APC Program Schedule Saturday

Registration

APC Opening Address

Change Venue

Welcome to country/smoking ceremony

Morning tea with Roving Icebreakers

Change venue

how permaculture can be useful in this next climate chapter

Presenter: Hannah Moloney

Hannah Maloney is a best-selling author of ‘The Good Life’, a Gardening Australia presenter, and educator and is passionate about community development & building resilience.

Change venue

Queering permaculture: using permaculture design & queer theory to transform a pathway forward

Presenters: Toad Dell and Guy Ritani

Permaculture can be an incredible design methodology to help create equitable systems that care for community and the planet. Alternatively, it can be another tool of eco-colonialism if not implemented meaningfully or with the feedback from diverse communities. Innovation and transformation has always been Queer and Queer theory can help steer permaculture into increasingly diverse, equitable and resilient outcomes. Permaculture has so much to offer in terms of tangible systems design support to Queer communities and Queering the pathways that have been laid before us has never been more important for co-creating systems of abundance, connection and collaboration for all.

This workshop will cover

• The basics of Queer Theory & Permaculture and their role within regeneration
• Breakdown of the social conditioning we have all faced that led to the issues we experience today across Patriarchy | Cis-heteronormativity | Ableism | White Supremacy
• Frameworks we can use to understand and combat challenges across Systems thinking
• Trauma informed design
• Culturally competent design

How we can all use the above within our permaculture designs for a regenerative and collaborative future.

How Permaculture helps me lead a national food movement

Presenter: Angela Clifford

Considering the Permaculture principles from a social movement perspective.

Scaling for change

Presenter: Mitra Ardron

I’m passionate about creating change at a meaningful scale. If we cannot achieve scale all we are doing are slowing down the massive changes in the wrong direction. Scaling is often treated as a dirty word, because Permies reasonably have an aversion to large top down organizations, but scale can be achieved in many ways through partnering; capacity building; group purchasing; replication; training etc;

10 yrs of farming the suburbs

Presenter: Steven Hoepfner

Wagtail urban farm is only the tip of the iceberg. Join Steven Hoepfner as he shares from his wealth of experience in this highly interactive and fun session, covering everything from foraging food, to using unused land to sell to markets.

What does retro suburban resilience look like?

Presenters: Beck Lowe and David Holmgren

Beck Lowe and David Holmgren have been developing a ‘Personal and Household Resilience Worksheet’ as part of a series of RetroSuburbia-focused tools to help people reflect on their present conditions and inspire them for changes into the future. We’d love to road-test and refine it with colleagues at the convergence! This worksheet assesses individuals’ dependencies (such as drugs, shopping and mobile phones) and skills (such as growing food, foraging, sourcing materials), as well as overall household resilience in the face of supply chain interruptions, natural disasters or similar issues. The session will involve discussion around what personal and household resilience looks like and what are the key factors, as well as working with the tool itself. We’d love to spark some deep and meaningful conversations around these topics (but participants are not expected to share their personal circumstances unless they want to).

Didgeridoo and Dance Workshop

Imbala / David Booth

Max 25 people

Change venue

Lunch and networking

Change venue

The role of permaculture in addressing
the climate emergency.

Presenters: Linda Woodrow, Robyn Francis,
Chris Lucas & Danielle Wheeler

Designing for disaster is a standard part of a PDC, but what if the disaster is global in scale? Can permaculture usefully address the climate emergency? Or will our work towards earth care, people care and fair share be made irrelevant by the rate of accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide? Permaculture has a well developed set of resources and strategies for designing to mitigate predictable disasters. But most climate scientists now agree that 1.5˚C is fast receding from reach, 2˚C is looking shaky, and the climate disasters we have seen so far are just a taste of what is to come. “Unprecedented” is set to become an overused word. What is our role as permaculture practitioners, designers and teachers, firstly in supporting efforts to transform our culture to one that can operate within planetary limits, in time, and secondly, to support our communities to adapt to the inevitable consequences of the climate change that is already baked in.

Envisaging Ecotopia

Presenters: Keri and James Hopeward with Brenna Quinlan

“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else” – Yogi Berra.
What might a post-extractive, post-inequality, post-carbon, post-growth world actually look like? Can we empower ourselves by envisaging this Ecotopia in a way that helps us set and maintain a healthier direction for humans and the ecosystems we inhabit? This workshop will commence with a brief seminar by environmental engineer Dr James Hopeward, in which the socio-ecological predicament is described, along with an articulation of the quantitative dimensions of Ecotopia – i.e. the “hard” parameters that we can reasonably expect to define our future existence (population, consumption, land use, energy and resources). Dr Keri Hopeward will then guide participants through a collective visioning process, adapted from a ‘Transition’ visualisation, for use in the ‘Envisaging Ecotopia’ and ‘Living Lightly Locally’ research projects. Equipped with the broad parameters defining a resource-constrained future, people will be encouraged to transport themselves into that world. As people return from their visioning, back into the present, the uniquely talented permaculture artist Brenna Quinlan will capture their thoughts and hopes in visual sketches, ultimately producing a set of artworks to be distributed post-workshop, to helpfully articulate our shared vision of a more hopeful destination.

Neighbourhood mapping

Presenter: Melissa Hellwig

Neighbourhood mapping aids suburban dwellers to consider their wider neighbourhood as an abundant bank of resources and relationships. It creates a more communal setting with humans and non-humans alike.
It is important, as;

1. Three-quarters of Australians live in urban/suburban areas. Average backyards/capita are 180sq. m. Limited space (or space perception) limits the uptake of permaculture practice.
2. Increasing levels of affluence in suburbia is marked by increasing numbers of cars, paving, lawn and toys. These all encourage staying in individual backyards. Even if people have an organic veggie garden they may not venture into the wider community.
3. By mapping, we expand our care beyond personal property borders. We can find places to undertake many more permaculture practices.

We will;

• Create individual maps, incorporating human-made and natural features.
• Discuss the concept of a neighbourhood – who is around us, both human and non-human.
• Consider the abundant, free resources and self-care potential of these areas.
• Using the elements (earth/air/fire/water) and nature connection practices, we can explore in our minds-eye.

We’ll discuss and share deeper understandings about our land and aspects as diverse as local species, water sources, bee swarms, indigenous history and nature connection opportunities.
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Empowering bioregional Food Sovereignty

Presenter: Robina McCurdy

After addressing key issues and impacts of the current globalised food system, Robina will share how to empower local communities and entire bioregions to take responsibility for the sources, distribution and economics of their own food and seeds – drawing from inspiring examples of many years of her Localising Food Project’s work in Aotearoa/NZ.

Make a Penny Stove

Presenter: Tracey Hall

We will make simple, almost free, tiny, cooking stoves from 2 aluminium drink cans and a 5c coin. These are fuelled with a tiny amount of alcohol, so require no dry sticks or gas canisters. They are extremely light weight and great for light weight and low cost back packing or as a stand-by for emergency use. Participants can make their own and boil a pot of water and will then be able to readily share the technique with others. We have successfully used these on multiday treks and given many away.

Change Venue

Art Activism

Presenters: Hannah Maloney (author, illustrator and designer), Laura Wills (visual artist), Brenna Quinlan (illustrator and designer). MC: Kirsten Bradley (writer)

How can the arts be used as a vehicle to express awareness and support for sustainable design, behavior and choice? How can creativity be woven into, and add value to, our livelihood and life?

Join the discussion with these young women who use various media and creative practices to raise awareness of environment issues and permaculture solutions and call us to action.

Find out how they identify key issues and choose appropriate art media to inspire, talk about and illustrate the challenges and solutions.

Learn how to engage writers and artists to spread the word about climate action, permaculture, nature awareness and be a changemaker.

Designing for Inclusion and Access

Presenter: Tamar Cordover

Value the Margins.
Inclusion is a mindset, holding awareness for reasonable and necessary adjustments to support participation of people of diversity and difference. This mindset reflects the permaculture principle: Value the Margins, which from a Care of People perspective, oromotes diversity in participation. Access a set of practical tools that supports participation of all people, regardless of ability. Permaculture has the benefit of being a design protocol, we design our landscapes.
Let’s Design for Inclusion. This presentation is designed to encourage us to Think Beyond standard permaculture design elements and begin to reflect on Universal Design elements that support the inclusion of people throughout their lifespan and include people with disabilities.
More than 18% of Australians under 65 years old have a disability.
An additional 17% of our population is over 65 years old and 13% over 85 years of age. Let’s Design for Inclusion. If we build Inclusion Principles into the fabric of our Permaculture ethics, we are supporting all of us to participate in our vibrant Permaculture communities. And in return, we will get the vibrancy of diversity and the fertile fodder of the Margins. Permaculture living was never meant to be for the healthy and wealthy, inclusion is in our principles, it is in our teachings so, let’s explore that ethos and build the resilience of an integrated and inclusive society, starting at design.
Food security and local participation must include Care of All people.
Value the Margins, Design for Inclusion. Let’s start now.

Sustainable Housing

Presenter: Martin Freney

Dr Martin Freney will present key findings from his PhD research into sustainable housing and showcase a range of homes that reimagine Australian housing through the lens of permaculture. These projects blur the lines between education, construction and festivals, bringing together people excited to explore what we are capable of in terms of building homes that will sustain us through the challenges that are predicted and already being experienced.
Marty’s team teaches people how to build “Earthship” homes which are designed to be built by anyone with the ability to lift a strawbale, stomp cob, or “pound a tyre”. They are designed to nurture and protect the occupants so they can survive bushfires, storms, black-outs, water restrictions and pandemics. They transform greywater into food. They produce more energy and water than they use. They are made from abundant, natural and upcycled materials that are safe and easy to learn to build with. They are intended to teach the humans that live in them and build them, that living within planetary limits can be fulfilling and fun.

House and garden design for climate adaptation

Presenter: John Boland

When considering thermal comfort in the home, too many people imagine a large house with huge solar array, perhaps with battery, to power their “efficient” air conditioner. Little thought is given to the aircon heating up the surrounding neighbourhood in summer and cooling it in winter. Is there another way to think through this situation? As I posed on a segment of Gardening Australia on Nov 11, 2022, “Why buy an air conditioner when you can grow one?” Take care of hot Adelaide summers with strategically placed vegetation (see Rouhollahi, M, Whaley, D, Byrne, J & Boland, 2022, ‘Potential residential tree arrangement to optimise dwelling energy efficiency’, Energy and Buildings, vol. 261, pp. 1-19.), ample ventilation, ceiling and floor fans and a mindset focused on flexible living arrangements.
The plants provide shading, but also evapotranspiration so that the evening breezes can utilise the ventilation provided to cool the house of the heat built up during the day. Surprisingly, vegetation also raises the ambient temperature at night in winter. And don’t forget that if you plant the right trees for your garden, they also provide food for the table, a beautiful setting to enjoy and habitat for native birds and animals.

Songwriting for the climate

Presenters: Nancy Bates with Dave McEvoy

Moving forward with Permaculture

Presenters: Lauren O’Reilly – Ian Lillington

I feel permaculture as an industry needs a bit of a refresh . We have so many solutions and inspire a healthy connection and relationship with natural systems around us yet we seem unable to get this across in the public forum. I feel the public image doesn’t accurately represent the beauty, abundance or potential of this set of skills and knowledge.
I have a number of ideas that may help this situation and I’m sure others out there have some great ideas too so rather than keeping on going with the same old I want to gather our heads and somehow shake things up a little. Using our problem solving skills I’m sure we can put together a plan or set of goals of some sort that can help us all steam forward into the future and the hearts and mines of every Australian community.

End of day / pre-dinner break

Dinner

Change venue

Cultural Compost Theatre

Presenter: Chris Banks

Daily 10 minute improvised parodies of convergence activities, sometimes involving volunteers from the audience.

First nations healing and nurturing country, using climate MITIGATION with macroalgae

Presenters:  Tiahni Adamson with Costa Georgiadis