The Culture of Permaculture

by Craig Mackintosh, Sustainable [R]evolution collaborator

The Permaculture Research Institute USA has partnered with Sust`ainable Molokai to embark on the bold mission of permeating the Hawaiian Islands with permaculture goodness. Traditional Hawaiian agricultural systems, before the arrival of Europeans, were ingenious and sustainable. Indeed, their ahupua`a systems, known as high island ‘Ohana’ systems to permaculturists, are one of the few truly sustainable agricultural systems ever known — an awesome legacy that should instill pride and purpose in modern-day islanders. Unfortunately, the last century, in particular, is seeing multiple major threats to the island state’s unique ecology — soil erosion, biodiversity loss, and Hawaii has become Big Biotech’s GMO test capital of the world.

But permaculturists are fighting back!  Read more here.

Willi Paul interviews Craig Mackintosh – Worldwide Permaculture Network (WPN) launches!

Read more here.

by Matthew Lynch, Sustainable [R]evolution collaborator

You should try gardening here.  -40 C winters, ancient beach sand for soil, super short growing season, and little access to water.  Some co-operatives are watering 20 plus acres by hand; apart from that the locals don’t even like to eat vegetables – they’ve never had the luxury of choosing to be vegetarian.

Welcome to Mongolia, once the center of history’s largest land-based empire, founded by Ghengis Khan in 1206, and stretching from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the western shores of the Pacific Ocean.  The Mongolia of today is one of the most sparsely populated areas of land on the planet, with a population of around 3 million people spread across 1.5 million km² or so of steppe – a land with neither enough rainfall, nor enough fertility to support a forest ecosystem.

Over thousands of years, Mongolian culture has adapted to their land in a way that has, in turn, reshaped their landscape.  The nomads’ herds have gradually nibbled away at the edges of the conifer forests that at one time would have covered the endless hills, until the trees at last retreated to their remaining, precarious holds of today: mostly along the steeper erosion gullies, where animals cannot easily graze. As you drive through the landscape, it feels as though you are tearing around a giant golfcourse, complete with massive sand bunkers and epic water hazards.

However, what looks to be an immaculately manicured golf green from a distance, is in fact an optical illusion of hardy grasses, herbs, and the occasional shrub growing at arm’s length from each other in the sandy beige soils; anywhere the pasture loses its grip on the land, it is likely to be washed away with the next heavy rain.  These pastures of the steppe cling tightly to the sandy soil, and as you move further up into the foothills, erosion gulllies twist and wind their way down to the river flats, cutting wide sandy banks that look like beach sand dunes, revealing just how precarious their grip on the landscape really is.

This is the delicate balance of the steppe: any manures of the roaming herds which are not harvested by humans for winter fuel provide the nutrient to maintain just enough fertility for the hardy grasses to grow. 

Everything about the herding, nomadic way of life is adapted to surviving the harsh extremes of climate here.  Take, for example, the traditional Mongolian form of housing known as the ger.  More commonly known in the west as the yurt, this iconic symbol evokes every romantic notion of said lifestyle – living in harmony with the land, leaving no trace behind, being able to pack up all of your belongings on a couple of horses – and is found in sustainability developments and counterculture housing projects everywhere from Kauai to Costa Rica, despite its lack of suitability to conditions other than those which forged its design.

Herd animals are the perfect energy store for the long, cold winters.  You have a better chance of keeping your herd alive long enough to feed your family, than of growing enough vegetables in the short-lived spring and summer seasons to last all winter.  Families find a sheltered place to hunker down and stay warm through the cold season, then move on to [literally] greener pastures during the warmer months for their herds to reproduce, rear their young, and fatten up enough to survive next year’s winter freeze.

However, grazing patterns thousands of years old are no longer viable due to changing weather patterns.  Entire herds are literally freezing to death in their winter shelters, and sometimes, the nomadic family watching over these herds freeze to death right along side of them.  Like all cultures, this one must adapt with the changing times, or become extinct.

Suvraga Aguyt Vegetable Gowing Co-Operative, was established in 2010 as a permaculture demonstration and education site, when it hosted Mongolia’s first-ever Permaculture Design Course [PDC], taught by Rick Coleman, who in his 18+ years teaching permaculture has worked on every continent [except Antarctica], in some of the harshest conditions, and with some of the poorest people in the world.

“I believe that permaculture has a major role to play on the world stage,” says Coleman. “As a design system, permaculture has so much potential to positively impact on aid and development projects around the globe.  Not only does it address issues of depleting soil, water and energy, it also creates empowered communities who can become more self reliant, less dependant upon aid, and more able to direct what aid they do receive into positive capacity building projects.”

Two weeks were spent travelling the countryside with Tileuybek [Bek] Ye, the project’s Mongolian-born Food Security Director, who served as both guide, translator, and assistant instructor while the team visited the other half-dozen or so vegetable growing co-operatives in the area [distance in Mongolia is relative; approximately XXX kilometers were covered over 14 days].  Obervations were made from tours of the sites and surrounding landscape, and from conversations with co-operative leaders, in order to understand the conditions, challenges, and best practices that each group had developed.  A wide range of crop-growing knowledge was shown to be present in the region: some co-operatives were watering 20+ acres by watering can, even as streams meandered slowly by just outside the perimeter of their growing plots, while others had developed complex irrigation systems which successfully diverted and harnessed available water from nearby waterways.

A short course was designed and held at each site to address each group’s immediate concerns, with practical solutions that could be implemented immediately.  Each co-operative then sent key members, along with their leaders to attend the customized two-week PDC held at Suvraga Aguyt in Tosontsengel.

“Mongolians have almost zero crop-growing experience,” says Bek as he gnaws on the bones of a traditional meal of organ meat, meat broth, and the remaining carcass of a slaughtered sheep.  “In the 1930s, during the Socialist era, the Soviet Union started developing state farms to grow hay – to feed the livestock – but before that, Mongolians had no need to learn how to grow vegetables.”

However, there exists a vast well of knowledge about animal husbandry, and appropriate traditional building techniques, which the Suvraga Aguyt project taps into and draws from: Mongolians could be said to be the original organic animal farmers.  Some co-operative members still graze their family’s surviving herds on the pasture land surrounding the soum[ii], while growing potatoes, raddishes, carrots, cabbages, tomatoes, and cucmbers on-site to supplement their primarily meat-based diet.  As yields increase, the co-operative will have a surplus crop to barter or sell– and be able to offer the community a much higher quality product than the sometimes mouldy, often half-rotten imported produce which pass for vegetables currently sitting on the store shelves of the soum.

“Designing a replicable permacultural system builds from existing strengths and cultural knowledge, and looks at designing for the extremes,” says Rick.  “Especially when working in aid, we design first for Survival, then Subsistence, then Self-Sufficiency, and then Abundance of Harvest – where crops can be bartered or given away.  Finally, we can move on to Commercial production.”

Animal shelters too, are being redesigned from a permacultural perspective, to more aerodynamic, yurt-like shapes, insulated with animal furs and fleeces not high-quality enough for human use [previously thrown away], and heated biologically by building hot compost heaps inside the shelters.  Abandoned Soviet-era buildings within Suvraga Aguyt’s hasha[iii] walls are being adapted and re-used as passive solar greenhouses, taking advantage of the significant thermal mass provided by the thick concrete walls, to soak up the heat which is captured and trapped by double and triple-insulated layers of glass and plastic sheeting, converting the abundant daylight[iv] into heat, storing this energy to be radiated back out during the night.  Coldframes for seedlings are built inside these greenhouses, further extending the short growing season in a place where every additional growing day increases your chances for surviving the cold winter always just around the corner.

Seeds are being saved and selected from the hardiest plants in their crops, and within a few growing seasons Mongolia will be well on its way towards developing its own crop varieties, better adapted to the short growing season and harsh conditions.  There are no heirloom varities here, the vegetable growing co-operatives of Zavkhan province are developing the region’s heirloom seedbank even as we speak.

Nitrogen-fixing species growing wild in the fields were identified for use as green manures in the broadacre production occuring in remote areas, and petrol pumps previously considered to be high-valued assets, when viewed from a permacultural perspective, were re-classified by the nomads as inefficient and wasteful liabilities, to be replaced instead by RAM pumps[v]. Planting guilds are being designed and tested to increase resilience, resistance to pests, and overall yields, while suitable native species of tree and shrub have been identified to be planted as windbreaks, living fences, and for future coppicing. 

Ghengis Khan himself, better known as Chinggis to locals, once decreed a law that for every tree that is cut down, ten should be planted in it’s place – upon penalty of death.  There are tales passed down through the centuries, of how Chinggis inspired his troops to win hopelessly outnumbered battles, by telling stories he made from observing nature:  “Chinggis told his army to flow down from the hills upon the enemy as the yellow waters[vi] roar down the hills with the snow melt,” recounts Bek.  “Perhaps Chinggis was the world’s first permaculturist?”

Coleman chimes in: “Permaculture is not about passive solar greenhouses or water management systems.  These are techniques applied to solve specific problems.  Permaculture is about design systems thinking.  If we can introduce this methodology, we leave behind an empowered group able to design their own solutions.”

 

“Permaculture is information and imagination intensive, lending itself to be followed up even from a distance, by email or internet.  If we design well enough we create spare time and energy.  When communities have those, they then have the ability to adapt quickly.”

The warm hugs, joyous tears, countless photos taken with the team, and rousing spontaneous renditions of traditional Mongolian folk music shared at the conclusion of the course by all the graduates of Mongolia’s Inaugural Graduating PDC class of 2010 seemed to suggest that permaculture had indeed, captured the imagination of everyone in attendance.  Suvraga Aguyt is a beacon of hope for an ancient culture struggling to adapt and survive in a modern world, and a living example of the valuable role that permaculture can play in achieving Sustainable Overseas Aid and Development.

 “As change is forced upon the world at an unwelcome rate, it will be crucial to have successful models on the ground,” says Rick.  “Through implementing permaculture, aided communities of today have the potential to become the models for sustainable practices of tomorrow.”

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[i] dzud: extreme winters in which there is either too much snow for grazing animals to reach their food (white dzud), or temperatures so low that rainfall simply freezes over the land (black dzud).

[ii] soum: village or rural settlement.

[iii] hasha: family compound.

[iv] Mongolia experiences an average of 256 days of sunlight per year.

[v] RAM pumps have only two moving parts, and harness the energy of a flowing river to move water.

[vi] yellow waters: traditional reference to the massive, potentially destructive spring floods formed by melting snow each year.

by Tracy Barnett of the Esperanza Project and collaborator on the Sustainable [R]evolution book

SUCHITOTO, El Salvador – A gentle breeze ruffles the thatched roof of the hilltop shelter here at the Permaculture Institute. An electric-blue morpho butterfly flits past, a sharp accent against the muted blue of Volcano Guazapa in the background. An incongruously peaceful backdrop for the violence, massacres, scorched earth and forced evacuation that razed this region less than two decades ago.

That mountain, the hideout for guerilla forces for miles around, was bombed daily and burned repeatedly; the town of Suchitoto itself became a battlefield. Hundred of tons of artillery, white phosphorus and napalm rained down on the once lush jungles of these lands, drying up even the springs where people once retrieved their water.

But the Earth has a way of healing herself, and her inhabitants, and this land and the people who work it are living proof of that reality.  Read more here.

Check out this post by contributor and Permaculture Research Institute photojournalist and webmaster extraordinaire, Craig Mackintosh.

This is Part X, the final installment, of a ten-part series – If you haven’t already, please read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII and Part IX before continuing. This series is part of my work for the Sustainable (R)evolution book project.

Preamble: As I type, much of France is grinding to a halt as an enraged public strike against austerity measures that would impose restrictions on their lifestyles. This year we already watched placard waving, gold watch wearing, Greek protestors gnashing their teeth in their overspent, tourism-dependent country, and now the French are blockading fuel depots, torching cars, throwing rocks and threatening to bring the whole country to a standstill. Trouble is brewing in the UK and elsewhere as well as similar attempts to patch their disastrous economic situations are on the table, and let’s not even mention where the implosion already underway in the US will inevitably lead…. I can’t blame people for being mad. They’ve been told lies — given the “trust us, vote for us, we know what we’re doing” spiel and fed the immoral and impossible fiction of an American Dream to keep them as mere compliant labour and ‘consumers’. With their pockets beginning to suffer they’re awakening out of their apathy, but, in their protests, as they spit the dummy and throw their toys out of the cot, what are they really seeking to accomplish? As far as I can tell, they’re demanding a continuation of the status quo — they want to persevere with our credit based, unrestrained, consumer treadmill just a little longer. This also is wholly detached from reality. What if, instead of pulling down instead of building — just to usher in a new era of fascism as governments spend more on internal security than positive options like permaculture education — people were to objectively look at the situation we find ourselves in, learn from the mistakes of our past gorging on credit and finite resources, and determine to build an alternative, sustainable, cooperative, economy that has happiness, equality, health and natural capital as priority goals? We could then begin to replace our current leisure-oriented consumer system with an alternative that takes reality by the horns, and, en masse, urge our governments to incentivise and support it. We would aggressively propose, with a workable road map in hand, rather than aggressively protest without viable alternatives. We would transform present invisible structures through unity of purpose, defeating the system, rather than allowing the confusion born of our individualism to only strengthen the resolve of government. And should government fail to come to the party, we’d build a parallel economy regardless. In Sri Lanka, the world’s largest participatory democracy movement, Sarvodaya, has been quietly building such a parallel economy over the last few decades. We could learn something here….  read more….

by Tracy Barnett, Esperanza Project, and new Sustainable [R]evolution correspondent

CERRO ROKE, Paraguay – The red school bus rattled its way down the red dirt road, cutting a path through the grey mist. The driver assured me we had not gone too far; my destination was the last stop on the line. Finally he lurched to a halt.

The bamboo gate was the only clue that I’d arrived at Takuara Renda, Paraguay’s permaculture center. Guillermo Gayo, the bio-architect at the heart of it all, was there to greet me, a welcoming South American double-kiss at the ready.

I learned about Takuara Renda at the Social Forum of the Americas in Asuncion, where Guillermo had transformed a corner of the intensely busy forum into a peaceful retreat with one of his bamboo houses.

It was there that I learned of his unique take on permaculture, built on a foundation of bamboo and his lifelong work as an architect devoted to the field of bioconstruction, a form of construction that emphasizes natural materials and sustainable technologies.

Click here to read more and to learn about the author’s inspiring Latin America-based Esperanza Project.

Rabinal, Guatemala: a report back from the Achi Maya ‘Qachuu Aloom’- Mother Earth project

by Juliana Birnbaum Fox, Sustainable [R]evolution project correspondant, with photos by Louis Fox

High in the mountains just 33 miles– but a 5 hour drive– north of  Guatemala City, the small town of Rabinal is dusty in the dry season.  Most people would assume that all of Guatemala was colonized by the Spanish.  The Achi Maya of Rabinal, however, managed to successfully resist the conquistadors until Guatemala achieved independence.  The Achi lived self-sufficiently in the region for centuries, yet the pressures of economic globalization and the violent political throes of the Guatemalan nation-state have forced change and assimilation.

The amaranth plant was sacred to the Maya for its life-sustaining properties, used in ceremony and a major part of the diet.  During the Spanish conquest, amaranth was banned and fields of it burned– those caught growing it could be punished by losing their hand, or even by death.  As a result, the grain nearly became extinct, excepting remote areas.  Among the Achi Maya, the cultivation of amaranth for cereal and flour was virtually lost over the past century as lifestyles “modernized” and more food was bought from the store.   In the early 1980s, Rabinal was targeted by the Guatemalan military in their policy of genocide against the indigenous Maya population.  The community endured some of the worst massacres of the civil war, leaving behind a shattered population without access to basic resources such as clean drinking water and medical care.

A local association called Qachuu Aloom (Mother Earth) has successfully brought organic amaranth cultivation back to the Achi, through a program of building alliances, seed saving, and a network of social entrepreneurs.  The project offers courses in permaculture, a seed library, and microloans to local initiatives.  Families “borrow” seeds and cultivate them with assistance from more experienced growers.  They can then keep some of the food they grow for their families, return the “borrowed” seeds, and sell the association the rest, which are packaged for market and help to fund the group’s programs.

The women’s circle within Qachuu Aloom was inspired by a community from the Chimaltenango region of Guatemala.  The women from a town called San José Poaquil had found a strong variety of amaranth growing in the garden of an elder woman, planted it, saved the seeds, and created a collective that became very successful selling amaranth all over the country. They were invited to come to Rabinal and teach the local women of Qachuu Aloom.

“I think we were so successful with that program because the women came and shared their stories—often stories of the violence that many of them experienced.  They all cried together, and also shared their success,” said Sarah Montgomery, co-founder of Qachuu Aloom.  Coming out of the war, when people were targeted and even murdered for organizing, there was a lot of fear and mistrust in the community that greatly affected the project.  “At the beginning, the women would hardly talk, and now some of them are out there speaking in front of large groups, presenting about our association. What made it work was that we were organizing with leaders who were from the community and trusted.”

The Garden’s Edge, a New Mexico, USA-based organization run by Montgomery and other social and environmental activists, has helped to fund the Guatemalan association, arrange cultural exchanges between Pueblo and Maya leaders, and establish permaculture projects.  Montgomery founded Qachuu Aloom with Cristobal Osorio Sanchez, a local farmer who lost members of his family in a the notorious Rio Negro massacres.  The violence claimed up to 5000 lives over a period of two years in relation to protests over a hydroelectric dam project.  A total of 38 communities were forcibly relocated close to Rabinal, and Cristobal, given a plot of degraded land, initiated a three year agricultural experiment.  He used organic compost to restore the soil of half the plot, while applying chemical fertilizers to the other half.

From his personal experience, Cristobal concluded that organic corn cultivation was actually more productive, as well as being gentler on the planet.

“We used to work the land using chemicals, but thank god we were brought information about the negative health and environmental effects of using them,” said Juana Raxcaco, an organizer with the project.  “We started this practice of seed saving, packaging and selling, and have seen great results.  We used to buy very expensive chemicals and our production was so expensive that we didn’t even make any money.  Now we are cultivating without having to buy anything, as we get seeds from the association, and we are making a profit from selling them back and are also growing healthy foods for our families, without contamination.  In this small village the movement has been growing and we now have 15 families with gardens—we started with two. We also have a women’s group where we continue learning.  We consume what we grow, and also save the seeds for ourselves and to sell.”

“It’s a quiet revolution,” Montgomery observed.  “People are defending their own seeds from aid organizations wanting to bring in GMO seeds.  It’s about changing people’s minds.”

Program director Edson Xiloj came from Chichecastenango, another part of Guatemala, of the K’iche’ Maya.  He studied conventional agriculture at university before coming to Qachuu Aloom as an intern and realizing that he wanted to work with permaculture.

“Permaculture is about living in harmony with nature, not managing it,” Xiloj observed. “So it was a big change from my studies—most of the people I studied with are working for large agriculture corporations.  The principles of permaculture are like the principles of the pueblo.  Young people from traditional cultures sometimes think it doesn’t work anymore, but now the economic crisis is pushing people to look for alternatives in the way they are producing food.  Even more conventional development organizations are looking for alternatives.  Permaculture is not just agriculture, but a way of living—people are changing out of necessity.”

Qachuu Aloom is also a force for healthy, local eating, swimming against the stream of fast-food franchises pouring into the region.  At group lunches, traditional foods are usually served in an effort to re-value indigenous foods and re-educate people about their preparation.  When Xiloj asked his grandmother why people used to live so long, she told him it was from eating the indigenous “weeds”—like amaranth.

“Our grandparents planted what they needed most often right beside the house, using the “zone” system that permaculture formalized,” Xiloj said.

“We often hear people say, when they learn permaculture techniques, this is just what I learned from my grandmother,” Montgomery added.

Fuji Eco Park

Kawaguchiko, Yamanashi, Japan

by Rebecca Williams, Sustainable [R]evolution project correspondant

Fuji Eco Park stands as a stunningly picturesque model for the growing permaculture community in Japan. The 1.5 acre site nestled snugly at the base of Mt. Fuji is located 3 hours from Tokyo by car and has become a well-visited eco-tourism site welcoming over 1000 domestic and international visitors every year. Owner and founder Masaharu Imai sees Fuji Eco as a respite from the stresses of Japanese city life and a way to engage the public about how Japan can, and must, change from the bottom up.

“I want to grow the permaculture community by offering people the freedom to build small houses on the land and then letting them use the main house when they want,” says Imai. Realistic that it is difficult for the average Japanese family to move to the countryside for lack of work, he envisions Fuji Eco to be a city-dweller’s second home, where he will provide the land free of cost and community members can use the main house and all amenities for a small fee. He stresses that building at Fuji Eco is economical (about $10KUSD compared to $100KUSD in the city not including land) and comes ready with community. “People participate in permaculture events for the community more than anything else,” explained a recent visitor to Fuji Eco, “There are lonely people in the cities.”

The community at Fuji Eco is ever-changing hosting roughly 50 WWOOFers per year with average stays at one week to two to three months. On-going workshops and events draw young people from all over Japan and every summer Fuji Eco hosts a Permaculture English Camp where Japanese school children learn from a certified permaculture designer in an English immersion environment over 6 days. Masaharu Imai has geared Fuji Eco toward children. Local school groups often visit the site to pick and cook organically grown vegetables, feed the goats and chickens and take the 25 question on site Eco-Quiz.

Fuji Eco benefits from Imai’s electrical engineer background and features design for 100% energy self-reliance through harvesting solar and wind energy for heat, light and electricity. The main house features passive solar heating for the cold winter months and benefits from high ceilings and open-air passageways for optimum air circulation in the summer. An exhaust fan in the ceiling re-routes hot air generated from the fireplace to heat the floors. There is a wood-fired outdoor pizza oven and solar and wood-fired traditional rotenburo, or outdoor communal bath, where you can sit and gaze at the beauty of Mt. Fuji. A fleet of electric motorbikes and cars are also on site for touring the local countryside courtesy of Cosmo Wave, Imai’s green tech company that specializes in building cutting edge electric vehicles. “Permaculture is a vehicle in which we can think positively about new technology and actively integrate it into our lifestyles,” he says. Fuji Eco also holds car conversion workshops where participants can, over a few weekends, create their own electric vehicles.

Fuji Eco features a main house constructed from reclaimed wood from a Kayabukiyane traditional Japanese style house and old railroad slats. Mud-earth walls are filled out with straw, hemp, kudzu, rice husks and other local organic materials. The massive interior wood beams are coated with a traditional dyestuff known as kakishibu, or fermented persimmon, that acts as natural insect repellent. From disassembly of the original structure to completion, the house took two years to build, according to Imai,  by a “community of amateurs with the occasional pro”.  At present the site has three bungalows and is actively seeking community-minded families or individuals to build ‘second-homes’ on the property.

Water for the site is sourced from a well dug by Fuji Eco together with 80 local families through the area’s tough, volcanic rock. “Near Fuji there is only about one meter of soil. Under that is all rock. Most people in this area are cattle ranchers, so growing vegetables here is considered a bit strange,” says WWOOFer Kazuo Obuchi. The porous volcanic rock also posed challenges for water retention in the soil. These were addressed by building large swales to keep moisture in the veggie beds. A biotope pond design utilizes microorganisms, other animal and plant life to purify wastewater and sewage, which is then used to water the veggie beds. Another watering system for the veggie beds features use of a 1000 liter water tank that catches rainwater and is left to filter slowly through the soil in dry times. Comfrey, a dynamic accumulator of silica, nitrogen, magnesium, potassium, calcium and iron, is left to soak in the tank to create a compost tea, which is then used as a natural fertilizer.

Imai sees opportunity for permaculture ideas to solve modern problems specifically in Japan. One such idea involves the Japanese tradition of burying their dead in ohaka, usually stone tombs to mark where the deceased’s ashes have been placed. Recent years have seen traditionally outdoor ohaka sites fill up, leaving many Japanese to resort to interring their loved ones in skyscraper cemeteries. Imai envisions buying abandoned farmland and planting fruit bearing trees to mark where the dead are buried. The family of the deceased would pay a fee for the upkeep of the site and would benefit from being able to visit a beautiful outdoor location to pay their respects while enjoying the fruits of their ancestor’s metaphorical tree.

Masaharu Imai started Fuji Eco with the simple desire to focus his knowledge of energy sustainability in a house. Twelve years later Fuji Eco is a thriving permaculture community that continues to develop creative solutions for better living through technology and by simply observing nature’s patterns. Through permaculture and the growing community at Fuji Eco Park, Imai says, “I have really started to enjoy life.”

by Craig Mackintosh, Sustainable [R]evolution photojournalist and webmaster at Permaculture Research Institute Australia

Note: This is an update on PRI’s position and direction, and an opportunity for you to get paid to help!

The short version: We’re now paying you to write for us! Click here to get started.

The background/long version follows:

Over the last two years since I took over the running of this site, I’ve been pleased to see significant growth in traffic. I’m not so narrow-minded as to believe this is just due to my efforts or Geoff and Nadia Lawton’s or the rest of the PRI team, however. Aside from the tremendous support and input from the wider permaculture community, I also note that current events and the spread of information through the internet is threatening to actually wake the world up – and this ‘awakening’ is seeing an unprecedented growth in interest in sustainability, transition and the creation of resilient people systems. This interest certainly isn’t coming too soon, but better late than never.

For whatever reasons, though, this site is today regularly recognised as one of the, or even the, leading permaculture website worldwide. This has come about with a lot of help from readers like yourself, and permaculture project leaders and workers worldwide. This growth is helping increase permaculture exposure, and is helping our aim to drive permaculture into mainstream consciousness. (Examples: CNN, SBS, ABC, etc..)

But, whenever a site or entity grows, there are always questions about its purpose. I want to share the Permaculture Research Institute’s intentions as succinctly as possible here, and also solicit your support to help us in our goals – goals I believe many of you subscribe to. And no, I’m not asking for donations! (Although these are always appreciated!)

Click here to read more.

 Apparently, goats are becoming a regular sight in nearby San Francisco, but we’ve yet to come across them.  I heard they were used here in Berkeley to help clear an invasion of Scottish broom on the university-owned hillside.

From stellar eco-site Treehugger.com

Goats are becoming very popular with construction companies. They are finding that it’s a win/win for everyone. Many companies use the goats to clear brush so surveys can be done. They have also found it can be very cost-effective when considering how much it is to clear the land, then haul the debris and dispose of it. Plus, permits are not needed for the goats to clear which saves time and money. And it also improves communities by bringing people together to see the goats, not to mention the lack of noise that heavy machinery generates.