Welcome to the Permaculture Association Blog
You can find a wealth of news and knowledge that follows the work of members and partners.
This summer we embarked on a bold project, delivering a 6 - 9 week introduction to permaculture course to a group of people in sustained recovery. We simultaneously wrote a manual so others could follow in our footsteps.
Stuart Gore from Forward Leeds instigated the move. This seemed like a good opportunity to test out the growing research around the power of being outdoors. The power for being outdoors to promote your mental health, build resilience and sustain recovery.
This is a brief account of using the Guardiões and “5As” social tools in shaping participation and enhancing group dynamics, and monitoring the outcomes.
The setting was a university campus with its buildings, teachers, students and traditions similar to any other in Portugal. It was during late 2009 at the Faculty of Science, University of Lisbon (FCUL) when a spontaneous idea to create a permaculture garden, went viral. Against all odds, it was well received by the management of the faculty, and in just over a week, a central patch of garden was made available.
In the summer of 2015 I spent two glorious weeks studying with the wonderful Peter Cow at an inspiring permaculture project called Corga da Pereira, deep in the hills of central Portugal. It was my wife Alice's idea; she's a forager and a herbalist and I'm a web designer and a counsellor so she tends to be the more outdoorsy and hands on half of our partnership. Permaculture is something I've been interested in for quite a few years, but I had shied away from enrolling on a permaculture design course due to a resistance I have to gardening, a slightly awkward admission to make in the first paragraph of a blog about permaculture.
The Permaculture Association is sad to hear of the death of Bill Mollison in Sisters Creek, Tasmania, on the 24th September 2016. Bill was co-founder of the permaculture movement, and will be very sadly missed by his many thousands of students, and by practitioners, designers and educators in organisations and projects in over 140 countries around the world. We send our sincere condolences to his family.
Bruce Charles 'Bill' Mollison (born 1928 in Stanley, Tasmania, Australia and died today, 24 September 2016 in Sisters Beach, Tasmania).
A few people are born who are world class heroes to those who know them and unkown to the great majority, until one day their inescapable influence floats to the surface and is generally recognised for the cream it is. In hindsight such leaders go on to become household names.