Page updated:
Friday, 7 September 2007

SPECIAL REPORT...

The permaculture papers

RECONFIGURING PERMACULTURE

That will not be easy. Permaculture prides itself on being a 'doing' activity - ie. it sees itself as action rather than discussion-oriented. This attitude is useful in that it stimulates a task orientation but it discourages the useful practices of monitoring and evaluating experience and learning from it.

Group with planning template. Improved planning skills would enhance Permaculture projects.

The shape of Permaculture

If we were to comprehend the structure of the Permaculture design system, what would it look like in late-2005?

We would see a diversity of Permaculture individuals, community associations, teachers and a few small businesses scattered over the Australian landscape. What we would not see are 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.

A network consists of the individuals and organisations that make it up - the nodes - that are linked by flows of information, goods and services. Seen as a network, it is the individuals, community associations, the teachers and small businesses that compose the Permaculture design milieu in Australia. As self-actualising nodes, some are active and influential, others less prominent or inactive. They are linked less by the exchange of goods and services and more by information flows. Such flows are integral to networks and, in Permaculture, were once provided through the pages of the Permacutlure International Journal and at Permaculture convergences. Now it is the permaculture-oceania email listserver and Permaculture websites that carries 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.

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.

Permaculture International and, to a lesser extent, the Permaculture Institute and Permaculture Research Institute can be seen as 'big' clusters within the Permaculture matrix, however the two institutes have little influence on the network as a whole because of their absence from participation in the email-based information flows that link the nodes. In networks, lack of participation in the conversations flowing over the communication channels risks invisibility. You are talked about but seldom talk. Even though there are many 'lurkers' on networks, active participation is what brings life to networks.

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 lisrservers.

Why reconfigure?

The reasons why Permaculture is in need of reconfiguration include:

• the decline in the number of participants and the number of community-based associations in recent years (the assertion is 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.

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.

The future of the design system may be determined by the accredited Permacultre training, as those promoting and providing the training assert.

The following is a contribution to the occasional dialoque on the future shape of the Permaculture design system and is based on experience in Permaculture as both community advocate and trainer. The topics propose the development of Permaculture as both a framework for community development as well as toolkit of approches and techniques for project work.

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 aid demonstrate that Permaculture may best be thought of as a community development technology.

Permaculture's early focus was on horticulture and landscape design, particularly the design of edible landscapes. But people require more than food; they benefit from 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, neighbourhood safety and security, 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

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 Robina developed an 'organics' curricula that included Permaculture design. The course was the first to supply graduates with employment-related skills and was a positive development that offered the first alternative learning structure in Permaculture. More diversification of this type is needed.

Robina, with UK permaculturist Joanna Tebbitt, had earlier attempted to apply Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) to Permaculture design. PRA is a technique widely used by development aid professionals. Had the process developed further, Permaculture could have acquired a useful, template-based assessment and planning tool.

The development of accredited Permaculture education in 2004 is a response to the formalisation of technical training in Australia. It will take Permaculture into the fold of the national training system, offer credibility to the design system and an income stream to trainers. Its long term impact on the design system remains speculative and any exploration of the new training must also include an assessment of what may become limiting factors.

These include:

• the impact 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 as at present and that some content would be recognised as prior learning and count towards the accredited training award; what remains unknown is whether the new course will 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, 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 those 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 and enrolment 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 - 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.

A couple of Permaculture practitioners have already 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?

Following are a few proposals to improve Permaculture education. They are based on experience teaching the Permaculture Design Course and working with Permaculture people:

• 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 any Permaculture training; the reason why so many Permaculture projects have failed to persist is due to the lack of project management skills such as planning, budgeting, monitoring, evaluating, estimating, the use of time and resources, negotiating, communicating and consulting
• introduce substantial training in people skills such as communication, shared decision making, problem solving, solving 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 and when it enjoyed its major growth phase:

• social and economic change has produced a sometimes optimistic but often fearful populace at times wary of the future; people often work longer hours or are stuck in casual work (about one-third of the working population); they are asset rich but time poor
• 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; 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 great number of people are living in apartments, town houses, duplexes and other medium-density developments; this is in part because they lack the time to manage a garden or because many do not want a garden or the maintenance responsibilities that come with a house (due sometimes to time-poverty, sometimes to age); medium density living is an area that Permaculture could profitably address
• 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 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.

Permaculture must track social trends if it is to change its tactics to attract people and to contribute solutions to the dilemmas and needs stemming from contemporary life. It must become socially savvy and address more the contemporary realities of urban living and less the shrinking reality of rural smallholders, a lifestyle available to comparatively few.

Learn from the development/ aid industry

Permaculture practitioners could learn much from the development and aid 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 Technology Development with farmers and Action Learning
• project planning and management including strategic planning, evaluation and improved accountability to partners and clients - a project management approach
• 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

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.

Accredited training and leadership

Perhaps the new accredited Permaculture training will create a renewed impetus within Permaculture as is hoped. The accredited training process has been led by Permaculture International and, assuming the training takes off as anticipated, it is the leaders of that organisation that will be in a position of great influence over the content and direction of Permaculture in this country.

How much influence the members of Permaculture International and those that buy into the training as teachers gain remains to be seen:

• will there be avenues for participation and input by members or will the training be administered through a managerial structure?
• will Permaculture International be transparent to the public in its administration?

Whatever, it will reflect on Permaculture as a whole and influence people's perceptions of the design system.

Reforming Permaculture International

When I wrote the first iteration of the Permaculture Papers in 2003 (the advantage of writing on a website is that you can periodically update your work) I suggested that it was time to seriously look at the way that leadership operated within PIL - whether it was appropriately structured to ta ke Permaculture into a more proactive future.

Based on experience on the PIL board of management in 2001-2002 and on information gained after that - there are areas in which the organisation may be improved:

• encourage regional, decentralised 'task groups' to take on functions critical to the organisation; the team which developed the accredited training was a step in the right direction because it drew on experienced people from different states; the proposal to decentralise PIL management and development activity received little support when it was proposed to the board in 2002
• decentralise the operation of PIL; the proposed task groups would provide a means to do this as would the election of decision-makers from more geographically diverse areas; they would have greater contact with permaculturists at the local level
• engage the membership more; the membership is largely passive and seldom plays an active role in the organisation or provides assistance to the leadership; new avenues for participation in the organisation would be of benefit
• worth exploring might be the reconstitution and decentralisation of PIL as a federal organisation with largely self-managing, semi-autonomous regional groups and a representative national leadership derived from those regions
• engage stakeholders in Permaculture who are not PIL members but who have influence and an interest in the design system
• adopt a less managerial structure; managerialism makes decisions for members rather than members making decisions; having some method of opinion polling that discerns member feeling might go some way to correcting a corporatist structure.

Despite drawing board members from different parts of the country in 2000, PIL then re-centralised itself in its Nimbin enclave. Executive committee members were recruited from within the region and the organs of PIL's communication - the newsletter and website - were taken from Sydney back to the enclave. As one executive committee member said, having people who live close to each other makes for easy meetings and decision-making, though whether closeness actually achieved this is unknown. Yet there remains the question of whether PIL should be pioneering alternative forms of organisational structure and decision making and leading by innovation. In this regard, a proposal to the board in 2001 to decentralise and operate through email-based meetings may have been too much too soon for the leadership.

By 2005, PIL was drawing the members of its board of management from different states and Robyn Francis, long a member, had stood down, apparently satisfied that the organisation was in capable hands. With people like SEED International's Morag Gamble, the Permaculture Research Institute's Jeff Lawton, Permatrust's Tim Winton and Janet Millington on the board, PIL now had a diverse and experienced team.

Intergenerational change - time to consider it seriously

Let's reconsider Handy's Sigmoid Curve, mentioned in an earlier installment of this report, and recall that if an entity is to set off on the curve of renewal it frequently requires a new leadership with a fresh outlook and new ideas. It must be conversant with contemporary realities and have the ability to address them. I am not talking here about the leadership of PIL, but that provided by innovative participants within the Permaculture milieu, whether they have membership of PIL or not.

An new, informal leadership that is based upon accomplishment would ideally include people younger than those leading PIL and influential in Permaculture in 2003. For awhile, I was pessimistic that this would happen, however the 2004 Cultivating Community conference in Bendigo, Victoria - a meeting of people involved in the Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network - included a number of younger people involved in Permaculture, some of whom were in the process of acquiring accredited teaching status and who are likely to form the next generation of leaders. Encouraging was that a number at the meeting agreed with the idea that Permaculture needed to address contemporary concerns rather than those it has traditionally dealt with.

Organisations such as the Seed Savers Network have attempted to address intergenerational change, but the question of who will lead Permaculture in five or more years time remains open but hopeful. There were, in the recent past, suggestions by influential people within Permaculture that some in 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. That now seems to be less so.

Communicate

A leadership maintains the support of members when it communicates regularly and openly. It also gains the confidence of those who are not members.

There is much discussion on the permaculture-oceania listserv but it has been only rarely that the PIL leadership has participated. This may have to do with the time availability and priorities of PIL board members, however organisations usually have a member whose role is to liaise with the membership and the public. Perhaps the reluctance to participate fully in the public dialogue around Permaculture was inhibited by the policy adopted in 2001 or 2002 of having communications and publications approved by the board before they were issued. This quasi-corporate practice is not without merit, however it can also be inferred as distrust. Except to defend themselves online, the organisation might not take sides in disputed topics, rather, their role should be to clarify and explain. This would retain credibility and a firm presence for PIL within Permaulture.

The issue of communication is relevant to an email posted on the permaculture-oceania listserv by a PIL staffer several years ago. She was commenting on the lack of reference to PIL on existing Permaculture websites: "...so how come out of these 409 000 (pages, I think, not sites) they do not support Permaculture's main point of call... the Australian international organisation that is there to represent them?".

The simple answer may be that the managers of these sites do not see PIL, the organisation she refers to, as being a "main port of call" or "there to represent them". Becoming a main port of call implies the provision of a service of sufficient utility and value to stimulate website managers to link to the organisation. Representing permaculturists raises questions about how, by and to whom.

The PIL website contains useful information however it does not offer a forum for the discussion of issues, even to members. Forums are a communications medium frequently offered by organisations interested in the ongoing discussion of ideas, issues and of learning. Were PIL to fulfil the above-mentioned role or participate more fully in the permaculture-oceania and the US-based international Permaculture listserv, then perhaps more Permaculture website managers would see it as relevant to link their sites to. An organisation has to have a substantial presence to acquire credibility.

Recreate an interactive, lively networking media

Permaculture is 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, 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 of the online type, yet that excludes those without Internet access. This was the dilemma that faced PIL 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 listserv, started in 2001, is an email-based discussion space made possible by the cooperation of Cameron Little at UNSW Ecoliving Centre. It has proven successful in fostering communication among permaculturists in Australia and a few overseas participants. Traffic is sufficient to maintain the daily flow of communications, to ask and answer questions, to raise issues, notify events and to follow a discussion string for its duration. The listserv represents a community of interest, geographically diverse it may be, and was about the only thing tying Permaculture together when it was established.

The Planet, the member's journal of Permaculture International, will never become a scholarly or learned journal although I had hopes when I started it that it would take a form analogous to an industry journal in which pithy issues could be discussed. It has now 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 seen by some to be a publication of this type, however it ceased publication in the 1990s.

This leaves Permaculture with no space for cultivating the intellectual garden, no scholarly journal or website where such material can be placed, 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. In this respect and desite 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, this proposed website would serve as a first-port-of-call for the design system in Australia and would, completely or partially, take over the originally-planned role of PIL's website. Whether PIL would maintain a much-reduced site just for members is unclear. There was also the suggestion that the proposed site set up a listserver to take over from permaculture-oceania, however the rationale of destroying or duplicating something that works well was not explored.

The conversation raised the idea that a CMS (Content Management System - a type of software that allows participants to post their own content directly to a website) be adopted. This is a good idea as people in different places or following different themes could post their own material. Decisions about who could post on what subjects and whether there would be an editorial policy to approve postings would have to be addressed. The online conversation disclosed that there were technical people with the ability to set up a Permaculture CMS who were willing to act, however programming is only one aspect of website development - decisions on content and those pertaining to editorial policy are more important if the website is to be regarded as a credible source of information.

Whatever networking media are developed in future, they will probably be online. Information must flow between the nodes of the network rather than in and out of a core space that exercises editorial control. Content must be the creation of the participants. This the true spirit of the Internet.

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, 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, 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 decision making and group processes led by Maria McGuire from Unfolding Futures, we had to extend the training to in excess of 105 hours. It was worth it because students used the techniques in their working lives.

A defensiveness in the face of questioning that has occasionally been in evidence 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. Mollison emphasised doing over talking though what he was warning against was becoming bogged down in excessive analysis. 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 overseas aid 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 action based on learning. Adoption of the action learning approach and its propagation through Permaculture training would benefit the movement.

Incorporate aesthetics in the design of gardens and landscapes

There have been three incidents that I know of in which the appearance of gardens has reflected badly on Permaculture. All have been community gardens, two of which directly link themselves to Permaculture while Permaculture people were active in the other.

In one case it was the use of old carpet as weed barrier that upset non-Permaculture gardeners. They thought it detracted from the presentation of the community garden and would make the public think poorly of it. That was a real consideration, given that the garden was on council land and public complaints to council could have resulted in council intervention and discouraged council from further support for community gardens. That did not happen, but the incident did colour the gardener's attitude to Permaculture.

The problem in the other cases was recycled materials scattered about the garden or stored untidily. All the complaints were about the appearance rather than the productivity of the garden. Melbourne community garden trainer, Basil Natoli, said that he makes use of new materials and discourages the storage of recycleable materials on-site because of aesthetic reasons.

Permaculturists know that appearance - aesthetics, the look of a garden (or any other) site - does not necessarily affect the performance of the garden, however we are dealing with people's perceptions, and they count. How the public perceives Permaculture determines whether it is acceptable or not.

Another consideration is site safety. Where materials awaiting use are to be stored they are best stacked in a stable, orderly manner so that they are unlikely to move and fall or trip people. There is more potential for mishap on an untidy site than on one in good order.

Perceptions of untidiness operate in home gardens too. Permaculturists will be familiar with comments that Permaculture-designed gardens are 'untidy'. Usually, this reflects a lack of understanding about the value of interplanting different plant species and differing expectations of what gardens should look like. Russians in a Sydney community garden who tend to plant in orderly rows, for example, think the allotments of Asian gardeners are untidy.

Aesthetics has never been a big consideration in Permaculture design, and in the home garden it does not matter. Where the project is in public view, however, designers must consider that people's thoughts about the design will be based on how it looks. Aesthetics does count because it influences the public perception of Permaculture design.

Bill Mollison (left) with author, Nimbin, 1997