[Pil-pc-oceania] Ian Lillington's letter on Permaculture Directions and PIL

[pacific-edge]

On 7/6/07 8:09 PM, "Ian Lillington" <livpermaculture at internode.on.net>
wrote:

> Great discussion.

> 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?)

We've inherited this word from the people doing it in the UK. Maybe we need
another word, maybe we don't. I don't know. Any ideas anyone?

I guess the 're ' in relocalisation is an allusion to the times a few
generations back when the culture really was localised. ie. before a
national highway system, cheap airfares, cheap oil and rapid train transport
made delocalisation posssible.

> 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.

Too true Ian. I encounter this during council sustainable living/gardening
courses. People (a pleasantly surprising number - perhaps a quarter of the
participants at best) have heard of Permaculture, though what it is they are
less sure of. But what they can see the common sense of is making more
viable our local economies and a local approach to finding solutions. I
suggest that it is this latter point that is behind the emergence of the
regional climate change action groups we see around us.

I read into what you say that people in your district are eager to do
something positive, and this is what I find in the Eastern Suburbs. The
level of self-motivation with some individuals is something that surprises
me. I wonder why people who have made sometimes substantial initiatives to
make their households more sustainable (usually, that means lighting, water
tank, the three R's, personal behaviour such as thoughtful purchasing,
organic food sometimes, less time in the shower [that's a big challenge]
and, if they have gardens, using compost, mulch and those things familiar to
us). 

But what I have come to realise is that it is these people who are hungry
for new ideas. They have found motivation and enthusiasm and a sense of
power from doing what they see as the appropriate thing. They want to
connect with others who are also on that path or about to step out on to it.
 
> 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.

Localism has the potential to create that thing that social researcher, Hugh
Mackay, has discovered in his research. And what is it that people told him
they would like to see? He calls it the return of the 'village green'. That
is, a shared place where people can meet on equal terms and discuss what
interests them. 

This brings us back to the literary exploration of that idea in Ray
Oldenberg's book 'Great Good Places'. Reading that book, you come to realise
that this is why community gardens work - not just as places to grow food,
but as places that fulfill Mackay's village green scenario. And it is this
urge to congregate (what Mackay calls the 'herding instinct') that has led
me to prattle on about deliberative democracy as a tool for equitable
participation rather than the all too common managerialism and heirarchical
organisational structures. That's why I see that concept as a tool for
Permacuture that could well be written into the Permaculture principles as
yet another principle.

Yes, you're right Ian. Let's keep those valuable things - those values -
that Bill Mollison and David Holmgren have gifted to us - Permaculture's
ethics, principles and reliable techniques. Let's carry them forward and
enact them where and how we can, no matter how modestly... whether that be
in improved governance of community-based Permaculture associations or in
our work with other organisations. And let us not be afraid of our
imperfection in doing this, nor be discouraged by our failures. It is in
this way that we can reach out to the people in other organisations and,
through them, into their networks and show them that... yes... there is
another way, that Permaculture can be applied at many levels and in the most
unlikely of places. Let our ideas and actions show them that, just as
environmentalism does not belong to environmentalists alone - that the idea
is a public idea free to anyone who would seek to practice it - so too is
this thing called Permaculture. Let us then heed those words of wisdom
someone wrote on this listserv when they quoted that great champion of
India's independence, Mahatma Ghandi... and be the change we want to see.

> 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)

Thanks for your words of encouragement and your example down there in
Castlemaine, and for sharing your newsletter with us in your earlier post.
And so, too, to the others who share their newsletters - Permaculture
Central Coast, the permies on the NSW/Victoria border - and those who
discuss, argue and support each other through this, the listserv that PIL
kindly provides for our conversations. For this... this ongoing conversation
without spoken words... shows us without any doubt that even in this
post-PIJ era there still exists nationwide a body of like-minded people
acting in their areas, in their different ways, not always in agreement with
each other yet bound by that bigger agreement with the ethics and principles
(and what else, tell me, constitutes the core of the design system?) of
Permaculture though their work does not always bear the 'Permaculture'
label. It is on the design system's practicality, its ethics of
sustainability and fairness and our personal attitudes, as we demonstrate
them publicly, that the future of Permaculture depends.

...Russ Grayson - late on a windy, rainy night in Sydney after cleaning up
last night's wind-felled pawpaw and banana trees

> Ian L