Permaculture stronghold

[John Marshall]

Is there a town or area in Australia that is to permaculture as Nimbin is to hemp? If enough Permaminded people were in one spot then wouldnt it be possible to influence the local council or even instigate a bloodless cue, as often elected members are in their position simply because noone shows up to council meetings and elections? Just a thought.

[Richard on Maui]

Um, there are a lot of Permies in Nimbin aren't there?
I like your thinking John. Hopefully it will start to manifest at all levels of government!

[John Marshall]

There are permies in Nimbin, but when people think of Nimbin they think of dope. I dont have a problem with dope but putting pot heads and permaculture in the same context only alienates much of the population. Already most people I talk to think of permies as potheads, and that thought ingrained in the general populations subconcious makes it soo easy to dismis any talk of sustainability as pipe dreams. eg but, but the economy, and, and money and, um you just can't because thats just the way thimgs are.

[Richard on Maui]

Yeah... if you hang out around Nimbin you realise that for all the potheads and worse there are lot of people who managed to outgrow all that and are actually pretty serious. Robyn Francis for one...
Um, Maleny might be another good example. Don't know how many Permies have infiltrated local govt there though.

[gardenlen]

tht's the same sort of thing i come up against john,

others have us as the modern version of those nimbin hippies, so they pigeon hole p.c and its benefits, this is why the whole thing will never get off the ground in the way it should, it's comotose in the water.

especially when you get around the so called stronghold areas up here in the north coast hinterland where it is all yuppie being seen to be different and doing nothing to encourage change, where p.c is a fad thing.

even that well known gardening show on the non-commercial channel features what they call their permy segment it does nothing for the process as in the eye of the uninformed the message is lost in the image, sad to say.

len

[MonteGoulding]

even that well known gardening show on the non-commercial channel features what they call their permy segment it does nothing for the process as in the eye of the uninformed the message is lost in the image, sad to say.

I'm going to disagree here Len. I think the Gardening Australia permie stuff is quite a practical intro to permaculture. If you get the DVD it's easier to follow the changes and planning of the site. I got interested in permaculture through GA so you need to wonder how many others did too. The past year for me has been a huge learnign curve and I feel like my foggy glasses have come off in my view of the world.

My feeling is some guru needs to contact Josh Byrne and develop a mini course or DVD series for each major city on suburban permaculture and promote it as a natural next step for those that are attracted to the concept. It's never going to be possible to get the complex permaculture principles understood in a 30 min tv show even if the whole thing was devoted to it. The Green Gardener book further clarifies the principles un a very readable way. What's needed is a few extra stages between that and a PDC

If the suburbs are seeded with permaculture examples then powerdown will be as simple as permaculturists offering a hand to their neighbours.

Cheers

Monte

[gardenlen]

the right of reply is always paramount monte,

i could say of course from experiences from my end of the process "how many weren't inspired?" but those sort of questions are akin to asking how long a piece of string is hey chuckle?

i will say however lots about ga isn't that inspirational to me and if i saw it before i became a gardener i may neve have convereted.

i believe in the K.I.S.S (keep it simple stupid/silly [whatever fits]) principal, permaculture presently just isn't making inroads into the grass roots level like it should, and adding another "pay for the privelege" course isn't going to help. we have city farms that proclaim p.c morales but they are neither attracting nor inspiring the masses to thinking differently.

about the best thing to happen of late that if we use the tool correctly is the making available of 155 pages of a molleson pdc course free of charge, there is very little that needs to be taught to anyone ie.,. learning to be a surgeon or solicitor, it is all practical down to earth stuff at the end of the day.

for those who feel they need higher more visible inspiration that is their option, but lets get the for sale process out of it for now, is as i see it. there is no rocket science involved, just loads of common sense.

len

[MonteGoulding]

Your right in that the pay for the privelige thing is a blocker for some. For myself I feel that doing a PDC at over $1000 is not viable when I only want to apply permaculture to my own suburban setting. I've downloaded the PDC doc you spoke about and might buy the mp3s. I do feel though that you are looking at the GA stuff from the perspective of an experienceed permaculturist rather than a newbie. For a newbie it can be inspirtional to see all these things tied together in a clear and understandable way. For me from that point I did alot of web searching and found very little about suburban permaculture which was very dishartening.

The GA stuff is great for showing you what can be done but as permaculture is site specific a more generalist design principles follow up approach is needed be it in a dvd, multimedia, book or course format. Perhaps what I'm missing is the PDC content. It probably is but I might never know. At this point I'd like to challenge somebody that can do a PDC to video their next course and sell it as a DVD package for under $50. If you are more interested in getting the message out than selling PDC seats then you will do it.

Cheers

Monte

[gardenlen]

g'day monte,

yes being objective can be difficult to the uninitiated, and for the main criticism for the sake of subjectivity is about as good as some get. but i feel i look at things objectively as i look at the whole presentation and how it could be seen from the grass roots level, after all that is where i live, that's my roots.

as for a dvd at any price if those we need aren't hinking along the lines then it will be another dust collector, and the common folk will find spending anything over $20 as not justifiable as they struggle with the day to day stuff, understandably these folk have somewhat of a tunnel vision, certainly they don't aspire to latteral thinking as a roof and food etc.,. is all they see the need for.

molleson got me 1/4 of a century ago, when he appeared on a current affair program and he threw and old mattress out on the ground covered it with mulch hay pushed a hole through it and planted a banana tree in it. that stayed with me until i had to take another direction from the life in the fast lane career i had.

i convereted from lush wastefull tropical gardens and lawns to organic methods, then that picture on tv came flooding back so i borrowed mollesons intro to p.c book off of a neighbour had a quick peruse (i'm no great reader of hard copy), though yep this has got some good common sense simple to apply stuff. so i paid for and attended a 2 day intro' to p.c course at a tafe, now i could say it was money i needent have spent i certianly could barely afford it, only to sit there for the theory stuff nodding my head in agreement to nearly all the lecturer spoke about.

yes i was already doing it and had been for some time, did i learn something? yes i did maybe not to the value of what i paid, but i learnt some things the simple things that you don't know about until someone shows you.

sheet mulching and contours.

now if the upper echelon of p.c could get some free publicity and do what molleson did all those years ago and keep it up front we may get a grass roots snowball rolling?

len

[LarryLangman]

Dear All

I just completed the PDC in Melbourne, from what Geoff was saying Lismore CC is moving in the right direction.

His recall of the Noosa PC group and their political agitation also seems to have been beneficial.

As for the greater recognition of PC in the wider community, our solution is to set up our 12 acres as a demonstration property....maybe what is needed is a network of such places across Australia...maybe on some form of register with some form of rating of their demonstration of PC principles eg Water Management, Food Foresting, Community Yield etc.

Regards

[newcroft]

I'm going to disagree here Len. I think the Gardening Australia permie stuff is quite a practical intro to permaculture. If you get the DVD it's easier to follow the changes and planning of the site. I got interested in permaculture through GA so you need to wonder how many others did too. The past year for me has been a huge learnign curve and I feel like my foggy glasses have come off in my view of the world.

I've gotta agree Monte. I've had a similar experience.

I bought the Josh Byrne DVD and got 'hooked'. Have'nt looked back.

Also, love your suggestion of videoing a PDC.

[MonteGoulding]

A video of the one that was held this month in Melbourne with Geoff Lawton and Bill Mollison would have been perfect. It could have been used as both an intermediate stage prior to doing (paying for a full PDC) and also as a learning tool for others offering PDCs. My question is why isn't this being done? You don't even need to pay a professional video producer these days as the software is cheap asnd easy to use.

[ho-hum]

When Josh Byrne held an open weekend at his old house over 5000 people attended on a fairly wet and miserable weekend. That is amazing reach.

Also, I think I have stated this before, that Jeremy Coleby-Williams also of Gardening Australia has the best one-man permaculture website I have seen on the Net. All done in a normal house/normal suburb.

So I dont care how people arrive at Permaculture as a solution I am just happy they do and I am very pleased now that Permaculture and its concepts are readily available on telly every week.

All we need now is a 'This Week in Permaculture or permaTVculture' show on tv. It seems like so much of television is focussed on people dying and not people living. Think about it.... medical shows, police shows, news shows, drama and documentary alike, all seem to focus on the dead or dying and the myriad of fascinating ways we die. Skyhooks had it right with their song 'Horror Movie'.

floot

[PermaPolly]

Hi Floot,

Do you have a link to the Jeremy Coleby-Williams web site? I'm having no luck searching the forum for it, and not any better luck Googling it.

Cheers,
Polly

[FREE Permaculture]

http://www.bellis.info

[John Marshall]

I attened the PDC in Melbourne late in 2005 hosted by Bill and Geof and they Did have a film crew there for the whole thing, it is my understanding that the dvd was going to be available for sale at some piont, but I have not seen anything posted about it any where yet and I would be interested in knowing if any one has heard about it. As for PC making in roads into mainstream society, for all the glazed looks and can't do attitude, I find there are heaps of people who know and practice permaculture in lots of different ways. Not everyone is a gardener, but PC design can be applied to any thing, I use the ideas in illustration. You could use it in designing a chair or a pencil holder. There is a quiet revolution in progress, Australia may be moving too slowly at times but that apears to be (in my opinion) because here we have such a comfortable lifestye to rest our lazy asses on. If you have a look at some of the succesful projects going on in places where they have nothing to start with and nothing to lose, huge changes are going on. David Suziki says in one of his books that it only takes about 14% of the poulation to create change in the whole. There is so much distracting negative stuff going on at the moment that its easy to get caught up in the hype and forget whats important, but being positive does make all the difference.

[heuristics]

'The 72-hr Sept 2005 Melbourne Bill Mollison-Geoff Lawson PDC was filmed with, we were told at the time, the intention of releasing a DVD.
At that time that PDC was expected to be Bills last ever. (I am glad it wasnt).
I have been waiting for this website and the Tagari site to announce the DVD has been edited and released.
Nothing as yet. I dont know why.
We had three cameras and a sound recordist recording the whole time. The camera crew were great guys and themselves active permies, so I had high hopes for what they would produce.

[Tezza]

whats wrong with people they come onto a permie web page..Run down the people in a beutifull country town, on their end of day smoking habits,Accuse a cross section of that towns permies, bungs them in with with the rest of the population of permies as out of control drop kick druggies, then asks the rest of the known permie world for their help......

Any other boots you want to put in.

Tezza

[John Marshall]

Pardon??

[ecodharmamark]

G'day John, Everyone :)

Stimulating discourse! I love it! Here's my penny's (or more like a pound's) worth:

Do we really need a town or an area anywhere throughout the world where the populace is devoted the the permaculture ideal in order for a groundswell event to take place? Or are we better served by having smatterings of permie-inspired people and projects dotted across the entire globe in order to achieve a raising of consciousness? A question I've asked myself a few times, and in answering it I've come up with a few thoughts:

During my travels as a WWOOFer I've visited, lived and worked in many communities around Australia. During my time on the north coast of NSW I often become complacent when refering to the principles of permaulture because I assumed that everyone knew what I was on about and I didn't want to risk 'shooting to low' when conversing with others about the finer details. Of course, at the other end of the spectrum I've sometimes found myself in a community where the mere mention of the word 'permaculture' either elicited a response akin to total ignorance, or downright hostility. "Permaculture? Bunch of dope-smoking, unwashed hippies" comes to mind!

It is my belief that the permaculture concept/movement/groundswell is doing just fine. Just the other week we heard Mollison expose the fact that the thousand's he has taught have gone on to individually teach thousand's more. Let's do the sums. Surely there is an expediating group of people around the world living and teaching (some would say that this is one and the same thing) permaculture right at this very moment, and that these people are on the verge off multiplying at the speed of bacterium in a petri dish?

Not all who practice great permaculture use the title. Take Jerry Coleby-Williams for example: I don't think I've ever heard him refer to his various projects as 'permaculture', but he sure is getting the message out there to the masses. And what about Jackie French? She's been permi-ing on for just as long as Holmgren and Mollison, but not once have I heard her refer to her work as being 'permaculturally-inspired'.

Personally, I don't really care where the change comes from, or for that matter what we call it, I just know that we as a species need to change our practices that continue to see us 'live beyond our means' as far as our natural capital is concerned.

I think what we need is more of what we (people like us, the posters and readers of this forum) are all doing right now - thinking and communicating these thoughts to others so we can thrash out the solutions to a world living in peril.

Keep up the great work, every single one of you! Don't concern yourself too greatly with trying to find that Nirvana-like permie paradise of a town. Keep your eyes peeled and your practices inspired, you are sure to find permie-esque people living very close to you. Heck, some of the most 'Christian' people I have met have never set foot in a church. Likewise some of the greatest 'politicians' I have met have never set foot behind a podium, and equally some of the most supreme permaculturalists I have met have never read a book, much less viewed a DVD.

By all means, lets continue to devise ways of getting the message out to as many people as we can in the shortest possible time, but lets not forget that we need that message to provide accurate and timely information if we are see people being able to self-test the theory and realise that permaculture is the greatest gift to humanity :D.

Well, that's my rave for the night. Thanks for continuing to let me exhaust every now and then.

Yours in the permie cause and cheerio,

Mark.

[Sonya]

Permaculture Noosa is going strong and we've just had a couple of film makers join the ranks. They recorded David Holmgrens talk up here last Aug and have been rescreening that for the public. Met last week with a group of people including the film makers looking at dvd production of permaculture gardens development on a broader scale.

Yandina Community Gardens has a new lease on life and the new President is working hard to get the word out there. Along with a few other volunteers I've started going there on Sat mornings to open the gardens to the public. Slow to build visitor numbers (its only been a few weeks in the middle of summer), but the people who do drop in know about organics and permaculture and want to know more - they are surprised to find the gardens there, so it's worthwhile.

I find getting involved in my local community garden and trying to get projects off the ground with other inspired pc people is the best way to get the word out there in my local community it's the best I can do at the moment until I have a stroke of brilliance to work out how to take it further. We need an Al Gore type presentation and personality to travel the world showing pc solutions to harsh landscapes.

My background is in public relations and media training, so I'm going to hold a training session for local permies here on the Coast to help them get the message out in the local media.

Josh Byrne appeals more to the mainstream than Bill Mollison would. Feedback from Bill's interview on SBS the other week was pretty negative from a lot of people - not engaging the masses.

[This has been my two cents worth]

Cheers,
Sonya