A 20-year journey as a student of Geoff Lawton.
“You can only change things within yourself first, and then you can only change things locally. Things only ever change on a local level – Geoff Lawton, Costa Rica, 1996”
My Permaculture story starts with Geoff Lawton at a Permaculture Design Course (PDC ) while I was traveling in Guatemala in the mid-1990’s. I was a disillusioned recent graduate of Industrial Engineering, and it seemed our design priorities were mass production, maximized revenue and minimized labor requirements, with no consideration of natural capital. I took a trip to find my old friend Sean Herndon who had been living in Guatemala. He had heard of a visiting teacher from Australia, and together we sat in on the course that would change my life.
Ronnie Lec was managing the site on the banks of Lake Atitlan, and the course was attended by a group of teachers and town-leaders from around this mountainous region. I learned the history of the indigenous people who traditionally bore the brunt of unequal land tenure during the prior decades of social unrest. I learned how Permaculture is a design science that offers pathways to both sustainable ecological systems and equitable society based on its defining ethics: care of earth, care of people, return of surplus.
After the PDC in Guatemala, I joined Geoff on two more trips – one to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota for a course with the Lakota, and next to his design consultation for Diane Firestone at her farm, Finca La Isla del Cielo, near the town of Dominical, Costa Rica. That was the initial Permaculture installation in what has become the Firestone Center for Restoration Ecology at Pitzer College, established in March 2005 through Firestone’s generous gift of her stunningly beautiful farm. Ms. Firestone dedicated over a decade of effort to bring the farm, once an overused and depleted cattle ranch, to its current state of natural restoration.
We carried that momentum into a 5-year consultancy for the US Army with the goal of finding a commercial reuse for the 15,000-acre deactivated Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant. The foundation for the reuse approach was a combination of industrial ecology and permaculture. Industrial ecology is a permaculture approach to an industrial ecosystem. It applies ecosystem thinking in an attempt to link waste streams from one process as feedstock for another – thus minimizing and ideally eliminating all waste through its conversion to beneficial use.
During our five years at the northern Louisiana site we hosted two Permaculture Design Courses, a Bill Mollison workshop, and a variety of public events. We also implemented a design strategy, which included a broad master plan, as well as the framework for a Permaculture Education and Demonstration Center at the main administrative area. Our regional design strategy resulted in two major tenants; a furniture fabricator that utilized waste wood, and a large-scale vermicomposting company that diverted a steady stream of horse manure from the Louisiana Downs racetrack.
My journey has since taken me to Vermont, where I formed Bright Blue EcoMedia with a small group of inspired folks. Our goal to tell stories of transition has led to the production of seven films over the past five years and three Emmy Awards. These films are rooted in ecological design and Permaculture. Geoff visited us in Vermont last year and I was able to record a podcast where I was once again inspired, as I had been 20 years ago….
“Permaculture – It’s now a generic term globally – It’s right there for you…the wonderful journey is ready – And it’s going to be one hell of a journey – Geoff Lawton, Vermont, 2014”
So, now is the perfect time for our next venture.
PODCAST – https://bordertownonline.com/wip-june2015/podcast/podcast.html
We are turning our attention to regional design and action. We are collaborating with the University of Vermont Gund Institute for Ecological Economics and The Ecological Design Collaborative to conduct a three-month regional design/research project where we will apply the principles of Permaculture to regional design. We have also assembled a group of some of Vermont’s leading designers to conduct a two-week Permaculture Design Workshop on August 9-21st, which will focus on applying the Permaculture principles to regional design. Part of this PDC includes a one-day regional Design Workshop on August 18th with some of Vermont’s leading innovators in Permaculture, whole systems management and new economies. This workshop is following guidelines expressed by The Next Systems Project, “an ambitious multi-year initiative aimed at thinking boldly about what is required to deal with the systemic challenges the United States faces now and in coming decades”.
We hope you’ll join us and become part of the change.
