Permaculture is a force for positive change, like none other!
A chance encounter, back in late 1990 changed the course of my life, and consequently this has gone on to change the course of many others since. I was travelling the highlands of Eastern Zimbabwe with no particular place to go, when I happend upon a lonely small holding, advertising cheese for sale at the gate. A mixture of curiousity and appetite compelled me to investigate further, and I strode to the farmhouse door and knocked loudly. What happened next caught me by surprise, I had such an incredible feeling of déjà vu as I entered the house to make my purchase that i felt I had come home. At that point I had been travelling around for a whole year exploring Africa, East and Southern, and the feeling I could not surpress was that this was to be my destination.
The man’s whose door I had knocked on was an early adopter of permaculture and at this point the word had never troubled my ears. I had studied sustainable development and understood just how unsustainable our western development models really were but what I did not know at this time, was how we might even begin to go about fixing this. I have been on a massive journey since then, including spending nearly two years as manager of that cheese-farm, and its neighbour, which we helped convert into a travelers lodge, a destination for others on a similar quest. The experience has given me ideas, insight and inspiration to help spread the possibility regeneration and partnering with natural forces where ever I go.
Back in UK I started a wholefood restaurant in late 1992, where we managed to save the deposit to start a permaculture themed co-operative community in 1995 on a semi-derelict farm in Snowdonia. I wanted to live inside those ideas and guidelines and gain a much deeper understanding of what a sustainable society might look and feel like. This allowed much space for exploration, for hosting courses and events, before eventually putting together and running my own PDC drawing heavily on this first hand experience. I have also worked for a series of leading environmental organisations since and seen the green paradigm from every angle.
I turn 60 this year, and more than half of my life has been taken up with this journey into permaculture, i find myself in reflection, and at the same time contemplating a big step forward. What have learned in that time? Put simply it is this;
“if we humans and our complex civilization is going to survive it is going to have to evolve, making a giant all-inclusive evolutionary step to a society fully in harmony with ecology of the bioshpere. Where every action sits within the UN SDG’s, (except for the one about economic growth), because the growth we need cannot be reliant on an ever accelerating consuption of natural resources.Where people come together with common cause, and with a focus of meeting needs and eliminating poverty.
The economy has to run on it annual solar income, whilst rebuilding the damaged soils, water ways and ecosystems that we have toxified and damaged. Only nature itself can absorb the carbon we have emitted in the fossil fuel era and that same fossil era has to come to end as soon as possible.”
You may not agree with me, or say this is not possible to achieve, but I am always keen to stress that what is not sustainable, cannot ultimately not be sustained. Either we navigate our way out of the horrendous dead-end we find ourselves in or we will be forced to do so as events over-take us. We are seeing this happening increasingly around the world, we might be wise to take notice, none of us are immune to the devastation of climate change and ecological collapse.
Permaculture changed my life, it can also change the world
As I sit here is Wales in 2023, veteran of over 50 PDC’s; the 72 -hour intensive introduction to permaculture course and director of a training enterprise, Sector39, i am wondering where exactly i shuold focus my energies next. I had began informally teaching permaculture and developing projects in 2005 in response to interest and we formally registered as a limited company in 2014.i had spent three eyars working at the RISC roof garden project in Reading, at 39 Londonn street and the name comes from the the energy generated by that amzing project.
It is not just me that has been touched by this, since 2020 our trainees have developed a network of demonstration and training hubs across 4 different countries in East Africa and we are being contacted by more and more people all the time.
Our 2020-2022 project, permaculture at the margins has trained at least 6,500 people and our latest on-line PDC is now making the core content of the course much more widely available via our TubeTube channel.
Sector39 has the ambition to become a global facilitator for permaculture, offering training support, project facilitation and development. We are seeking partnership, investment and more, in return for access to the wealth of knowledge and experience we have to offer. We would love to hear from you.
This lecture is from our current Permaculture Design Course and gives an insight into what permaculture is all about and how we might use this knd of thinking to build much stronger alliances and coalitions. I strongly believe that to work together effectively we need a common overall ethical framework to work within.
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