[permaculture] Content of posts from an old Permaculture forum - some may be interested in this - goes way back

[Lawrence London]

From Dan Hemenway at Barking Frogs Permaculture Center:

[]

Current News Items  

•  This is the last chance in this decade to download, free, Humid
Landscapes, Pamphlet II of the Permaculture Design Course Pamphlet Series.  On
or about Sept. 15, we will remove Pamphlet II from our website, and replace it
with Pamphlet III, Arid Landscapes, then available to download at no cost. We
have placed these pamphlets in the public domain so that they may be freely
used and distributed after you download them.

•  We have begun registering students for the 8th Annual Permaculture Design
Course Online, which begins Sept. 28, 2003.  The course runs about six months.
For details, download the following from our web site:
- Course Protocol (long)
- Course Reading List
- Course Assignment Schedule
- Course Registration Form
- Course Fee Table

These documents are also available in one download as a preregistration
package.

Late registrations are accepted. Students can begin the course at any point and
take the missed material in the next course cycle.

•  As of July 1, 2003, we offer an "economy" version of The Permaculture
Design Course CD, the CD-ROM that we use in teaching our online course.  The
new version includes our Self-Study CD consists of about 200 teaching "posts",
formerly sent to students as email, and an assortment of support folders. [The
full version also includes more than 30 papers and pamphlets, examples of
standard and full designs, a book, our permaculture directory, and the
opportunity to register as a monitor in our online course at no additional
cost.]

•  Version 2.0 of The Permaculture Design Course CD is available.  It
includes updated and enlarged weekly teacher posts and notes as well as several
outside reading publications now included right on the CD-ROM.  There are two
sub-versions, one for certificate students and the other for monitors and other
self-study students.

•  We have room for two interns at Barking Frogs Permaculture Center.  This
is regarded as "permaculture boot camp."  Interns may take our online course
free to the extent that the course and their internship overlap. Download our
intern FAQs from our web site for details.


•  Version IX.2 of TRIP (The Resources of International Permaculture) is now
available on CD-ROM or as a special order print out.  See our order form for
details. TRIP lists nearly 2,000 organizations worldwide concerned with
sustainable living and of interest to permaculturists.  We designed it to
permit computer searches by keyword, or searches by name, region, or type of
work done.


------------------------------------------------------------------
Barking Frogs Permaculture Center  
 
The protocol for our Annual Permaculture Design Course Online is at        
http://barkingfrogspc.tripod.com/frames.html      
 
Our scheduled 6-month Permaculture Design Courses Online begin March 16 and
Sept. 28, 2003.  Check the above site for details. As of Aug. 1, 2002 the
course is also available on CD.  Check our web site for details or email us at
Barking...@aol.com

A list by topic of all Yankee Permaculture titles also may be found at
http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalog.html  

[]

Apologies to folks who tried to download Permaculture Design Course Pamphlet
II, Permaculture in Humid Landscapes, from our web site.  We have a new web
master who decided to change everything all at once and the result is a mess.
Some of the links on the pages have been restored.  If you fail to get the
information that you are seeking from <A
HREF="http://barkingfrogspc.tripod.com">http://barkingfrogspc.tripod.com</A>,
however, contact me and I will try to send it as an email attachment.  Please
try the web site first, or I won't be able to handle the requests and keep up
with our regular permaculture work!

Besides pamphlet II, the following are commonly requested items.

•  Registration Package for our 6-month Online Permaculture Design Course.
This includes
- Course Protocol (long)
- Course Reading List (incl. prices)
- Course Assignment Schedule
- Course Fee Table
- Course Registration Form

•  Yankee Permaculture Publication List/Order Form

•  Info on The Permaculture Design Course CD-ROM (see also, first, the course
reading list which gives full contents.)

•  Intern FAQs

•  Information on Elfin Permaculture Consulting Services

• Hosting other programs:
-  One day and weekend programs
-  10 day and two week design intensives (not for certification)
-  Live certification courses (minimum three weeks).

Again, I apologize for any inconvenience.  We are working to get things
straightened out.

For Mother Earth


Dan Hemenway
Barking Frogs Permaculture Center

--

Lawrence F. London, Jr.
lfljv...@gmail.com

[Lawrence London]

An unusual collection of posts in a thread. Show how far and wide the practice of Permaculture has gotten

and this was in July, August and September of 2003.

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Greetings all:  I need some advice & assistance from the world
Permacultural Community.

I'm currently negotiating with the Mayor of Pitcairn Island - Steve
Christian - to transform Pitcairn Island (my ancestral homeland) into
the world's first totally 'permaculturally-designed' Island.

Pitcairn is still a British Colony, but the UK basically wants to shut
the Island down (ie. the colony is "not economically viable") & sell
the Pitcairn Islands (Pitcairn, Henderson, Oeno, Ducie) along with
their accompanying 200 nm. exclusive economic zones to the French*
(presumably so that the latter can test nuclear devices on a volcanic
Island rather than an atoll).

One possible way to save the Island & it's unique heritage, would be
to transform it into the only 'holistic-permaculture-nation-state' on
the Planet; not only to make it completely independent of the British
Exchequer, but also to lay the foundations for a limited ecotourism
industry which could possibly enable the Island to become totally
self-sufficient at a relatively comfortable standard of living.

Steve Christian is warm on the idea, but - being one of the most
remote places on earth - "Permaculture", is a complete unknown to the
Island community.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, what I need is some advice on the best way to introduce the key
principles & concepts of Permaculture to the Pitcairn Islander
community.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All & any advice or suggestions on moving this Project (tentatively
titled 'Biosphere3') forward, will be graciously appreciated.

For those unfamiliar with Pitcairn, the following site provides useful
links:
http://www.escapeartist.com/pitcairn/pitcairn.htm


* there are substantial deposits of manganese, iron, copper, gold,
silver, and zinc, which have recently been discovered within the 200
nautical-mile exclusive economic zone surrounding the Pitcairn Islands
(Pitcairn, Henderson, Oeno, Ducie).

cf: 'Convention on Maritime Boundaries between the Government of the
French Republic and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland'

http://www.un.org/Depts/los/LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES/PDFFILES/TREATIES/FRA-GBR1983MB.PDF

[]

Don't Mennonite, Bruderhof and Amish have traditions of land
stewardship and of forming colonies? I think Mennonites have started
quite a few tropical communities, although perhaps in highlands.

Gaviotas is a recent colony in highland Columbia that just might want
to move or split, with recent violence there. They seem like really
neat folk who have done amazing ecological transformations that any
permaculturalist must respect, if not stagger in awe of, if reports
prove true. Alan Weisman wrote about them. I heard one of the Canary
Islands has a tradition of excellent, pre-permaculture gathering and
storing rare rain there, which has transformed the isle.(which might
be Fuerteventura.) I heard it was a rocky, barren low island that
didn't get much rain, and now its full of gardens and people living
their lives. (Some Canary islands are high and catch rain, some are
low and dry.
Maybe also there are refugee communities seeking sanctuary, with whom
Pitcairn
islanders would feel a cultural or empathetic bond with.

Maybe inviting a variety of lifestyle/belief gropus could help
eventually form.
On the other hand, maybe the women of Pitcairn could select from among
a world-full of men through online personals, those that would suit
them and the island's opportunities.
I actually once stumbled across a translated Japanese analysis of
which churches had most successfully colonized Hokkaido, which had,
and has, an indigenous gropu very unrelated to most japanese. This
colonization was actualy not that long ago. Southern Japanese colonist
farmers in Brazil, I have heard, have been very successful and
responsible farmers there. Is this a similar climate?

I'm interested in going to an island for good, but think of Tristan de
Cunha, with its climate more suited to my western european gene set. I
have messed around in small boats every summer as a kid, racing
sailing dinghies in choppy, but swell-less Buzzards Bay in Southern
New England, and crewing with my family aboard my fathers' cruising
sloops. I previously trained in Re-evaluation Counseling, a
peer-to-peer counceling method focusing on recovery form any traumas,
with some great strengths and a few weaknesses, but I'm quite rusty.

What's news?

Brian Cady

[]

Damn clever Japanese. Unfortunately there are no rivers or sizeable
streams on the Islands, so salmon farming is probably not an option.

However, as the Pitcairner's religion - SDA - prohibits the
consumption of many types of seafood (in Seventh Day Adventist
communities, only finfish are consumed, due to religious prohibitions
on the consumption of anything without fins and scales;  so effective
a conservation measure has this prohibition been, that there is great
abundance of invertebrates, especially crustaceans and holothurians
around the Pitcairn Islands)  there would probably be some scope for
limited commercial harvesting within the 200 nautical-mile exclusive
economic zone surrounding the Pitcairn Islands (Pitcairn, Henderson,
Ducie, Oeno & Sandy).

I imagine any deal struck with the Japanese would need to be in accord
with:

'Convention on Maritime Boundaries between the Government of the
French Republic and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland'

http://www.un.org/Depts/los/LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES/PDFFILES/TREATIES/FRA-GBR1983MB.PDF

[Lawrence London]

songbird on Bill Mollison:

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  a co-founder of permaculture.  crusty and very
funny teller of stories, tells it like it is in
his videos (some he rambles and goes off on
tangents and may never come back :) ).  he was not
religious so i will not say RIP, but instead i
hope he was returned to the earth in some way that
he would have liked.

  like anyone who's actually into science and
the ideas behind permaculture he was not ever into
blind followers, instead he always wanted people
to challenge his ideas and find new ways of doing
what needs to be done.

  here are a few quotes from him showing his humor
and attitude:

I confess to a rare problem gynekinetophobia, or the fear of women falling on me but this is a rather mild illness compared with many affluent suburbanites, 

who have developed an almost total zoophobia, or fear of anything that moves. It is, as any traveller can confirm, a complaint best developed in the affluent North American, 

and it seems to be part of blue toilet dyes, air fresheners, lots of paper tissues, and two showers a day.

To create a mess in which we perish by our own inaction makes nonsense of our claim to consciousness and morality.

To accumulate wealth, power or land beyond one's needs in a limited world is to be truly immoral, be it as an individual, an institution, or a nation-state.

Few people today muck around in earth, and when on international flights, I often find I have the only decently dirty fingernails.

Most biologists, (says Vogel, 1981) seem to have heard of the boundary layer, but they have a fuzzy notion that it is a discrete region, rather than the discrete notion that it is a fuzzy region.


  cheers Bill, you rocked,


  songbird

[Lawrence London]

Back to grass roots:

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PC Novice here so really just getting started in this field.. This
> person has hit the nail on the head for me.. I found this to be the
> case here on the web too.
> Another thing I find is that there is a ton of stuff for folks living
> in places they can do this year around and almost zilch for a cold
> climate  newbie permie like myself..
> Not being critical, just a plea for some help and maybe a nudge from
> you big brothers and sisters who have been doing this for years now..
> <my 2 cents> smitty
>
> but when you get involved around the 'net and try to do any research
> all you get is certificates, diplomas, institutes and the call for it
> to be a uni degree and a senior school curriculum. and it all spells
> money and they are not promoting pc as something everyone can do to
> some degree you along with pete and others i hope we can count
> ourselves in as well are out there doing it and untill all that
> factional garbage this group was full of help and ideas going back and
> forth but now that the only thrust is from those chardinay yuppies
> looking for an easy buck.

[]

Permaculture can be as hard or easy as you want it to be. It's more than
just planting food, it's how each element within the whole system
interacts with each other to benefit not only you or me but benefits the
system itself to make it work better and more efficiently.

Some simple examples are using space within or around a chicken coop to
grow not only food for the chickens but food for you which directly
benefits from the chicken "outputs" manure, body warmth, pest control
(careful thought needed there though) etc ... of course the chickens
could be rabbits with a worm farm underneath to use the manure and
convert it to vermicompost or ducks for more reliable snail control (and
slightly safer veggies), but the point is the "system" is built up with
a wholistic plan that integrates any and all those different elements so
that they compliment each other.

The climate of a particular area can be a major factor in deciding what
you can grow or what species of livestock you can keep but its not
really a factor as far as the principles of PC go .... you can create
your own system wherever you live ... each system uses what is available
within the constraints of that climate ... it's a matter of honing the
system to work best for your situation and location.

*The grass is always greener section*
I came from the UK to Australia thinking I could grow anything here ....
not so ... the climatic differences whilst helping some things stop me
from growing things I used to take for granted in the UK, here its as
dry as England was wet, as hot as England was cold .. where I stayed
indoors in England because of the knee deep snow ... now I stay indoors
because its 40 deg C outside and the effect on any plants trying to stay
alive is just as dramatic, here is crunchy dry grass where there was wet
soggy or frozen grass, here is furnace hot drying Northerly winds where
there was freezing 'cutting you to the bone' North winds .... its a
tricky old world
* end of grass is greener section*

Point is ... it will never be wet enough/dry enough/sunny enough/cool
enough wherever we live to do what we all want to do when we want to do
it, the good news is that as far as PC is concerned it really doesn't
matter ...... cos what ya got is exactly what your PC system can use,
how its used depends on how you plan it and that determines how well
each element works within the whole system.

Not sure how many of the regulars are left on the NG, but there used to
be a wealth of experience on here ...prolly still is ... the main thing
to remember is we are all learning all the time ... no matter how long
someone has been using PC, theres always another point of view to
consider or another problem/solution that can be of interest to others.

[]

don't know if this will help but i am writting an essay on how i see
and do perma-c. itis open ended and not finished but there may be some
tips that you could use?

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gardenlen1/permaculture_essay.htm

feel free to contact me by e/mail if you think i can help in some way.

len

snipped
--
happy gardening
'it works for me it could work for you,'

"in the end ya' gotta do what ya' gotta do" but consider others and the environment
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gardenlen1/

[]

Aquaponics:

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Like most people people think aquaponics is hydroponics. It is not.

Aquaponics is a sustainable method of growing food by using waste from
fish to produce a cycle of production.

Benefits :

Uses 10% of the water used for conventional gardening
No need for fertilisers or pesticides,
No soil used
Organic
Food can be produced in abundance

If you are interested then we are trying to expand the knowledge in the
UK and have a website called 'Aquaponics Advice and Products in the
UKadmin' (http://www.aquaponicworld.com). This will give you plenty of
information.

[]

English earthworms:

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I've read that a common worm species found in North America and Europe
(?Lumbricus sp?) has been observed in the UK to practise a curious and
seemingly ecologically beneficial instinct. They pull leaves from atop
forest litter down into their burrows and eat them. I've never seen
this in North America.

"The leaves which are dragged into the burrows as food, after being
torn into the finest shreds, partially digested, and saturated with
the intestinal and urinary secretions, are commingled with much
earth." Charles Darwin:
http://www.webmesh.co.uk/darwinworms7.htm

Is this observed in other worms? Wouldn't this speed soil building,
and arise in worm:worm competition, so be ecosystemically stable, once
present?

I've also heard that the speed of found earthworm movement correlates
inversely with a soil's heavy metal and organophosphate/organohalide
pollutant levels, after a temperature scaling.

I've read also of the Gippsland worm, from near Canberra. I wonder if
such a large worm has greater or lesser benefit or even detriment on
soil health. I guess there are earthworms which eat other earthworms,
as does a planarian accidentally introduced into the Carolina shore
region some dacades ago, which has left soil life desolate in its
unrecognized wake as it colonizes out from its introduction site.

An author friend writing a chapter on earthworm culture served, at a
surprise party, baked worms, which were rather crunchy, and worm/liver
pate, which was earthy in taste, and not unappealing.

Brian Cady