[Pil-pc-oceania] Future Directions

[Champagne]

Thanks for the discussion on this, its so timely.

Could PIL restructure into Permaculture Australia and include a 2-tiered 
membership? One for professionals such as designers, tutors, APT folk 
and another for anyone else.I've always seen the benefit of PIL as a 
guild for those in the industry, thats fine, but what about the rest? 
Those who complete courses and those with a general interest. The lesser 
membership fees may be able to pay someone to put a regular newsletter 
together to network a whole national membership.

Russ asks the question, whats the big picture.... whats the vision? For 
mine, its 1- household self-reliance;
2- community activism; 3- bioregional development; 4- national alliance 
and 5- global co-operation.The pattern of the five zones we all 
understand on the landscape, mimicked at the social level.How do we 
elect leaders was another question. From within strong bioregions its an 
organic process. Bob Phelps from Genethics signs off his e-mails with 
the lovely quote -" if the followers will lead, the leaders will follow'.

Its interesting, isnt (re) localisation just modern jargon for 
bioregionalism? Permaculture was instrumental for initiating 
bioregionalism understanding to Australia in the 1990s but for whatever 
reason, it died as a cohesive entity. Bioregions continued to develop at 
local levels and maybe one of the roles of a Permaculture Australia 
could be to facilitate gatherings and through them, influence at a 
national level.

I agree with Penny, this issue needs to be high on the agenda for APC9 
in Sydney. Before that though,I feel we need solid discussion papers 
fleshing out all possible options.

kind regards
John Champagne
Mumbulla Bioregion.