“It is often said that a permaculture course can change people’s life – this is said because it’s true.”
My own journey with permaculture started with an article by Bill Mollison, one of the two founders of permaculture, in Resurgence Magazine, in the late 1980’s. It just made sense. So I took a 2-day Introduction to Permaculture course in Leicester, and then knew I wanted to take the next step and do a Permaculture Design Certificate course, known as a ‘PDC’.
I took my PDC at a magical place called Turners Field, in Somerset, in October 1994. The lead teacher was Stephen Nutt, one of the original group of permaculture teachers in Britain. The host was Ann Morgan, one of the students on that first UK PDC, who stood out at that time as someone strongly advocating for what is now called ‘social permaculture’. The course changed my thinking and my life on many levels, because this time it made sense at a much deeper level, and gave me lots of tools and motivations for applying permaculture in my life.
Purpose
I shifted my sense of direction in the world, I shifted my diet, I shifted my social connections, and I shifted where and how I lived. Decades later I still have friendships made on that course. A year later three of us from the course, plus partners and friends, chose to live together in a shared house near Exeter, with a focus on low impact healthy living. Whilst living there, I organised my first PDC, which included my first steps into teaching permaculture, supporting Stephen Nutt as the lead teacher. One of the students on the course, was a friend Dave Austin, who also lived in that shared house. I really wanted him to do the course, because he was working in the animal rights movement, and struggling from compassion fatigue, fighting hard against the negatives, and lacking a sense of where the positives might live. Dave went on to become Aranya, who has become one of Britain’s most active permaculture teachers, himself teaching and inspiring thousands of others through his courses and books. Another inspiring participant in the course was David Graham, co-founder of VON – the Vegan Organic Network.
In terms of what I’ve learnt and how I apply it day to day, it’s permaculture principles like Working With Nature (Not Against It), The Problem Is The Solution, and Make The Least Change for the Greatest Effect that resonate most deeply with me. They have become part of the way I naturally view any situation I am faced with. I also use the Toolkit of design processes, methods and tools naturally, without needing to think about it, like driving a car. Removal of limiting factors, relatively location, multi-function and the OBREDIMN design process are all tools a naturally use on a regular basis, because the work!
With its ethics of Earth Care, People Care and Fair Shares, permaculture aligns completely with my commitment to Ethical living which guides what food I buy and from where (local; organic; ethical – and not from supermarkets), who I buy energy from, who I bank with and so on.
How I’ve applied permaculture in my life has varied from very grassroots and more radical (living off grid in southern Spain for 5 years as part of a community project, teaching permaculture courses and how to live an ultra-healthy low impact life), to very mainstream (working to change construction training, qualifications and practices towards sustainable, low energy, healthy homes).
Over the years I’ve taught many permaculture courses, mainly PDC’s, with a few Intro courses, and have supported many others on their learning journeys. I’ve also been a long term member of the permaculture Education Working Group, which oversees the PDC curriculum which is certified by the Permaculture Association (Britain), and been involved in the development of a number of education innovations, including helping initiate the 2 project Certificate in Applied Permaculture Design, as a natural next step beyond the PDC, and the Community Climate Coaches training.
In recent years, permaculture ethics and the principles of working with nature, the problem is the solution and least change for greatest effect have influenced my role as co-founder and Director of Evolution Music – a small company established to change the impacts of the music industry. Evolution Music started with a focus on changing the record pressing industry and the ‘vinyl’ market. We’ve successfully created Evovinyl, high quality bioplastic LP records, that offer comparable sound quality to PVC vinyl records, and which can be produced with the same record pressing machines. Evovinyl records have a much lower environmental impact, and do not support the oil-based conventional plastics industry.
Least Change for Greatest Effect: the choice for artists, labels and pressing plants to make the small change of making their records from Evovinyl, instead of PVC, creates a big reduction in impacts.
Working with Nature: the independent nature and often ethical values of the British independent music sector, means lots of labels and artists want to be doing the right thing – so it’s being a case of working with nature to have artists like Fatboy Slim, Coldplay, Michael Stipe, Emile Sande, Say She She, Brian Eno and others released on Evovinyl, particularly through working with great organisations like Earth Percent and Music Declares Emergency.
The Problem Is The Solution: by looking directly at the problem of the increased toxic and carbon impacts arising from resurgence in the vinyl market, and its support for an often highly toxic, carbon intensive and unethical PVC supply chain, this quickly led us to identify non-toxic plant-based bioplastics producers and supply chains as a solution.