APC Online Program

APC Opening address

Presenter: SA Panel

Keynote

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.

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 the community and the planet. Alternatively, it can be another tool of eco-colonialism if not implemented meaningfully or with feedback from diverse communities. Innovation and transformation have 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.

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.

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.

Nurturing Country, Combating Climate Change,
and Advocating for First Nations Justice and
Land Rights

Presenters: Costa Georgiadis with Tiahni Adamson

Keynote: Permaculture, urban agriculture and food futures

Presenter: Walter Jehne

Walter Jehne is an internationally known Australian soil microbiologist and climate scientist. After many years as a researcher, he is now a sought after speaker and consultant for land restoration projects, policy work, and investment projects.

Articulating & Activating Hope

Presenters: Kirsten Bradley and Hannah Moloney

An open discussion with Hannah Maloney + Kirsten Bradley, for those wanting to communicate more effectively about cultivating active hope at this time on Earth. How can we better ground and help activate our networks and communities towards hopeful behaviour and outcomes, in the face of so much loss and strain? How do we hold space for multiple realities (not all of them hopeful) while leading with purpose and encouraging others? How can we get better at pacing ourselves to ensure we can continue to contribute, in the face of so much urgent need? Bring your examples, your thoughts, and your questions.

Water – Techniques from around the World
to capture, store and use it

Presenter: Graham Brookman

The capture and management of water is a central theme in permaculture design and many projects fail because a land capability assessment and simple maths has not been done to calculate water needs. This illustrated presentation shows water capture, storage, filtration and reticulation techniques from around the world and highlights water saving and reuse systems in use at The Food Forest where rain, groundwater and river water are all used in a resilient system for home and farm use. Water quality and basic calculations on volumes and equipment will be covered.

Global Permaculture Pollination #2: People Care 

Presenters: Morag Gamble and Maia Raymond

This is the second of a series of 3 one-hour conversation spaces hosted ONLINE via zoom during the APC happening in Yaktunga, Mt Barker near Adelaide, South Australia.

Morag and Maia will invite participants from both the convergence and anywhere around the world to share together their inspirations, reflections, ideas, projects, questions, contacts, resources (or whatever is moving in them) .

Fire Edge Roads to Retardant Landscapes

Presenters: Dean Turner, John Champagne & Chelsea Moseley

Presentation by Dean Turner, John Champagne and Chelsea Moseley about the retardant landscapes and design workshops that grew out of a social permaculture response to the 2019/20 fires around the greater Cobargo region.
The Badja Fire Edge Roads Gatherings organised by The Crossing Land Education Trust grew a unique series of workshops on permaculture design and fire preparedness including cool mosaic burning, retardant shelterbelts and refuges, on the gate fire maps, relationship saver decision grids and some must have contents for emergency backpacks.
This is a resilience story of fire response, and a unique collaboration between a permaculture elder, a firefighter, a Landcarer and a Land Education Centre that was threatened by fire over 6 weeks from every direction except the south east.

Native Foods and Climate Resilient Communities

Presenters: Rebecca Sullivan and Damien Coultard

Permaculture Awards

Presenters: Permaculture Australia

Keynote: Timorese community permaculture
From a small island to global impact

Presenter: Ego Lemos

P4R #1 Permaculture Outcomes in Refugee Worlds

Presenters: Greta Carroll, Rowe Morrow, Sarah Boulle,
Benedetta Martin

We are a global network of Permaculture educators and practitioners working to apply Permaculture in displacement settings. Started in 2016, Permaculture for Refugees has movements in four continents. We support refugees to become Permaculturlists and now (after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban and the war in Ukraine) Permaculturalists who become refugees. Our work has provoked an updated PDC curriculum as we develop innovative ways to teach, and update content relevant for a future of increased forced migration and disasters.

Permaculture for Refugees (P4R) #2

Mértola Project ‘Terra de Abrigo’

Presenter: Eunice Neves

‘Terra de Abrigo’ is a community supported refugee resettlement project for 8 Afghans taking place in Mértola, Portugal, from March 2022 to August 2023. Inspired by permaculture design, this project offers a holistic model to refugee resettlement, which integrates multiple dimensions (ecological, social, cultural, psychological, spiritual, legal, financial) with the aim to developing and consolidating personal, social and professional skills for full autonomy and integration in Portuguese society. Resulting of a strategic partnership between Terra Sintrópica Association, the Portuguese High Commissioner for Migrations, the Mértola City Council, the Mértola Parish Council and the Australian organization Permaculture for Refugees, ‘Terra de Abrigo’ is financially supported by various organizations and individuals, at the local and international levels, who aim provide a program of excellence and a model for refugee resettlement that can be replicated worldwide. Central to this model is an emphasis on care, both for the refugees being hosted and for the hosting community and land, through beneficial relationships, enjoyed reciprocally.

Permaculture Refugees in Kenya

Presenter: Morag Gamble

We are a global network of Permaculture educators and practitioners working to apply Permaculture in displacement settings. Started in 2016, Permaculture for Refugees has movements in four continents. We support refugees to become Permaculturlists and now (after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban and the war in Ukraine) Permaculturalists who become refugees. Our work has provoked an updated PDC curriculum as we develop innovative ways to teach, and update content relevant for a future of increased forced migration and disasters.

Global Permaculture Pollination #3: Fair Share

Presenters: Morag Gamble and Maia Raymond

This is the third of a series of 3 one-hour conversation spaces hosted ONLINE via zoom during the APC happening in Yaktunga, Mt Barker near Adelaide, South Australia.

Morag and Maia will invite participants from both the convergence and anywhere around the world to share together their inspirations, reflections, ideas, projects, questions, contacts, resources (or whatever is moving in them) .

Green Thumb Garden Planner

Presenter: Chaitanya Shettigara

Growing a Permaculture garden can get complicated quickly. I am creating an app that can make this easier, by suggesting good companions and warning against bad ones, providing information about plant care, keeping calendars for sowing, harvest, and tasks, helping share your bounty and more.

Edible Garden Trail

Presenter: Susanne Rix

The Edible Garden Trail movement started in the Blue Mountains in 2018. We had 40 gardens open and attracted over 500 visitors from all over the state. That first trial inspired a number of communities to take up the idea and use strategies developed for the first trial. (Including Permaculture Central Coast this last weekend). A group from Permaculture North Sydney came by bus to the first trail in 2018 and set up the Sydney Edible Garden trail the following year. Since then, similar city-wide events have developed in Adelaide and Hobart followed by smaller communities including Central Coast NSW, Singleton, Bass Coast in Victoria, Samford in Queensland and as far as New Zealand. The Edible Garden Trail was established to recognise the power of gardeners in tackling and preparing for climate change by creating healthy soils, contributing to food security, supporting local economies and building community resilience. This presentation will explore how a community can establish their own Edible Garden Trail, to encourage more gardeners to discover permaculture, organic growing principles and build community through sharing their edible garden journey. It is also a journey of how one person and a good idea can begin a movement.

Food Matters

Presenter: Liz Sanders

The food system challenges we face are complex and multidimensional. Addressing them successfully will require collaborative efforts and new innovative solutions that work across sectors. One of the key initial steps is to mobilise an informed community around this issue. The Food Matters course developed by the Food Embassy with support from Green Adelaide and Flinders University builds food system literacy and community action around local food systems.
Food Matters was adapted from a Flinders University online course which examined the food system through three lenses: environment, economic and social and aimed to build an informed and actively engaged community. It is based on a food democracy framework and the practice of food citizenship. Since Covid the course has evolved into a series of 4 events.
Over 500 people have attended the courses/events and they all report positive gains in knowledge and confidence to improve the local food system at an individual and community level.
“I think of my environment as a food environment rather than thinking of my refrigerator as a food environment”
Food Matters is the only known community-based food system education offered in SA and possibly Australia. Awareness raising and supporting action for change are critical steps in creating a more regenerative food system.

Closing Ceremony

Presenter: Robin Clayfield