign against the dam on the Franklin River in Tasmania in the 
1970’s – while he was a lecturer at the University in Hobart - he met his 
later co-Author David Holmgren, a landscape planning student. They started to 
discuss why the agriculture of the aborigines had survived the times and why 
modern agriculture was only good fior a relatively short-term period – a fad. 
Furthermore, he learned what could be learned from the aboriginal people and 
how their concepts could be brought into harmony with new technologies and 
new scientific findings.

 

Mollison and Holmgren began to experiment, to design and to write. With the 
help of the Japanese-speaking Aussie, Andrew Jeeves they pulled in the ideas 
of Masanobu Fukuoka (The One-Straw Revolution, 1975), they took over the key 
line concept from Ken Yeomans (Water for Every Farm, 1954) and F. H. King’s 
Observations of the highly productive agricultural concepts of Asia (Farmers 
of Forty Centuries – Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan, 1911). 
Out of these, they created a design concept for permancy in human activities 
with landscapes, water-scapes and forestry, which they called "Permaculture".

 

As permaculture has no dogmas or fixed boundaries but rather a series of 
basic principles which are applicable to everything, he found always new and 
more contenders - like the architects Ian and Lecki Ord in Melbourne, the 
engineer and farmer Max Lindegger (designer of Crystal Waters Permaculture 
Village, Queensland), or Sonja Wallman (with her

productive lean-to greenhouse near Boston, Massachusetts, USA) and many other 
people in Australia, Europe and North America. The Permaculture-Design System 
was being defined and integrated into supposedly unrelated subject areas and 
he began a movement to link these separate sciences and areas of classical 
university departments.

 

Now (2016) - more than 40 years later - over thousands of independent 
permaculture associations and learning institutions have - in almost all 
languages - all over the world, serve people who are working on sustainable 
agriculture, reforestation, Bio-Architecture, environmental education and 
regional economics - and also those who are in search for a holistic concept 
of loving and life. Bill's commitment and enthusiasm continuously helped to 
advance the multidisciplinary quality of the concept and made it to a 
permaculture system. For me, his most beautiful definition is: "Permaculture 
is a dance with nature - in which nature leads."

 

The first book of Mollison and Holmgren Permaculture One (1978) was soon 
followed by Bill's Permaculture Two (1979) and both made a circulation of 
over 100 000 copies by 1985. The two books have been translated into German, 
Portuguese and Italian, at my request, in the mid-1980’s. They are based very 
heavily on the experiences in Tasmania and they had to be transposed too for 
other climates as some methods were only partially transferable. Spanish and 
French translations followed later under the collaboration of Emilia Hazelip, 
soon to be a most well-known permaculture practitioner and teacher on both 
sides of the Pyennées - as she spoke all three languages.

 

However, the principles are so good and transferable and innovative, that 
they are turning established concepts in schools of agriculture and forestry, 
of rural, water, urban planning and architecture upside down. They are 
building on the experience in design of holistic ways of life - in different 
cultures and countries - and take little or no consideration of modern 
recipés or conventions. For me, and many other world-change messengers, they 
offered many new pathways and a new lifestyle.

 

Bill’s first visit to Germany, at the invitation of the students of the

Faculty of Architecture and the British council in Berlin - both of which 
helped support his travel and lecture fee – happened at the beginning of May 
1981. He was supposed to do 7 other lectures in West Germany

organised by Rudolf Dörnach. Due to exceptional circumstances 
(Persching-Deployment-protests all over Germany) the rest of the lectures 
were cancelled. So Bill stayed a whole week - yes 10 days – in our house in 
Berlin-Schlachtensee. He talked continuously - every day from morning to 
evening - about his theories, his plans and projects in Australia. And since 
we were both working within the broad theme "Urban Ecology" – I was in the 
Technical University as a professor of urban infrastructure - and Margrit in 
ecological construction as part of the preparation for the International 
Exhibition (IBA) Berlin 1987, we look off time to listen with full attention 
to this brilliant man. Our questions showed Bill that, in 1981, we in Europe 
had very similar problems to his in Australia. From the forests to the 
climate change, from the poisoning of food; to the wasting of water, etc. 
etc. - everything was covered. His analysis was brilliant too. Everything 
that is still going on to-day but maybe even on a larger and/or worse scale. 
But the most important to us was that we were able to discuss solutions with 
him, as that was behind ors and his design orientation.

 

The 5 days were not only fun but also terrifying – especially when Bill’s 
cited facts and details about the global ecological situation we presented. 
Until then, these insights were known only by very few decision-makers and 
mainly being ignored by politicians. But his unusual solutions convinced us 
both. He started with his statements at 9 o’clock in the morning and 
pontificated until midnight. We had a concentrated private Permaculture 
Designer Course (PDC) which usually takes 14 days - with many practical 
examples, drawings and graphics. The costs were modest: 2 packs of cigarettes 
and a bottle of Irish whiskey per day.

 

We started planting our 6 by 12 metres row-house garden with him, gathering 
plants in the woods around the Schlachtensee, and bringing them back as Bill 
kept saying that “life starts in your garden”. Margrit was a vegetarian and 
loved the idea of self-sufficiency in veggies and herbs. He agreed. In the 
evenings, however, we ate out as Bill was an avid meat-eaters – we would go 
to a restaurant for lamb or to order a decent steak for him. Once, in the " 
Paris Bar " in the Kantstrasse in Berlin-Charlottenburg, he ordered - as 
always - a German wine – he was interested in trying out local products. The 
waiter, slightly embarrassed, said that as we were in a restaurant called 
Paris Bar, they only served French wine. Quickly Bill replied: “I’ll have a 
Hardy Wallbanger " (orange juice with vodka). Then, even the waiter had to 
laugh. Such cultural contrast-situations Bill loved - and somehow he produced 
them everywhere.

 

We went several times with him to Kreuzberg to the rehabilitation areas of 
the International Building Exhibition, where we both worked with different 
groups in the squatter scene. Even though he didn’t generally like cities and 
saw no good reason for their survival, he had immediately creative solutions 
for the people, who were poor and ill-treated by the authorities: a 
city-farm; or you can build your herbs and vegetables on balconies; he even 
wanted to draw up the solutions for them (this was 1981). He loved the energy 
saving devices that the squatters has thought up and implemented on a 
shoestring - and their grey-water systems with urban plants. Other 
interesting models were also good for him to see - and so it was the 
beginning of years of intense exchange of ecological knowledge across 
national borders and continents.

 

In the early 80’s, Mollison tried to write a kind of "Permaculture-Bible". 
About half of his Designer s' Manual (1988) is brilliant, especially the 
chapter on patterns and design. There is hardly any other book of which I 
know that is a " multidisciplinary design manual for Life”. Other chapters in 
this manual leave a lot to be desired. It was only in 2009 that Margaret 
Hölzer and Dr. Marlis Ortner in Austria translated and published it into 
German.

 

Another book: Introduction to Permaculture, that Bill together wrote with 
Reny Slay, illustrated by Andrew Jeeves, was published in 1991 and explains 
permaculture for the first time in a generally understandable and systematic 
approach. It also offers practical experience of many permaculture-activists 
in Australia and other countries. But above all, it is the result of the 
research carried out by Bill and Reny, in the 1980’s with the Australian 
Permaculture Institute in northern New South Wales, where Bill and Reny had 
moved for their work with Marilyn Wade. Also other numerous helpers there 
experimented with plants, buildings and technical infrastructure, while Bill 
was often on lecture-travel around the world.

 

Margrit and I (with the help of many other professionals), translated und 
edited Permaculture One and Permaculture Two e.g. in the second edition in 
German. A very good successful article with coloured images was published in 
1984 in a Basel Newspaper (no.40, p. 10-15) and contained what we ourselves 
had developed in environmental planning and building and what we had learned 
from Bill and David and the movement. I heartily thank both individuals for 
their ideas, their perseverance and commitment.

 

It was Bill and Reny, who taught the first European Permaculture Design

course in Jagdschloss Glienicke in Berlin (with me as an assistant teacher 
and co-ordinator) in the summer of 1982. Because it was held in English, 
there were 24 participants from 7 countries of Europe and 2 interested 
participants from Brazil who at the time were studying landscape planning in 
the then still divided city. It wasn't easy for these people with English as 
their second language to understand Bill’s Tasmanian, particularly because 
half the time he had a pipe in the left corner of his mouth. Antja - our then 
21-Year-old daughter - not only did the course as a participant but also did 
a repetition in the evening in German -  2 hours, for the German, Swiss, 
Belgian and Austrian participants who hadn’t understood everything.

 

Over three-quarters of a year immediately after the course, 7 participants 
met all day, every Saturday to prepare the first 72 hour Permaculture Design 
Course (PDC) in German which was subsequently held on a farm in Wetzhausen, 
Bavaria.

 

After that, I started my new career as a " Mr. Permaculture Europe "

(East and West) with Bill’s full support. Except for the one course in

Germany and another Brazil in 1983, I held the first and / or two 
permaculture design courses (from 1983 to 1995) in Denmark, France, Greece, 
Ireland, Italy, Croatia, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Poland, Russia, 
Scotland, Switzerland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Each of these courses was 
partly financed by the Gaia Trust, Denmark (run by Hildur & Ross Jackson, 
also PDC students of Bill and Margrit).

 

1993 the book of Bill Mollison about Ferments and 1996 another

entitled Travel in Dreams were published but could not attain the success of 
the first 3 books. But the international permaculture movement had now grown- 
on the basis of the first books and because of the numerous two and 
three-week designer courses, held all over the globe. In Europe, the widening 
of the concept to suit the northern climate was in full swing. This met - in 
part – the sharp criticism of the scientific community (partly who felt 
threatened) and from the conventional farmers because of the unusual ideas 
and methods, propagated by this growing movement.

 

I have learned so much from Bill and David. 1985, I was so enthusiastic about 
the permaculture-vision that I dropped my academic career and decided to go 
for it – for real, as a practitioner and multiplier of the design system. 
Many other men and women did the same on many continents. We sold our home in 
Berlin, I quit my professorship at the Technical University and Margrit her 
job at the International Building

Exhibition, and we moved to Steyerberg in Lower Saxony in order to build up a 
permaculture experimental plot on 2.6 hectares (10 acres) of poor quality 
land but near the ecological community of Lebensgarten. There, in this 
settlement that had been built in 1939, we renovated two houses according to 
permaculture principles and got a planning office and a whole series of 
permaculture experiments going. For a while, I headed the Permaculture 
Institute for Europe in this budding ecovillage. Bill was so enthusiastic 
about my work and the development of Lebensgarten that he came each year for 
more than 11 years - and once brought with him the Community Award of the 
Permaculture Institute of Australia which he bestowed on me like mediaeval 
warrior being knighted.

 

On the whole, the thinking in permaculture-categories has spread wide and 
bright.  I am glad and grateful that I copped on to it relatively early – 
already in 1981. I was perfect that I came into contact with Bill, and that I 
had the chance to spread this design concept and to try it out in our climate 
zones.

 

Margrit’s work shifted (in the late 80’s) more and more towards the 
introduction of sustainable money systems, and with her book "Interest and 
Inflation Free Money" she became a galeonfigure of the complementary currency 
movement. These ideas were taken up by me and Bill - and integrated into the 
permaculture concept. She was asking: “How can we create a permanent culture, 
if we do not have a permanent money system?” These last few years with the 
crash on the international financial markets and in the global economy, and 
the CO2 crisis and other even more pressing environmental problems - show how 
strong economy and ecology are interwoven. In the permaculture "Bible", Bill 
has devoted a chapter on the monetary system, which is built upon and filled 
to a large extent on Margrit’s theories and writings.

 

Bill still smoked and drank a bit too much and, a couple of times, he got so 
sick that he had to break off his lecture tours - and yet he lived to 88 
years old. Strong genes, I quess! He was a positive thinker – yet -  It hit 
him more and more to see how the general ecological situation in the world 
was getting worse and worse, and in spite of the ever-increasing permaculture 
 and organic movement, nothing seemed to change this general negative trend . 
That is why Bill has been depressed for quite a while, a situation he himself 
pretty well ignored. In the last 10 years he also felt abandoned by many 
former allies, because they were ready to make compromises that he felt he 
couldn’t. In between times, however, he recovered, and found again his sharp 
critical attitude (which sometimes threatened to turn into cynicism). This 
brought him back to his original joie de vivre. In Istria in June 2005 with 
his sarcastic jokes he often lost the younger people in the permaculture 
movement, who didn't know him yet. He not very good at diplomacy – but soon 
with his many stories, jokes and lively contributions, he found his rightful 
place as a co-Founder, a multiplier and the grandfather of the permaculture  
movement - then for the final days of the Convergence – the last time I saw 
him in person -  <>he was celebrated by all those present.

 

He will be missed by all of us.

 

Declan Kennedy, Steyerberg, 25.09.2016