// March 11th, 2013 // No Comments » // Education, Practice
Great, thought provoking article by Rhamis Kent now up at Permaculture Research Institute of Australia.
“Permaculture and Slavery: A Systems Analysis” kicks off a welcome and badly needed discussion of the legacy of African slavery in the development of the US economy – all through the energetic lens of systems ecology, long beloved by permaculturists. Go check it out. You’ll find me in the comments.
// February 16th, 2013 // No Comments » // Education, Event
From the fine people at Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute – with whom I teach every summer.
The Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute (FLPCI) and The Permaculture Institute of the North East (PINE) are delighted to offer four fellowships for the upcoming Permaculture Design Certification course (PDC) offered this summer, in upstate New York from July 26th through August 11th.
This fellowship is both need-based and merit-based. It aims to support community organizers, educators, and activists to share their permaculture knowledge with their communities. We encourage fellows to use their earnings as seed money for community-based permaculture education and activism.
Women, people of color, and individuals from other historically marginalized groups are strongly encouraged to apply.
We will begin selecting applicants on a rolling basis after April 17, 2013.
More information can be found at http://
FingerLakesPermaculture.org
_______________________________________________
// February 11th, 2013 // 1 Comment » // Education, Research
Summary: Neil Bertrando just authored a great article, in which he adapts my adaptation of the Scale of Permanence to generate some extremely useful strategic discussion of permaculture education and research in the USA. The content of his article is worthy of it’s own discussion, but here I’m just discussing method.
Over the past few years I’ve been ‘experimenting’ with the underlying structure of Yeoman’s Scale of Permanence - trying to see what it is about it that makes it so compelling and useful for site analysis and design. My interest has been to see what concepts it might be related to in other disciplines, and how it might be applied in other domains than landscape planning. I’ve come to think of the Scale of Permanence as a form of ordered constraint analysis. At it’s most general, it involves identifying all the most pertinent factors that shape the possibilities and potentials of the design challenge, and then ordering them by malleability. Notice that I say ‘malleable’ rather than ‘changeable,’ since some of the most dynamic conditions may also be the least responsive to our efforts to influence them – e.g. climate, or floodplain hydrology (Hi, Keith Morris!). The process of identification and ordering structures the investigation of the design context – aka site analysis – and the ordered list structures the sequence of the design process. In Yeoman’s Keyline system – and thereby in permaculture, which imported Keyline wholesale – we design around the least malleable constraints first (climate, in the case of site design) and then proceed stepwise through list.
The first time the generalized take on the SoP saw the light of day was at the School for Designing a Society (where I taught a ‘liberation ecology’ course in the Fall of 2011), and then in a more realized form at Financial Permaculture, in Miami last month. Our design group in Miami used it as a way of structuring the strategic business planning process for the Earth Learning Farm at Verde Gardens – and it seemed like it worked well. (Our design team definitely kicked ass, but that was influenced by multiple factors.) Now, to my excitement, one of the design team participants has adapted the adaptation for another design context. Neil Bertrando just authored a great article, in which he uses a version of ordered constraint analysis to generate some extremely useful strategic discussion of permaculture education and research in the USA. (The content of that article is worthy of it’s own discussion, but for now I’m just focusing on method.)
// December 28th, 2012 // 6 Comments » // Education, Event
Permaculturists face a wicked contradiction. We want to create, and support the creation of, businesses and organizations that point the way toward a new way of doing things. If we want to claim that permaculture is ‘design that meets human needs while increasing ecosystem health,’ then we need to be able to demonstrate how the enterprises we design are meeting this description. Otherwise, our ethics aren’t meaningful, and the claims we make about the value of permaculture aren’t credible.
The trick is that these enterprises also have to thrive right now, under industrial capitalism. If no one but the independently wealthy can use permaculture systems to both survive the current society and transition to whatever comes next, then permaculture isn’t much help at all. I don’t want to make lifeboats and pleasure gardens for the rich, and I don’t want to have to wait until after the apocolypse for permaculture to make good economic sense.
So there is our contradiction: we have to make truly regenerative enterprises that can succeed right now, enmeshed in a grossly degenerative socio-economic system. We have to make a future that can survive the present. I’m grateful that the Financial Permaculture series is helping address this challenge directly and with great intelligence – which is why I’m teaching at the upcoming course for expenses only.
The permaculture literature mostly deals with the tools and the opportunities available – so I’m going to keep focussing on the challenges. With this post I hope to frame some questions, and generate discussion, about the challenges we face – particularly the two major challenges that I see for permaculture farms (and for the many who work and farm permaculture-style without having been influenced by permaculture proper).
So how do we adapt and combine existing farm business planning tools for permaculture systems? How do we adapt and combine progressive business models that will permit regenerative enterprisees to thrive in the current system? What have you seen work, or fail?
// December 27th, 2012 // 7 Comments » // Education, Event
Holmgren and Temford’s Ethics icon
Here is a lightly-revised version of “Putting Some Teeth in the Permaculture Ethics,” originally published on my old website in 2010 (then republished on this revamped site last August). I’m revisiting it here because it’s been on my mind, as I prepare for teaching at Financial Permaculture 2013, Jan.21-25, in Miami. This course is addressing one of the big gaps, and areas of great innovation, in the evolution of the permaculture framework.
We are in the grips of a paradox. In order to designing projects and businesses that can help regenerate landscapes and communities, we have to design projects that are socially and ecologically sustainable. But these projects must also be able to thrive right now, in our current society that often seems to reward exploitation and destruction before anything else. Reconciling this contradiction in our design work requires new ways of thinking, above and beyond the tools that permaculture has historically offered to the design of human settlements. In order to address the ethical questions and standards that I raise below, we must incorporate strategies for surviving and growing in the current financial system while we work to replace it.
This is, in part, why I’m excited about the upcoming course (and why I’m teaching for expenses only). I think that FPC2013 is helping navigate that paradox. Hope to see you there!
(Psst! If you are going, enter LIBECOL at registration for an $80 discount.)
What follows is the new edition of Putting Some Teeth in the Permaculture Ethics…
(1) Care for the Earth
(2) Care for People
(3) Redistribute Surplus
// December 12th, 2012 // No Comments » // Education, Event
Teaming up with Eric Toensmeier and a fearsome team of permaculture & local economy mavens to teach this innovative course next month! Hosted by the amazing folks at Earth Learning. We’ll be designing four enterprises for real-world implementation: farm, cafe, commercial kitchen, and food hub. You can probably guess which design team Eric and I are on? Click on the image to view at full size, and click here to learn more and register.
// November 28th, 2012 // No Comments » // Education, Practice
Do you think any Fairfieldians would appreciate having a friendly agroecologist on their couch for the weekend?
I’d love to go out to Drought Proofing Your Farm, with the inimitable Darren Doherty and I can get a ride with the great folks at Midwest Permaculture - but I’m still working on some el cheapo accommodations.
That this trip is even a remote possibility is due the event being sponsored by several regional sustainable agriculture organizations (which you can see on the event site, linked to above) – so props to them. The weekend ticket (not including food/housing) is $100, and $25 for students. This is how I like to see permaculture education being done!
If you aren’t familiar with Darren’s work – he’s as real as it gets. And his Australian perspective is sadly more and more relevant for the North American Midwest, as our summers grow to resemble’s Australia’s own inimical climate.
// July 3rd, 2012 // No Comments » // Education
I’ll be attending the 8th Annual Northeast Permaculture Convergence next week. Catch me on the panel “Infiltrating Academia” on Saturday 9:00am-12:00pm, along with some of the northeast’s finest: Steve Gabriel, Keith Morris, Ryan Harb, and Charis Boke. Should be a good time!
// July 2nd, 2012 // 2 Comments » // Education, Get Involved
Since 2009 I’ve been teaching an annual Permaculture Design Certificate course with the good people at Finger Lakes Permaculture.
It’s a highlight of every summer. You should probably come.
// July 6th, 2011 // Comments Off // Education
…with Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute
July 22 – August 7
This is my third year teaching with FLPCI, and I can’t wait.
They have a great teaching team, on a wonderful site.
The hands-on projects get more focused and integrated throughout the curriculum
every year – this year we’re doing a whole unit on diverse, permaculture-style mushroom production techniques.
It’s not too late to sign up. Hope to see you there!
