[Pil-pc-oceania] PCC newsletter/Permaculture Directions and PIL

[Ian Lillington]

Great discussion.

Penny, did your original article get on this list, or just the recent
analysis of parts of it?

We need some centralised and some de-centralised approaches.  we certainly
need a lot of them.  I have just posted our weekly news letter from the
localisation group (can we re-localise if we never were local?) and there is
so much interest here (Central Vic), that is thought -provoking.  Many
people who have a vague understanding of permaculture have a better
[intuitive] understanding of localisation and its importance.

So we need to build on the intuition that local is right, and keep good
things from permaculture, including ethics, principles and reliable
techniques of earth care and people care.  With permaculture we are sure to
think globally.  With (re) localisation, we think and act locally and build
alliances with other like-minded groups and individuals.  This is certainly
the castlemaine experience, and it took us to front page of The Age (link in
other mailing)

Ian L



-----Original Message-----
From: pil-pc-oceania-bounces at lists.permacultureinternational.org
[mailto:pil-pc-oceania-bounces at lists.permacultureinternational.org]On
Behalf Of penny pyett
Sent: Thursday, 7 June 2007 10:44 AM
To: pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org
Subject: Re: [Pil-pc-oceania] PCC newsletter/Permaculture Directions and
PIL


Amongst Russ many good points that I dont have time to comment on, he
makes one serious error that I must rebut. He accuses me of favouring
centralisation, and nothing could be further from the truth.  He seizes on
that word, which does appear in the summary he has read but is not a word I
used in my talk.  Being structured, coordinated and organised  yes, that is
important; I said so and I stand by that.  But central control is
antithetical to permaculture ideals and I do not know of anyone who supports
such a notion.  So this is a diversion from the important debates we should
be having about how precisely to get organised in democratic and effective
ways.

Permaculture North (PN) in Sydney is making the effort: our re-localisation
plan has seen local groups spawned from our bioregional group (of 260
members) to match local government areas. Members of these groups retain PN
membership but act locally on issues of concern to them. At another level,
PN is supporting the Sydney Basin Group, which provides a forum for
co-ordination, cooperation and support for other permaculture groups and
individuals throughout Sydney. It is not a centralising body.

I agree that there are a number of organisations that provide helpful models
for us and I thank Russ for his ideas. Tims analogy is also wonderful and I
think these issues should be high on the agenda for APC9 next March.


Penny Pyett President 2007
Permaculture North Inc.
(02) 9888 2575 or 1300 887 145
"mail to: president at permaculturenorth.org.au"

Sharing sustainable solutions with communities.




>From: "timwinton" <timwinton at internode.on.net>
>Reply-To: permacultue discussion
>list<pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org>
>To: "permacultue discussion
>list"<pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org>
>Subject: Re: [Pil-pc-oceania] PCC newsletter/Permaculture Directions and
>PIL
>Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 12:46:01 +1000
>
>I heard a story recently about some research that indicated fungal networks
>in woodland areas of Africa could communicate in complex ways over large
>areas. The study claimed that interconnected fungi alerted groves of trees
>about the presence of browsing elephants in distant stands. The trees would
>then emit bitter compounds into their leaves making them unpalatable before
>the elephants got there. Fungal networks have no identifiable center, but
>occasionally they become visible as fruiting bodies. This may be a model
>for
>permaculture as a 'linking' discipline- loose networks working mostly
>autonomously that can communicate effectively and periodically coordinate
>for major activities.
>
>PIL has been through a major transformation in the last few years from an
>organization with a physical publication and a physical office to a virtual
>organization based on a web site, listserve and some core permaculture
>functions. The board has recently made a decision to commit some energy to
>networking and communication among regional pc groups. We are essentially
>using the Community Gardens network approach. The idea is to improve basic
>networking and communication functions between groups and members without
>seeking to become an exclusive center. Historically it has been a major
>node
>in the network and now that it has been restructured we intend to offer up
>that possibility again.
>
>If you would like to assist with the networking and communications
>subcommittee please email me off list.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Tim
>
>--
>Tim Winton
>Director
>Permaculture International Limited
>
>
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "pacific-edge" <info at pacific-edge.info>
>To: "Vicky Gear" <vickyg at aapt.net.au>; "pil"
><pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 12:06 PM
>Subject: Re: [Pil-pc-oceania] PCC newsletter
>
>
>On 4/6/07 4:25 PM, "Vicky Gear" <vickyg at aapt.net.au> wrote:
>
> > Hi All
> > Here is the latest PCC newsletter, as you will see we have been out and
> > about
> > spreading the permie word.
>
>Permaculture Central coast's newsletter - The Permie - is always a pleasure
>to receive because the editor and designer pay attention to useability -
>the
>editing of stories and design and layout that makes reading easy.
>
>Reading the lead story in the latest issue, 'Getting Organised' - Volume 1
>Issue 8 June 2007 - was to experience a bout of deja vu because it revisits
>a discussion that has surfaced repeatedly within Permaculture. That is,
>whether Permaculture works best as a centralised or decentralised movement.
>It's a dilemma that has reappeared at Permaculture convergences over the
>years and it's obviously one that still has plenty of currency.
>
>The story in The Permie reports an address by Permaculture North president,
>Penny Pyett, in which Penny is reported as urging the movement to become
>more organised. I have no general disagreement with what Penny writes. As
>someone who has sometimes felt frustrated by the invisibility of
>Permaculture in public fora and who has on occasion advocated some level of
>higher organisation, but who fears that something could be lost in doing
>so,
>may I comment on some of Penny's reported ideas?
>
>
>ALTERNATIVE OR MAINSTREAM?
>The article states: "For those with an interest in ensuring Permaculture
>becomes more a mainstream environmental solution rather than an
>Oalternative9 idea... ".
>
>May we make a brief excursion into history?
>
>Permaculture once laboured under the perception that it was a 'hippy'
>activity. Hippies, of course, like the dodo and the Thylacine, disappeared
>long ago but the mythology, as always, lingers, although this particular
>perception of Permaculture I thought had been laid to rest by the late
>1990s.
>
>'Alternative' is not 'hippy' and it is reasonable to view Permaculture in
>its early iteration as an outgrowth of the alternative movement of the
>1970s, the decade of its origin. That should not be surprising as it was
>from that movement that progressive social ideas as well as the environment
>movement came, as did many of Permaculture's early adoptors.
>
>But I'm not sure that it's accurate to refer to the alternative movement as
>if it continues to exist. It was a social phenomenon that grew out of a
>unique period of Australian history and, in my opinion, is now part of
>social history rather than current reality. The movement was the product of
>the boom in youth numbers coming of age in that decade, a cohort that was
>fortunate enough to find itself growing up amidst the opportunities brought
>by the economic growth and affluence of the time and the blossoming of new
>ideas stemming from technological development and social change. Now,
>however, is not then, and I wonder if history has finally broken the link
>between Permaculture and alternative.
>
>But I understand where Penny's coming from, but in place of refering to
>Permaculture as alternative movement, may I propose 'fringe' as a more
>accurate term? I suggest this because theories of idea dissemination posit
>the new and innovative moving from the fringe of society towards the
>mainstream if the ideas have what Martin Gladwell (author, 'The Tipping
>Point') calls 'stickiness'... a property of adherence that comes from the
>idea being attractive, answering some need, making possible the doing of
>something that could not have been done before or allowing us to do
>something better that we already can.
>
>Permculture has not been all that sticky to the mainstream but, propelled
>by
>world events and the changes now taking place, it is becoming more so. In
>part, and especially in the UK, this is because Permaculture has become
>part
>of the relocalisation movement that has arisen as a response to Peak Oil
>and
>global warming. It seems that when Permaculture has a big picture to hang
>from it does better than it does alone.
>
>
>ORGANISED AND STRUCTURED OR DISORGANISED AND SCATTERED?
>The article states: "Penny9s main point was about the need for the
>Permaculture movement to get organised and structured. As Penny so rightly
>explained... the bigger and better organised you are, the more likely you
>will be heard by those who most need to hear".
>
>The idea of a more formal and centralised structure for the movement -
>these
>things would most likely be part of Permculture becoming more "organised
>and
>structured" - has a long and somewhat contentious history. And Penny is
>right - to be heard at the social/institutional/political level, being
>organised helps because you have to be seen as representing a substantial
>body of opinion to be seen as credible. As journalists might ask when
>seeing
>some announcement from an unknown Permaculture organisation: "are they
>representative or is it just two people with a fax machine?'.
>
>To increase the design system's influence among decision makers may involve
>a higher public profile and engaging in public discourse - you have to be
>visible and have a presence. This might present a challenge to some in the
>movement because there has been ambivalence to participating in advocacy.
>
>
>COMPARISION WITH INSTITUTIONS
>The article states: "Some examples of movements that are well organised and
>consequently have a voice in Australia are organisations like The Country
>Women9s Association, The Returned Services League"...
>
>May I suggest that a more useful comparison would be the environment
>movement as its origins lay in the same milieu as Permaculture. The CWA and
>RSL grew out of a different history, one which, especially with the RSL,
>fostered its rapid absorption into society because so many of its members
>had a shared experience.
>
>
>UNCOORDNATED BUT ENTHUSIASTIC VOLUNTEERS
>The article states: "... Permaculture in Australia is not a coordinated
>movement as such, it is in fact many enthusiastic individuals and groups
>Australia wide, all of whom have common goals, but also who have no
>centralised or systematic approach. In fact there is a lack of cohesiveness
>across the permaculture regions, organisations and the movement in general.
>That is, there is no established or supported organisational structure".
>
>Penny is right in her description of Permaculture as made up of
>uncoordinated individuals and groups doing their own thing where they live.
>But doing their own thing can certainly be systematic and coordinated at
>the
>regional/local level... Permaculture South Australia, for instance, has an
>active program of local activity.
>
>I wrote at the start of this commentary that contradictory attitudes
>towards
>centralisation and decentralisation have existed within the Permaculture
>movement. I was swayed towards the idea of a more structured movement when
>someone spoke to me about the way the Bushcare/bush regeneration movement
>quickly structured itself, formulated formal TAFE training and established
>paid positions within local government and in small business. Riding the
>wave of popularity that developed around native plants, and pushing that
>ideological barrow itself, bush regeneration has gained perhaps an
>inordinate level of influence in local government and has caused, on
>occasion, more than a little difficulty for Permaculture in its linking of
>the design system with bushland weeds. Fortunately, that seems to have
>receded in recent years, but the point is the success that the bush
>regeneration movement has achieved through a more formal structure.
>
>Permaculture simulates the training of the bush regeneration experience in
>a
>lesser form through its Permaculture design courses and, now, the
>accredited
>training. It differs in that the design system has not developed the
>advocacy of the bush regenerators nor sought to emulate their role in local
>government. I may be talking mainly about the NSW experience here as I'm
>not
>familiar with the history of bush regeneration as a movement in other
>states. What's important is whether that movement holds any lessons or
>models for Permaculture's ddevelopment.
>
>Critics of a more centralised structure have raised the idea that
>permaculture has, at its core, an approach and methodology founded in
>independent, localised actions. The ideology of bioregionalism that came
>into Permaculture from the USA in the late 1980s certainly pushed this
>strand of thinking and probably continues to influence it.
>
>You can see the validity of both arguments and it gets down to what social
>role and future you see for Permaculture, and that seems to be quite a
>variable thing because Permaculture is, in reality, an alliance of
>organisations that adopt different foci for their activity and of
>individuals with a wide ambit of political, ideological and economic
>allegiences. The various sets of Permaculture principles (Mollison,
>Holmgren, Morrow and my own), while compatible, are variable enough to
>accommodate a broad range of interpretation and application.
>
>This brings us to something that has seldom, if ever, been articulated -
>the
>need for a 'grand narrative' of Permaculture - a cohesive, achievable
>vision
>of what a society influenced by Permaculture would look like. This is a
>difficult thing to do and to claim any such vision as Permaculture's alone
>might be challenged because many of the ideas Permaculture has incorporated
>into its knowledge base are also promoted by other sustainability
>organisations. Some may have originally been adopted from them.
>
>Way back in Permaculture One, the design system was described as a
>'synthesis', and that means that it borrows from others and repurposes
>those
>borrowings or integrates them into a larger scheme. This accounts for the
>substantial overlap between Permaculture and the broad but largely
>unstructured sustainability movement, another entity that is an example of
>Penny's "uncoordinated organisations and individuals" but one with a
>powerful public voice and capable of joint action towards a common goal.
>
>PIL?
>The article states that there exists "no established or supported
>organisational structure" within Permaculture. So much is obviously true
>and, unless the ground of opinion has shifted substantially over recent
>years, I suspect there would be substantial opposition to the
>centralisation
>of Permaculture in Australia. Any attempt to do this would have to answer
>questions about representation and legitimacy.
>
>The objections are predictable: How would a central organisation be
>structured to be democratic and representative? How would Permaculture be
>governed? Who would officially speak for Permaculture? Could others make
>public statements? What would the official Permaculture line on something
>be
>and how would you deal with differences of opinion?
>
>Permaculture International Limited (PIL) is the closest Permaculture has
>come to having a central representative body, but PIL represents only its
>members, not the design systems as a whole. PIL was established in the
>1980s
>to publish Permaculture International Journal. The difficulty is that PIL
>is
>underresourced, which limits its range of activity and what it can offer to
>potential members. Getting paying members has always been a challenge and,
>as far as I know, it still is. Would Australian permaculturists be willing
>to recognise PIL as a peak body representing design system practitioners on
>behalf of the entire movement and giving the design system a national
>voice?
>Would they resource it, through paid memberships, to enable it to carry out
>this mission?
>
>SYDNEY IN PARTICULAR
>The article states: "From a PCC perspective, a more organised structure in
>the Sydney and surrounding region will be of benefit to our membership".
>
>The point about representation and legitimacy stated above applies here,
>too. Because it evolved in an ad hoc manner and because it did not take on
>a
>structure like a franchise operation in which Permaculture practice
>licences
>could be issued (yes, it was discussed), Permaculture has no legal
>structure
>to allow a single entity, including a coalition of Permaculture
>associations, to claim to speak for or represent the entire practice in a
>region. Anyone - any individual or organisation - could set up and claim to
>speak for the design system or simply to position itself as a 'second
>voice'
>in Permaulture with the same legitimacy and any other. Clearly, in the
>worse
>cases, this could lead to dissention and fragmentation.
>
>The Sydney region once had an organisation that provided a high degree of
>networking and shared activity. That was Permaculture Sydney, a group that
>drew membership and participation from all over the metropolitan area
>rather
>than from a defined region within it. It came into existence through Robyn
>Francis in the mid-1980s when it was based at the Permaculture Epicentre.
>Permaculture Sydney was later revived by Ian Mason, Brad Nott and a few of
>us in the early 1990s. Local groups were spawned from Permaculture Sydney -
>Permaculture Inner West, Permaculture South and Permaculture North.
>Towards the end of the decade, permacultures Sydney and North jointly
>developed and shared management of a substantial website which provided
>information on the design system and served as a first point of contact for
>Permaculture in the region.
>
>Rather than a centralised organisation for the Sydney region, why not a
>structure similar to that of the Australian City Farms & Community Gardens
>Network, which, in its different cities, hosts regional networks of
>community gardens and sustanability education centres which come together
>for shared learning and networking. This has proven to be a successful
>structure because it allows the Network to speak as an entity but does not
>restrict local independence. In political terms, is is called federalism.
>The Network is less a peak body than a major node within an extensive
>regional network and, like such nodes, becomes a transit point for
>information flow and a first point of contact.
>
>What about unassociated individuals when it comes to regional coalitions of
>Permaculture associations? There are plenty of individuals not linked with
>any Permaculture group. Last Sunday, at Sydney's green building expo, I was
>speaking with Permaculture activist Sue Mossman who asked where are all
>those Sydney permaculturists that have completed PDCs and other
>Permaculture
>training? As I said to Sue, that's a question we have asked for some time.
>Why have they come back from their courses to fade into the urban
>background? A regional network could establish places for these unattached
>individuals.
>
>Many of those individuals work with Permaculture ethics, principles and
>approaches within other organisations. Immediately, I can think of half a
>dozen and more in the Sydney region. They are not members of Permaculture
>organisations but they act out their Permaculture motivations without
>branding what they do as Permaculture. In fact, if we look right back to
>Permaculture's time of origin, we find Bill Mollison discussing the design
>system as if it were to be used in just this way - ie. by individuals in
>their livelihoods and within other organisations.
>
>Whether Permaculture should be a thing-in-itself or an approach applied
>within other fields of endeavour has been discussed on this listserver in
>the past and I don't think it is seen as a problem. What is Permaculture if
>it is not primarily a set of ethics, a set of principles, an approach to
>action and a way of thinking? These things, I believe, are the core of the
>design system and when acted upon, then Permaculture is being done even
>though the word might not be mentioned. This is not to suggest that the
>design system should not be branded with its own name where prudent and
>possible, for that remains important to maintaining a presence for
>Permaculture in the social marketplace for ideas.
>
>We can seee that the centralised/decentralised argument is a complex one. I
>see value in both arguments. Rather than rushing in to set up a netowrk or
>more formal structure, perhaps a starting point might be to define a shared
>vision for Permaculture in the region, its relationship to instititions,
>it's opportunities and constraints.
>
>...Russ Grayson
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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