[Sdpg] The Global Development of Permaculture Bill Mollison

Mon Nov 28 11:55:54 PST 2005

1.  The Global Development of Permaculture

by Bill Mollison      
© Bill Mollison 3rd February, 2004     

Older personal friends such as Masanobu Fukuoka in Japan (The One-Straw
Revolution) and the late P.A. Yeomans in Australia (Water for Every Farm)
developed excellent models of both sustainable "do-nothing" agriculture in
Japan, and integrated water / soil treatment / farm irrigation in Australia.
Both these men were themselves successful farmers, authors and innovative or
inventive thinkers. Both lack an active, well-informed body of students, or a
world-wide following.

Yet Permaculture, with a curriculum text, PERMACULTURE: A Designers'
Manual, has
a body of many thousands of teachers, and millions of practitioners
world-wide.
Texts are available in about 20 languages, more each year, teachers are
itinerant (not static or in institutions), and their students are
encouraged to
teach wherever they feel they have the courage to teach.

Why does Permaculture attract activists / practitioners / teachers, and some
other good systems lack them? The short answer depends on a few essentials:

1. A well-developed, practical curriculum, now of global agreement and well
tested.

2. A body of itinerant teachers, resulting in local teachers of both sexes, at
home in their own culture and language.

3. An emphasis on reaching local farmers (women in Africa, India) and not
directing teaching solely to men, by men. In this way we differ too, from all
"aid" agencies who send in male "experts" for teaching, but who do not inspire
local teaching. We teach the poor for free, incur no local debt.

4. We teach only Permaculture; we do not teach repression of local skills,
beliefs, religion or folkways. All sexes, races, beliefs and cultures are thus
welcome in the world bodies, at global conferences; we are not
culture-changing, just culture-enhancing.

All these simple and folk-friendly ways give us admission to all but the most
arrogant or militaristic cultures ruffling no feathers and selling no
uniforms,
flags or badges. Thus, we are essentially uncountable, and invisible, not an
easily identifiable group, and we never carry arms.

A more recent friend, Takao Furuno and his wife Komiko, travel globally to
rice-growing areas, carrying The Power of Duck as their text for small farmers
in Tanzania, the Philippines, Taiwan, Korea, China, Indonesia, Vietnam,
South-east Asia and India. They travel in their own time, pay their way, teach
for free. Furuno tells me that his only crusade is to help small family
farmers.
He is very well regarded by a loyal corps of farmers in Japan, and every area
he has visited. He is also a Permaculture practitioner, and has a
well-equipped
battery of solutions!

Ali Sharif, one of our Registered Teachers, runs an eponymous university in
Brazil *, and is accepting students and graduates at tertiary level. This
trend
may well continue, but never at the expense of local or itinerant teachers.
After all, in a world in crisis, why take 4 years and thousands of dollars to
produce a usually-inactive graduate (96% of all university-trained graduates)
when two intensive weeks can turn out 90% to 100% active, land-based
farmers of
both sexes? The latter have the good of their families and villages at heart,
as does Furuno.

Thus Permaculture is democratic, training manual workers and the
illiterate, as
well as the over-educated, training "outcaste" women in India as well as
nabobs
developing friends in low, but essential places. Seeing solutions, not
problems. Available to all.

Graduates develop their own financial systems (women's banks in India) and
teaching centres. The U.S.A. has its Permaculture Credit Union (in Santa Fe);
Japan, Korea, U.S.A. and Australasia are developing farmer markets and
subscription-only farms to supply families. And in all these initiatives, you
may find Permaculture graduates, being useful and applied. They love their
work.

How did we develop globally? By going to people, not asking them to come to
us.
By giving them well-tried solutions, not airy-fairy beliefs - we never ask for
belief. By teaching the poor for free, and charging only the affluent (the
Robin Hood approach to costing). By staying "below the horizon", not
threatening any body. We do not define the "infidel". All are welcome in our
classes.

Granted, some of us display a selfless regard for our lives, but as we have to
spend them anyhow, why not be useful? Already many graduates have dropped dead
in harness; the Ralph Long Brigade of extinct, selfless people!  As I urge my
students "the way is clear; the path is open; don't wait for orders!" All you
have that you own is your life, and your work. Both are worthy gifts to those
less well informed. We have the debt of privilege, and it will never be paid.
Go for it.

Best regards
Bill and Lisa Mollison
The Permaculture Institute
(The original and the constant)

* The Bill Mollison University of Sustainable Systems

References:

YEOMANS, P.A., 1981
Water for Every Farm

FUKUOKA, Masanobu, 1978
The One Straw Revolution

FURUNO, Takao (wife Komiko)
The Power of Duck
Tagari Publications

MOLLISON, Bill
PERMACULTURE: A Designers' Manual
(and course curriculum)
Tagari Publications 

Margie

Margie Bushman

(805) 682-4726 ext.101

mbushman at sbbg.org

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
(805) 962-2571
sbpcnet at silcom.com
www.sbpermaculture.org

"We are like trees, we must create new leaves, in new directions, in order to
grow." - Anonymous

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