[Pil-pc-oceania] "Australian" Permaculture Convergence?

[RussGrayson]

I don't think anyone is criticising the APC9 organisers, merely that the
naming of permaculture conferences brings up the Second Ethic idea of
permaculture people wanting to be fair and inclusive.

The New Zealanders, of course, can organise national events all by
themselves, as has been proven way back to - what was it? - the third
international convergence? As Robyn mentions, Asian-Pacificans are different
and not capable of organising a conference of the type under discussion due
to the reasons she mentions.

> APC-7 sponsored places for Maori, Aboriginal and Solomon Island participants.
> Since then there¹s been a lot happening SE Asia, and in particular Indonesia
> and East Timor, our nearest Asian neighbours, plus all the work in Cambodia,
> Vietnam etc....

Too true Robyn... like coups and conflict and instabiliity in the Solomons.
As I mentioned some days ago, the Solomon Islanders that attended the 1997
conference at Robyn's Nimbin establishment benefited from it. Simply being
there and talking to other people was a positive outcome.

In a globalised world we want to expose people to the best of Western
civilisation and its values - our heritage of science, justice, innovation,
education and democracy and other good things - and I really believe that
the intentions, ideas and works of permaculture people can do this quite
well. 

Permaculture people don't do this through some lofty,
quasi-intellectual/academic framework, as the above list might seem to
suggest, but through their everyday attitudes, actions and speech... by what
they do and how they behave. They're not perfect, but so what? They try,
they disagree (and, hopefully, agree to disagree rather than brawling and
fractionalising like the Left and Right), they also agree on the broad
points at least. 

It might be something that after 30 years (next year, measured from the
publication of Permaculture One) there are no real factions splitting
permaculture apart... disagreemeents, maybe, but disagreements rationally
discussed (like the PPP proposal) thanks to this Permaculture International
listserv aand other communications media available to us.

Just an odd thought.

...Russ Grayson




On 21/11/07 1:51 PM, "Robyn Francis" <robyn at permaculture.com.au> wrote:

> Thanks Penny, and please don¹t take my former post as a criticism of the
> wonderful job PN is doing for this convergence.

> A bit of background ­ at IPC6 in WA there was a request from the handful of
> NZ and Asian delegates that the APC¹s be more inclusive of the wider
> geographic region to include SE Asia, Pacific and NZ, and to reflect that
> inclusiveness in the name. There was quite a discussion about this at the
> convergence in Bridgetown. While there is more of a national network in NZ,
> our pc colleagues in the Asia-Pacific are more isolated and don¹t have the
> numbers for major national meetings. It was also noted that there is common
> ground with biomes from tropic to temperate (which ozzies need to deal with
> anyway on a national level), there are strong political, cultural and
> organisational ties throughout the region and strong pc links to build on.
> 
> APC-7 sponsored places for Maori, Aboriginal and Solomon Island
> participants. Since then there¹s been a lot happening SE Asia, and in
> particular Indonesia and East Timor, our nearest Asian neighbours, plus all
> the work in Cambodia, Vietnam etc....
> 
> To maintain the familiar APC acronym and keep it simple we sort of fudged
> the lines of pedantic global bio-geographic definitions by calling the 1997
> convergence AustralAsian (with a big A Asian).
> 
> Would like to write more but have too much on at present ­ keep the
> discussion going...
> Ciao
> Robyn
>  
> 
> On 21/11/07 11:04 AM, "penny pyett" <pennypyett at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Dear Robyn and others, you are quite right, names and wording are important
>> in
>> ensuring the inclusiveness of people, in this case our neighbours, in the
>> naming of and invitations to APC9.  Words say and mean something. They make
>> important political statements that are psychologically embedded in people¹s
>> minds and can affect attitudes and behavior.
>>  I can assure you there was no intention not to include our neighbours or
>> exclude anyone.  It was an error on our part but one we are able to easily
>> rectify in our APC9 registration forms and other documents, if we can get
>> some
>> consensus on the issue.
>>  Instead, PN should be best judged for what we have done on the ground to
>> encourage participation and inclusiveness of our neighbours and
>> ³disadvantaged². One of our members went to the recent Eco-show in NZ where
>> she personally spoke to permaculturalists and hand distributed many APC9
>> flyers of invitation. I have made several phone calls to NZ permaculture
>> people, we have invited NZ guest speakers and we continue to distribute news
>> and information to our N Z colleagues. We have heard that there will probably
>> be the biggest contingent of New Zealanders coming to a national convergence
>> to date. PN is also sponsoring two Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islanders to
>> APC9 and we are always looking for ways to open doors, encourage
>> participation, be inclusive and enable access. We are able to put our money
>> where our mouth is and do some of these things for three reasons, one,
>> because
>> we have a strong permaculture group structure, two, because we have the will
>> and three, because we fund raise. What are other Permaculture Groups doing?
>>  We have checked the proceedings of IPC7 and find no reference of using
>> ³Australasia² instead or Australia at all. Perhaps it was another event?
>> Until
>> we get a common agreement on this issue, I think we will continue to call it
>> Australian as others have done in the past and for the reasons Graeme has
>> pointed out that NZ and others have their own National convergences. I would
>> particularly like to know the views of our NZ and pacific island neighbours
>> before assuming it is ok with them to be included in the title or if they
>> don¹t care or are happy to continue to have their own.  To date no-one has
>> complained.
>>  So what¹s it to be Australia, Australia-Pacific, Australasia,
>> Australasia-Pacific? What does everyone else think????? Perhaps this issue
>> could be re-visited and go on the agenda for a vote at APC9?
>> Penny
>> 
>>  PS. If there is anything else you think we should know about could the
>> elders
>> of Permaculture with the movement¹s memory please advise us (before hand if
>> possible).
>>  
>> 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.
>> 
>> 
>> Find it at www.seek.com.au Your Future Starts Here. Dream it? Then be it!
>> 
<http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fninemsn%2Eseek%2Ecom%2Eau%2F>>
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