[Scpg] A History of Permaculture Australian Russ Grayson A Personal History 1970-2010

[Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network]

A History of Permaculture by  Australian Russ 
Grayson A Personal History  1970-2010

http://pacific-edge.info/category/sustainability/the-permaulture-papers/

The Permaculture Papers 6: Reconfiguring Permaculture
22. September 2010
A personal history of the permaculture design system...
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http://pacific-edge.info/the-permaculture-papers-6-reconfiguring-permaculture/.

The Permaculture Papers 5: time of change and challenge - 2000-2004

A personal history of the permaculture design system...
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http://pacific-edge.info/the-permaculture-papers-5-time-of-change-and-challenge---2000-2004/

The Permaculture Papers 4: The nineties boomtime
A personal history of the permaculture design system...
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http://pacific-edge.info/permaculture-papers-the-nineties/

THE PERMACULTURE PAPERS 3: the eightees

A personal history of the permaculture design system...
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http://pacific-edge.info/the-permaculture-papers-2/

THE PERMACULTURE PAPERS - 2: The dawn

The Permaculture Papers 2... It's the dawn time 
for Permaculture as it emerges from the social 
churn of the 1970s to offer something 
intellectually invigorating and to promise a 
different future...
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http://pacific-edge.info/the-permaculture-papers-2-the-dawn/

THE PERMACULTURE PAPERS - 1: Introductory notes
The Permaculture Papers - 1: An introduction... a 
personal history of the Permaculture design 
system...
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http://pacific-edge.info/permaculturepapers_introductory_notes/

The Permaculture Papers 6: Reconfiguring Permaculture
Wed, Sep 22, 2010
History, The Permaulture Papers
PASS THROUGH BURNIE, the largest city hereabouts 
and one that snuggles against the chilly waters 
of Bass Strait. Drive past the turnoff to the 
Murchison Highway that takes the traveler over 
steep hill and through valleys of dark, dank and 
moist temperate rainforest to Queenstown, on the 
west coast. Go through the town of Wynyard and 
avoid the turnoff to Boat Harbour Beach. Keep 
goingŠ westward. Soon you come to Sisters Creek, 
a seemingly minor locality along the Bass Highway.
Sometimes, people return to where they started 
and here they are revitalised. In this case, it 
is the Permaculture Institute that we are talking 
about because, in the closing years of the 
Twentieth Century, the Institute made the journey 
homeŠ home to the island state that had given 
birth to it around 30 years earlier - Tasmania.
That journey started with its leaving the hilly, 
humid subtropics below the Tweed Range, not all 
that far from the town of Tyalgum. It was to this 
place that people from Australia and beyond had 
made their way to visit, to see the Commonworks, 
to do a design course at the Permaculture 
Research Institute, to see what was going onŠ too 
see, touch and smell Permaculture.
It was from here that the message got out that 
something new was in creation. News of that was 
carried in the pages of Permaculture 
International Journal and by word of mouth to 
places distant.
For Permaculture, those were exciting times but 
they were not to last. The rural property was put 
on the market and Bill Mollison and wife Lisa 
packed and left. A new life awaited, a life not 
all that far from Bill's birthplace.
Back on the Bass Highway, journey a mere 40km or 
so further to the west of Sisters Creek to where 
the highway leaves the coast to swing 
south-westward, inland towards Smithton. Close to 
where it makes this turn a side road known 
somewhat optimistically as the Stanley Highway 
traverses for a mere seven or eight kilometres a 
narrow neck of farmland squeezed between tidal 
flats to take you towards a prominent flat-topped 
bluff that juts into the sea and that rises high 
above it. This is The Nut, and nestling at the 
base of The Nut is the one-time fishing town of 
Stanley. It's picturesque countryŠ farm and 
coastŠ and it is also the birthplace of Bill 
Mollison.
Here, at Sisters Creek, the Institute has carried 
on its work, offering courses, taking on interns 
and - until mid-2010 - administering its 
long-running register of approved Permaculture 
teachers. From here, Bill has made the annual 
journey across Bass Strait to join Geoff Lawton 
in an annual Permaculture Design Course at a 
Melbourne university.
Thus has journeyed from place to place and time 
to time one of Permaculture's major institutions.
The shape of Permaculture
When I returned to The Permaculture Papers in 
2005, Permaculture had been with us for 28 years. 
Now, as I return to the Papers in mid-2010, it's 
been with us for 32 years. That's quite a length 
of time to look back over a social movement, and 
doing so makes me very conscious of what is 
missing from this story - all of that 
Permaculture experience that was developing 
elsewhere in the country during the times I write 
about. That, however, is usual for stories told 
from one person's experience. Those other stories 
await someone else to write about them.
The view from 2005
If we are to comprehend the structure of the 
Permaculture design system, what would it have 
looked like in late-2005?
As with anything that is made up of the 
activities of local, autonomous organisations, 
Permaculture must have looked very different in 
different places. By this time, 2005, 
Permaculture groups had risen and faded and so 
had Permaculture educators as well as the 
Permaculture International Journal, the 
Permaculture Edge and Green Connetions, all 
journals with Permaculture at their core. New 
Permaculture associations had arisen in some 
cities while those earlier established continued 
in others. A vital community gardening movement 
was then growing and making its way into local 
government and mainstream thinking. In this, 
there was a Permaculture presence but many of its 
initiatives came from people outside of the 
design system. Permaculture had been a late comer 
to community gardening.
No big organisations
What we might also see in 2005 was a diversity of 
Permaculture individuals, community associations, 
teachers and a few small businesses scattered 
over the Australian landscape. What we would not 
see were any big structures dominating the scene. 
Permaculture has foresaken the big organisational 
structure that dominates the environment 
movement, opting instead for the decentralisation 
of the network. That this happened was in large 
part due to the type of people attracted to 
Permaculture and their preference for local 
activity rather than direction from a central 
office.
The nearest Permaculture had come to 
representative organisations was the Permaculture 
Institute and Permaculture International Ltd.
A structure of small, linked networks
A network consists of the individuals and 
organisations that make it up - the nodes - and 
these are linked by flows of information and 
ideas more than by the exchange of goods and 
services.
Seen as a network, it was, and still is, the 
individuals, community associations, the teachers 
and the still small number of Permaculture small 
businesses that compose the Permaculture design 
milieu in Australia.
These are self-actualising nodes of which some 
are active and influential, others less prominent 
or inactive. They are linked less by the exchange 
of goods and services and more by flows of 
information. Such flows are integral to networks 
and, in Permaculture, they were once provided 
through the pages of the Permacutlure 
International Journal and Permaculture 
convergences, the semi-annual gatherings of 
Permaculture people. Now it is the 
Permaculture-Oceania email list and Permaculture 
websites that carry those flows of information. 
Permaculture can be envisioned as a matrix of 
scattered nodes linked one to another by two-way 
flows of information.
Within this network, nodes cluster around 
particular applications of the design system and 
communicate among themselves as well as with the 
broader body of permaculturists. These loose 
clusters are informal and largely unstructured 
and include those around teaching, overseas 
development assistance and gardening and farming.
Time to centraliseŠ or not?
Now and again comes the suggestion that 
Permaculture adopt a centralist structure but 
this never gains support because of the 
resistance to centralisation within the system. 
Such suggestions are usually made in the context 
of Permaculture playing a more prominent role in 
current issues, and this is an ongoing 
conversation in Permaculture. Why, people have 
asked time and again, does the design systems not 
play a more prominent role among social ans 
institutional decision makers?
Permaculture International and, to a lesser 
extent, the Permaculture Institute and 
Permaculture Research Institute can be seen as 
'big' clusters or major nodes within this 
Permaculture matrix and there are individuals who 
play a prominent role in the online converstaion 
around Permaculture. Neither the Permaculture 
Institute or David Holmgren are participants in 
this online conversation, something that might be 
missed but something that might be seen as their 
attempting to stay aloof from taking sides, where 
that happens. Their absence means that they are 
talked about but that they are seldom heard.
Permaculture in Australia, then, consists of 
diverse local activities under the banner of 
Permaculture or within the context of other 
structures that are linked by the flow of 
information carried in local newsletters and on 
Permaculture websites and email discussion lists.
Why reconfigure?
When I did some rewriting of The Permaculture 
Papers in 2005, I thought that the design system 
was ready for a restructure and refocusing.
My reasons for this was that I saw Permaculture at that time in these terms:
	*	the decline in the number of 
participants and the number of community-based 
associations (this was based on personal 
observation and discussion; there are no figures)
	*	the lower public profile of the 
design system since 2000 (above qualification 
applies)
	*	the need to attract new people and a new leadership
	*	the attrition of long-serving Permaculture activists
	*	the perception that Permaculture 
is addressing the problems of the past, not the 
present.

I suggested that, after 26 years, it would be 
time for any entity - community association, 
corporation or whatever - to assess its past and 
make the changes that would lead it into the 
future. Evaluation, rather than being a 
time-waster, is a valuable learning tool that can 
stimulate a change of course to cope successfully 
with new challenges and new circumstances.

What role for APT?
At the time I suggested that the future of the 
design system may be determined by the Accredited 
Permaculture Training (APT), as those promoting 
and providing the training asserted.

As of 2010, this has not yet come to pass even 
though valuable work is being done with APT. It 
seems that it will take much longer than I 
anticipated for the workplace training to turn 
out a sufficient number of graduates and for the 
demand for the qualification to appear among 
employers.

Perceptions a barrier to Permaculture
The reality is that APT has yet to find a place 
in the pantheon of workplace qualifications. It 
has some work to do before it becomes legitamised 
in professional eyes, though there are increasing 
signs of progress, such as Randwick City Council 
stipulating possession of a PDC for applicants 
applying to become preferred suppliers for 
architectural and landscape design services and 
education, and its ready acceptance that Council 
should include a PIG -  Permaculture Interpretive 
Garden - in its retrofitting of one of its 
community centres.

This was designed and constructed by a 
Permaculture small business - Sydney Organic 
Gardens, a landscape company led by Permaculture 
Design Course graduate and landscape architect, 
Steve Batley. Its design followed consultation 
with local people and with the local Permaculture 
association, Permaculture Sydney East.

Perhaps a reason for this slow progress in moving 
into the professional workplace is the legacy of 
Permaculture as a community-based activity. While 
there has been exemplary work done, there has 
been much that has been poorly-executed and 
finished, reinforcing the perception of 
Permaculture as an 'amateur' practice in the eyes 
of professionals. It was instructive to hear 
someone at the July 2010 public consultation for 
the Sydney City Farm say that Permaculture makes 
"untidy gardens". Old perceptions persist to 
become barriers.

The 2005/6 iteration of The Permaculture Papers 
made suggestions for improving the content and 
practice of Permaculture. We turn to these belowŠ
Adopt a community development approach

The work of people like Robina McCurdy, the 
experience of permaculturists in community 
gardening in urban areas, the development of 
ecovillages and the use of Permaculture in 
overseas development assistance demonstrate that 
Permaculture may best be thought of as an 
innovative and practical approach to community 
development. This distances it from its popular 
reputation as a type of organic gardening.
Permaculture's early focus was on horticulture 
and landscape design, particularly the design of 
edible landscapes. But people require more than 
food; they need opportunities for social 
interaction, learning and conviviality. 
Consequently, there is a need for the development 
of interactive people skills in Permaculture 
education.

A community development approach would take 
Permaculture practice further towards its 
definition as a design system for sustainable 
human settlement. Such an approach would link:
	*	the personal - food, nutritional 
and health, personal development to improve both 
domestic and working life, access to affordable 
shelter
	*	social development - cooperation 
with neighbours and communities of interest; 
improving neighbourhood amenity and environmental 
conditions, the design of venues that encourage 
conviviality.

Permaculture as an approach to community 
development would promote elements such as 
participatory and democratic governance, 
development of livelihoods, encouragement of 
personal development and improvements to natural 
systems.
Improve permaculture education and maintain a two-tier structure

A number of Permaculture teachers have adapted 
their PDC course content to suit local 
conditions. The first major training initiative 
to depart the PDC format was made in the 
late-1990s by New Zealander, Robina McCurdy.

For her year-long Planet Organic course in 
Aotearoa New Zealand, Robina developed a 
curricula that included Permaculture design. The 
course was the first that attempted to supply 
graduates with employment-related skills and was 
a positive development that offered the first 
systematic, alternative learning structure in 
Permaculture.
Robina, with UK permaculturist Joanna Tebbitt, 
had earlier attempted to apply Participatory 
Rural Appraisal (PRA) - now often known as 
Participatory Learning and Action- to 
Permaculture design. PRA is a technique widely 
used by development assistance professionals. Had 
the process developed further, Permaculture could 
have acquired a useful, template-based assessment 
and planning tool at the time, but that had to 
await Robina's manual that she launched at APT9 
in Sydney in 2009 - Grounding Vision - Empowering 
Culture (2008, McCurdy R;Institute of Earthcare 
Education; Aotearoa).

The development of accredited Permaculture 
education in 2004 took Permaculture into the fold 
of the national training system to offer 
credibility to the design system and an income 
stream to trainers. Its long term impact on the 
design system remains speculative and would 
require an assessment of its impact on existing 
Permaculture structures.

In my 2005 thinking these include:
	*	the impact of APT on the existing 
Permaculture Design Course; when the new course 
was being set up the thinking was that the PDC 
would continue to be offered and would be 
recognised as prior learning and count towards 
the accredited training award; what remains 
unknown, I speculated, was whether the new course 
would at a later time reduce the market for the 
PDC and affect those teachers who choose not to 
teach the accredited course; at the time of 
writing (2005), teachers seeking accreditation 
with Permaculture International must hold a PDC
	*	the cost of teaching the 
accredited course - teachers must complete the 
PIL preperatory training and teach at an approved 
premises; this encourages going into teaching as 
a small business; the few Permaculturists to have 
questioned the accredited course structure cite 
the cost of setting up to teach and the unknown 
size of the training market as inhibiting factors
	*	the size of the potential market 
- this remains unknown; if there is a lot of 
interest in the course then a period of growth is 
likely, however permaculturists know that there 
are limits to growth; there could be a lot of 
initial interest in courses, however the level at 
which the market plateaus out will determine the 
financial viability of teaching and whether it is 
worth the investment of setting up as a teacher
	*	the workplace demand for people 
with accredited course skills - the availability 
of jobs for graduates, which limits the size of 
the market; it is natural to ask, when 
considering a course, 'where are the jobs?'; 
perhaps students will add the accredited course 
to another skill as Mollison originally 
envisioned in regard to the PDC.
The view from 2010 discloses APT and the PDC as 
coexisting in a linked relationship that 
stipulates acquiring a PDC as part of the APT 
qualification. The size of the potential market 
remains unknown and is reportedly small, and 
perhaps linked to this and to the costs of 
acquiring qualifications as an accredited 
educator, there are few new teachers emerging. 
The market is dominated by those successful 
teachers who established their presence through 
the teaching of the PDC.

A few Permaculture practitioners have commented 
that vocationally accredited training provides 
for the acquisition of skills but does not 
provide much by way of philosophical or 
background knowledge. This, they say, is the 
difference between 'training' and 'education'. If 
they are right, then what does it mean for 
Permaculture, a system that is based on a 
philosophy of life, and for APT?

Following are a few proposals to upgrade 
Permaculture education made in 2005. They are 
based on experience teaching the Permaculture 
Design Course and working on Permaculture 
projects with professionals, many holding PDC 
qualifications:
	*	maintain a two-tiered structure 
with the accredited training for those who intend 
to apply Permaculture design in their vocation 
and the existing PDC for those who require a 
more-general knowledge for application in their 
dwellings or at the community level
	*	introduce a substantial component 
of project management into Permaculture training; 
the reason why Permaculture projects have failed 
to persist is often due to the lack of project 
management skills such as planning, budgeting, 
monitoring, evaluating, estimating, the use of 
time and resources, negotiating, communicating, 
consulting and coordinating
	*	introduce substantial training in 
people skills such as communication, shared 
decision making, problem solving, resolving 
conflict, cooperation and participation; the lack 
of such skills in Permaculture (except for some 
notable examples) has contributed to the failure 
of projects and organisations; the justification 
for such skills is Permaculture's second ethic of 
caring for people.

Address contemporary issues, social and demographic change

Australia is a substantially different place to 
what it was when Permaculture was formulated over 
30 years ago and when it enjoyed its major growth 
phase:
	*	social and economic change has 
produced a populace that is at times wary of the 
future
	*	time poverty is a reality and 
must be taken into account in Permaculture 
community work; people often work longer hours or 
are stuck in casual work (about one-third of the 
working population) this is a factor particularly 
affecting families with young children
	*	demographers have identified a 
pronounced population shift to the coast with 
demographic analyst, Bernard Salt, talking of an 
influential 'coastal culture' in development; at 
the same time there is a drift to the 
metropolitan cities and to larger regional 
centres; this is because cities offer opportunity 
not present in smaller regional centres and 
towns; the implication is that the populations of 
the major cities and growing regional centres on 
the coasts will attain greater influence in 
setting the political and social agenda
	*	a greater number of people are 
living in apartments, town houses, duplexes and 
other medium-density developments; apartment 
living is set to increase substantially as cities 
strive to accommodate increasing populations - 
Sydney has to accommodate six million by 2020 and 
much of this will be in apartment buildings; the 
increasing popularity of apartment living is also 
due to the lack of time to manage a garden/to the 
fact that people do not want a garden or the 
maintenance responsibilities that come with a 
house and garden (sometimes due to time-poverty, 
sometimes to age)/want to live near their 
workplace/are scaling down as their families move 
out
	*	a number or research reports and 
articles in the media have discerned a move 
towards quality of life, to making more time for 
family at the expense of higher paying jobs; some 
city residents have sacrificed salary and career 
to live in what they see as the more humane 
environments of coastal towns  - a process, 
according to the Australia Institute's Clive 
Hamilton, of 'downshifting'
	*	the social isolation of the 
increasing number of single person and two person 
households is paralleled by a search for 
community; social analyst Hugh Mackay proposes 
that housing developments reinstate the 'village 
green' as community territory where people enjoy 
the company of others.
Learn from the development/ aid industry
Permaculture practitioners could learn much from 
the intenational development industry. This would 
save them reinventing what already exists and 
would improve their work.
Techniques and skills that Permaculture could learn include:
	*	participatory approaches to 
planning, implementation and evaluation that are 
in current use by development professionals; 
these include Participatory Rural Appraisal (aka: 
Participatory Appraisal/Participatory Learning 
and Action) and  Participatory Technology 
Development with farmers
	*	project planning and management 
including strategic planning, evaluation and 
improved accountability to partners and clients - 
a project management approach to its work
	*	Low External Input Sustainable 
Agriculture (LEISA), a collection of approaches 
and techniques that include organic farming and 
that minimise inputs, reduce expenditure, boost 
local enterprise and innovation and make farming, 
both subsistence and cash cropping, more 
regionally self-supporting
	*	a community development approach 
involving the participation of people with 
different but complementary skills
	*	humility.

Develop a renewed impetus with new leadership
Permaculture's leadership is diversified and is 
anchored in local actions. It is mainly 
Permaculture educators, because of the profile 
they develop, who achieve wider recognition as a 
quasi-leadership within the movement. David 
Holmgren and Bill Mollison are still regarded as 
leaders because of their roles in inventing the 
design system.

Leadership in Permaculture is always informal. It 
is a quality that comes and goes with the 
changing situation of people in life. Someone now 
a leader may relinquish that role when they lose 
public profile through going in other life 
directions but while still maintaining a role in 
the movement - such as when they take up 
parenting, caring for aged parents, move to a 
rural ecovillage or take on a demanding job.

Leadership is a difficult concept to discuss in 
Permaculture because permaculturists have always 
been a somewhat anarchic bunch who do not like 
being told what to do. Like the skepticism 
towards political leaders evident in Australian 
society, this is a healthy trait that should be 
encouraged as a brake on overambitious leaders.
Likewise, no single organisation has achieved 
dominance as representative leader. The 
Permaculture Research Institute did enjoy this 
status well into the 1990s partly due to its good 
works and not insignificantly to its capacity for 
self-publicity. However, there later developed 
some reticence to its claim to this role. 
Irrespective of whose doing it might have been, 
Geoff Lawton was promoted to a sort of spokesman 
for Permaculture (though this role has decline 
somewhat in recent years) and to a quasi-hero 
status to judge from some members of Permaculture 
associations.

The problem with promoting people to such 
positions is that quieter, less public people who 
have works that have achieved just as much are 
overlooked. This became apparent at the end of 
APC9 (Australian Permaculture Convergence - the 
semi-regular national conference of 
permaculturists) when a Powerpoint presentation 
on Permaculture history was shown. Some who had 
been around Permaculture since its early years 
were conspicuously missing from the presentation 
and rumblings were heard afterwards. What people 
had seen was a presentation demonstrating the 
world of Permaculture inhabited by a group of 
people around a Permaculture association rather 
than a more representative overview of 
personalities who had played significant roles in 
the movement. Leadership seems to be quite a 
moveable thing.

Intergenerational change - time to consider it seriously

When I started writing the first iteration of The 
Permaculture Papers around 2003/4, I was 
pessimistic about a new generation emerging to 
assume leadership and other roles in 
Permaculture. After the dismal years of 2000 to 
2002, during which we lost the Permaculture 
International Journal and Green Connections and 
for a while it seemed, our way, Permaculture 
seemed to founder, to lose direction. All wasn't 
lost of course, there were creative things going 
on, especially at the local level, however as a 
national entity the movement seemed to have 
stalled.

I wrote a piece about the need for 
intergenerational change in Permaculture in The 
Planet (which I edited at the time), the 
quarterly newsletter of Permaculture 
International. This provoked a critical response 
from one or two that demonstrated to me that 
throwing devil's advocate questions into 
Permaculture conversations was somewhat 
dangerous. The capacity for introspection in 
Permaculture, I realised, was in short supply and 
the type of critical questioning about 
organisations (including the one I worked for) 
that I was used to from my years in the 
intenational development NGO (non-govenment 
organisation) industry was not all that welcome 
in Permaculture.

At the time, the question of intergenerational 
change was something I felt timely for 
Permaculture as those of us who had brought the 
movement from its mid-1980s beginnings (some from 
before that) to a state akin to the social 
mainstream were now middle aged. Who would 
replace us?

Then - hope. For me that came at the 2004 
Cultivating Community conference in Bendigo, 
Victoria - a meeting of people involved in the 
Australian City Farms & Community Gardens 
Network. Among those attending were a number of 
younger people involved both in community 
gardening and in Permaculture. These, I thought, 
might form the next generation of leaders and, 
looking back now from 2010, I believe that I was 
right. Encouraging was that a number at the 
meeting agreed with the idea that Permaculture 
needed to address contemporary concerns rather 
than those it had traditionally dealt with.

Organisations such as the Seed Savers Network 
have attempted to address intergenerational 
change, but the question of who would lead 
Permaculture into the new century, in the period 
following the dismal years, remained open.
Some said the 'leadership' could not 'let go' 
their position and stand aside, that they were 
holding on perhaps because of their special 
interests and livelihoods within Permaculture. In 
one aspect this was true but I think the 
criticism failed to acknowledge that for those 
trying to make (an always marginal) living from 
Permaculture, letting go could not be letting go 
of the livelihoods that they had struggled to 
build up over the years.

As of 2010 we have something of a revitalised 
Permaculture thanks in large part to new people 
coming in with new ideas and new approaches. This 
complies, I believe, with Charles Handy's Sigmoid 
Curve model of organisational evolution which 
stipulates that if an entity is to set off on a 
curve of renewal it frequently requires a new 
leadership with a fresh outlook with new ideas. 
It must be conversant with contemporary realities 
and have the ability to address them.

Recreate an interactive, lively networking media
In 2006, I wrote that Permaculture was in need of two types of publication:
	*	a newsletter of magazine to 
report news, distribute information, publish 
instructional articles, report issues and 
opportunities and serve a networking function
	*	a scholarly journal for the 
lengthier analysis and discussion of ideas and 
issues; this would create an intellectual space 
within Permaculture and encourage self-reflection 
and learning.

Permaculture International Journal and 
Permaculture Edge, which performed some of these 
tasks cannot be revived, yet there is evidence of 
a demand for new networking media to foster a 
national Permaculture community-of-interest.
For reasons of cost and time, such media would 
most likely be online, yet that excludes those 
without Internet access. This was the dilemma 
that faced PIL (Permaculture International Ltd) 
when it sought to revive itself in 2000. A 
website, online dicussion space and print 
newsletter was the outcome, with those wanting a 
printed newsletter paying more to cover paper, 
printing and postage costs.

The Permaculture-Oceania email discussion list, 
launched in 2001 after the year 2000 Permaculture 
gathering at Djanbung Gardens authorised it, was 
something I started in cooperation with the UNSW 
Ecoliving Centre. When changes at the university 
led to the closure of the Centre, PIL took over 
the dicussion list and contnues to operate it for 
the benefit of the Permaculure community.

Permaculture-Oceania has proven successful in 
fostering communication among permaculturists in 
Australia and a few overseas participants. 
Traffic is sufficient to maintain a moderate flow 
of communications, to ask and answer questions, 
to raise issues, notify events and to follow a 
discussion string for its duration. The list 
represents a community of interest, 
geographically diverse it may be, and was about 
the only thing tying Permaculture together for 
those critical years of transformation that 
opened the century.

Writing again in 2003/4, I said that The Planet, 
the member's journal of Permaculture 
International, would never become a scholarly or 
learned journal although I had hopes for that 
when I started it following the year 2000 
gathering.  I had hoped that it would take a form 
analogous to an industry journal in which pithy 
issues could be discussed. Later, after I ceased 
to edit it, The Planet reverted to a 
less-frequent organisational newsletter, a victim 
of the time constraints of the people who took 
over its publication.
A number of Permaculturists have expressed the 
desire for a scholarly journal, however the fate 
of the Permaculture International Journal does 
not bode well for such a venture. The earlier 
Permaculture Edge was a publication of this type, 
however it's publication became erratic and it 
ceased publication in the 1990s, the last edition 
appearing at the 1995 International Permaculture 
Convergence in Perth.

The cessatation of publication left Permaculture 
with no space for cultivating the intellectual 
garden, no scholarly journal or website where 
such material can be published, discussed and 
argued. An intellectual venue would be of benefit 
if the movement is to become self-reflective and 
learn from its experience.
The Worldwide Web fulfils a global networking 
mission with its multiplicity of Permaculture 
websites, yet there is no single website that is 
a first-port-of-call for Permaculture. Despite 
its name, Permaculture International is not 
really international because it has no branches 
in other countries and does not operate on a 
global basis. Some years ago, a US-based 
Permaculturists suggested that Permaculture 
International drop the 'International' as it was 
not representative of Permaculture anywhere 
beyond its Australian membership.

In late-2005, correspondents on 
Permaculture-Oceania were discussing a proposal 
from the Permaculture convergence of earlier that 
year that a 'Permaculture Central' website be set 
up. Though details have yet to be worked out (I 
wrote in that year) this proposed website would 
serve as a first-port-of-call for the design 
system in Australia. There was also the 
suggestion that the proposed site set up a email 
discussion list to take over from 
Permaculture-Oceania, however the rationale of 
destroying or duplicating something that works 
well was unclear.

Nothing came of the idea for a Permaculture 
Central website. It's unfortunate to say that 
this is somewhat true to the tradition of 
Permaculture convergences which in many cases 
have not delivered the goods that those attending 
them were so enthusiastic about producing at the 
time. In mid-2010, a telemeeting of PIL resolved 
to revive its ailing websiteŠ rather, to replace 
it with one that functions well. That work was 
started immediately and is progressing as I write.
Whatever networking media are developed in future, they will be online.


Develop people skills
Permaculture really has no choice in this matter. 
It is duty-bound to implement the second ethic of 
Permaculture - care of people - and you cannot 
care for people without people skills. Whether 
organisations and individuals that consistently 
fail to implement the second ethic are fully 
practising Permaculture is open to question.
It is here that Permaculture sometimes falls 
short. A lack of interpersonal skills and of 
effective communication has been a reason behind 
the short life of some Permaculture projects and, 
in one or two cases, of community gardens.
Lip service has been paid to both interpersonal 
and group skills by Permaculture teachers and 
some teachers, such as Robin Clayfield (Earthcare 
Education, Queensland), offer courses in relevant 
techniques.

The Permaculture Design Course has been too short 
to include training in such skills. When Fiona 
Campbell and I made the decision to incorporate 
in our design course two days of training in 
group decision making and group processes led by 
Maria McGuire from Unfolding Futures, we had to 
extend the course to in excess of 105 hours. It 
was worth it because students went on to use the 
techniques in their working lives. We felt the 
extra time to be necessary, having seen the cost 
of poor communciation and poor group processes.

The defensiveness in the face of questioning that 
is sometimes found among permaculturists might be 
a sign that those being defensive hold their own 
doubts and uncertainty. It is always a good 
policy to listen to criticism and to try to 
discern where it is coming from, to "understand 
before making yourself understood", to quote 
Steven Covey (1990; The Seven Habits of Highly 
Effective People; Simon and Schuster, New York). 
It is useful to try to understand the motivation 
of the questioner (friendly critic? hostile 
critic? devil's advocate?) and address their 
comments in a courteous and logical manner 
without putting them down or attempting to 
discredit them.

Learn and stay relevant
Reflection has never had much cachet in 
Permaculture. Bill Mollison emphasised doing over 
talking though what he was warning against was 
becoming bogged down in excessive analysis - the 
'paralysis by analysis' blockage. He proposed 
that things be well considered before acting.

Organisations that do not reflect on their 
actions fail to learn from their successes and 
mistakes. This was recognised by NGO analyst and 
author Alan Fowler (1997; Striking a Balance, 
Earthscan, UK) who said some NGOs (he was 
referring to international development NGOs 
though what he said would apply to other types 
such as Permaculture organisations) were so 
focused on 'doing', on action, that they became 
unbalanced.

Reflection, including taking notice of feedback 
and critique, is essential if organisations are 
to learn and improve their performance and 
reputation. Fowler used the term 'learning 
organisations' to describe those that acted on 
feedback and reflection to improve their 
performance and methodology.

A balance between reflection and action is a 
necessity for any effective organisation and is 
acknowledged in the methodology of 'action 
learning' which is premised on three sequential 
modes - looking, thinking, acting. The result is 
thoughtful, informed action based on learning. 
Adoption of the action learning approach and its 
propagation through Permaculture training would 
only benefit the movement.
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