[Pil-pc-oceania] Fwd: IPC8 in Brazil - Some personal highlights - 1. Think-tanks

[Rosemary Morrow]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Rosemary Morrow <rowe at lisp.com.au>
> Date: 25 August 2007 6:02:23 PM
> To: pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org
> Subject: Re: IPC8 in Brazil - Some personal highlights - 1. Think- 
> tanks
>
>
> Hello Everyone:
>
> I wonder if it would be relevant for me to write a few paragraphs  
> each week about the actions and ideas from IPC8 which I found  
> particularly interesting.  I'm giving you a taste with the  
> following and will not continue if you feel it's not for you or not  
> appropriate.  I'm going to keep them short and will enter into  
> longer discussions with anyone who wishes to contact me on my  
> email.    But I hope they will provoke some discussion amongst us all.
>
> Warmly,
>
> Rowe
>
> 1.    A PERMACULTURE THINK TANK
>
> In preparation for IPC8 Scandinavian permaculturists,  primarily  
> teachers, from Norway, Sweden and Denmark  held a live-in weekend  
> in March this year to discuss what they thought were the issues of  
> most importance to them, and to bring that thinking as papers,  to  
> Brazil.   They seemed to be the only group at the conference which  
> concentrated on climate change and what it would mean for their  
> countries and, they also looked at early permaculture ideas to see  
> how they had weathered  and where they felt they should be going  
> with permaculture in the future.
>
> They brought papers to hand out,  but didn't present them in  
> sessions and this is a summary of their ideas.  I've added some  
> information given to me in informal chats by Tony Andersen, one of  
> the permaculture 'elders' who is weathering extremely well well  
> with good food and whisky. I have them as computer documents and  
> could send the full manuscripts to anyone who requests them. They  
> were prompted by the following:
>
> “In 1984 Bill Mollison said that permaculturists had ten years to  
> make a difference. This was Plan A. Given the stunning decline of  
> the planet’s ecological equilibrium in the last few years most  
> would consider it ludicrous to suggest that we have. However there  
> are more than a few who feel strongly that perhaps we may claim to  
> have set the stage to make a difference.”
> – Ali Sharif, www.ipc8.org, Director’s Blog, 2006.
>
> They looked at Bill Mollison's Plan A and then a Plan B in terms of  
> the rate of  environmental deterioration.   Plan A they felt was  
> now out of date and that Plan B needed to be implemented as fast as  
> possible.    Plan B focusses on working together and locally in  
> powerful ways.  Plan B stresses the urgent need for repair and  
> regeneration not simply of conservation present systems.   It is  
> almost a fourth ethic - repair, renew, regenerate water, soils,  
> food and energy, now.   The Nordic group focussed on the Oeresund  
> region.
>
> Plan B they state is for permaculture as conditions became more  
> critical - for whatever reasons, drought, peak oil, climate change  
> - choose your disaster.   Plan B entails consciously targetting  
> neighbourhoods and groups as the units of strength, not  
> individuals,  and then through permaculture design work on the  
> issues.   This has implications for courses and how we teach  
> them.   It centres in on localisation (call it bioregionalism  
> perhaps) and direct action through groups.  Perhaps the climate  
> change groups being formed in many places in Australia are vehicles  
> for this.  Restitution of landscape is fundamental.
>
> I took this idea a bit further.   It occurred to me that eco- 
> centres and eco-villages could focus as local centres of knowledge  
> and skills.   For example, they do not need to have the seedbank  
> but they need to know where the local seeds, and other such  
> critical information and skills, can be found.  They would function  
> as emergency centres in the case of disasters.
>
> Tony told me that in Scandinavia, the Danes, in particular are  
> looking at floating villages, perhaps boat villages with floating  
> gardens and, tall buildings plugged deeply into bedrock as the  
> other main living units for their populations.
>
> Also, in their "10,000 trees paper,  they propose that the 10,000  
> trees planted per person message is primarily for coastal areas  
> which are likely to be inundated permanently, however they also see  
> it as a global strategy - see the last  edition of the Permaculture  
> Activist on climate change..    Huge littoral forests would be  
> planted to mitigate the force of wind and waves breaking over  
> coastal lowlands.
>
> This is a type of disaster planning which is pro-active for a  
> defined region and not difficult to implement..
>
> Some of these ideas are to be taken to the European Community and  
> to the UN where Tony will make representation next year.
>
> Importance of Think Tanks:
> 1.    Local permaculture Think-tanks look at the bigger regional   
> picture and permaculture theory and practice to see how it meets  
> future needs,  and then develops plans that can be put to local,  
> state or federal governments.    It would be good if each state or  
> regional could do this for IPC9.   Is it possible?   Who are our  
> thinkers?
> 2.    They come  with ideas for special treatment of areas such as  
> low coastal zones.   For example,  I  realised that every country,  
> not land-bound  needs  littoral permaculture plans, as we need the  
> riverine plans and this should be part of our permaculture thinking  
> and, of course,  it is just as important as water harvesting on a  
> huge scale in dry or drought areas.  The mass movement of people  
> from their homes should i think be avoided as much as possible.
>
>
> What do you think?
> 1.    Should we hold think tanks and then present the results at APC9?
> 2.    What are the  local regions Australia of Australia and the  
> south Pacific which would need regional permaculture plans - and if  
> restoration is to start - what should it be?
> 3.    Where do we feed in our findings?
> 4.    How does this information affect our teaching curriculum?
>
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