[Pil-pc-oceania] 2020 Reflections

[RussGrayson]

Thanks David, for your thoughs below.

On 12/4/08 6:22 PM, "ds at holmgren.com.au" <ds at holmgren.com.au> wrote:

> Following APC9 there has been much discussion on the listserve about
> the divergent opportunities for permaculture activism in Australia
> including comments about the absence of permaculture from the Rudd
> government's 2020 forum. I did (briefly) consider applying to join
> the 2020 forum but was so disgusted with the way the questions were
> framed 

Well, we tried through Sydney Food Fairness Alliance
(www.sydneyfoodfairness.org.au) as we still have to eat in 2020. We wanted
to get to 2020, but to no avail. Prof Francis Parker, the research authority
on Sydney urban agriculture, from UWS, was to carry the Alliance's message.

> 
> In comparing the absence of ASPO and Permaculture, ASPO
> http://www.aspo-australia.org.au/ is a relatively new organisation that has
> focused a lot on media and public policy (ie predominantly top down
> information and change) The number and quality of submissions to the Senate
> inquiry into Future Fuel Security in Australia is an example of ASPO's action.
> It has contributed to the fact that all Australian politician cannot deny
> knowing about the evidence for imminent peak oil and the absence of any
> serious planning. On the other hand ASPO is a small organisation with not much
> influence or history. Maybe it could easily be ignored by the 2020 gate
> keepers.

Or is it simply ignorance by 2020 organisers and the prevalence of their
particular worldview that has become stuck in their heads like sand in the
cogs of an old machine?

> ... imagining the perspective of the 2020 gatekeepers, permaculture lacks a
> coherent voice or a focus on public policy. Even allowing for these
> limitations, its amazing that permaculture's 30 year track record as a
> positive future focused movement, with a brand identity in Australia that
> makes it almost a household word, that its not represented at 2020. Perhaps
> that reflects the baggage and negatives that some people associate with
> permaculture and our own assumption that we are not part of mainstream society
> and therefore would not bother to be part of it.

David, I think that we in permaculture don't speak enough of its 30 year
record. I find that people coming into the design system know nothing of its
past. 

Even here in Sydney, I find new permaculture people lack the knowledge of
permaculture in this city as it existed in even the recent past, despite
that being an active presence that achieved much. People say... "We're going
to do this-and-that", and I say, "oh, like the this-and-that that existed in
the late 1980s/1990s?". I'm not trying to be smart but to find out if they
know that much of what is promised has precedent. Nor am I trying to
discourage, just the opposite. Reinvention has its place and time, and that
time, in this city, is now.

> Just some thoughts without any particular agenda about what "we"
> should do other than to say that I feel the new energy behind PIL
> that emerged at APC9 suggests the possibility of an organisation
> emerging  that could speak in some sort of representative way at the
> national level through position papers, policies and media releases
> that speak the language of government.

Here we come back to that idea of some years ago of a permaculture
think-tank to deliberate and issue position papers.

I mentioned in an earlier response today, to a letter from Janet Millington,
that I was compiling a booklet on water options derived from lists made at
APC9. Water solutions, even innovative types favoured by permaculture, are
already fairly widely known so I am not sure whether there will be much that
is new in this document. Consequently, my question is whether the document
should be reformatted as a position paper, something that I think Janet was
getting at?

I suspect this would be achievable were permaculture thinkers and innovators
prepared to seriously approach the challenge of producing content for a
position paper. This is something that can be done online but that requires
a serious dedication to drive and participate in it. Why? Because this would
be a public document in some ways representative of permaculture. It would
affect how people think about us, so it would have to be achievable and
credible in its theories and proposed solutions.

Let's consider this JOB AD...

WANTED: Smart person/people to drive an exciting new water ideas project.

The product will prove influential in permaculture and public spheres.

QUALIFICATIONS:
Persistience - the successful applicant will have to drive this project to
completion within reasonable time.

Diplomacy - the successful applicant will have to negotiate tactfully with
information producers/documenters to ensure timely delivery of accurate,
adequate and credible copy.

Street smart - the successful applicant will need the ability to identify
hype, wishful and magical thinking so as to delete them from copy.

REMUNERATION:
None of the physical kind, only the considerable satisfaction of knowing you
have done a good and worthwhile job.

You will be named in the book, however, bringing some level of recognition
as befitting those who do good works.

HOW TO APPLY:
Do that pubicly, to this email list and forward to Permaculture
international Ltd as well.

CLOSING DATE:
Let's get going.


That's it for the job ad, but now another random thought...

Is this an activity for a subgroup of PIL? That way, it would help to
recreate PIL based on the energy to do so apparent at APC9. It would become
a tanginble symbol of PIL's new direction in the new world we find ourselves
inhabiting. 

Is there anyone willing to lead and drive this project? If so, speak up;
silence achieves little but obscurity.

> It seem odd to me that I came away with more confidence about these
> possibilities when APC9, for all its fantastic aspects (many thanks to all
> those involved), did not appear to produce any concrete outcomes, even when
> and where the next event would be.

I think that will come with time. Adelaide is nice in the winter.

...Russ Grayson