1980: News From Tagari

30 Jan, 2018 | Remembering Bill in Print

The Lost Stories are Bill Mollison’s articles published in the print magazine originally named Permaculture, then International Permaculture Journal and finally the Permaculture International Journal that was published between 1978 and 2000.
All stories and other content ©Permaculture Australia unless otherwise noted.

Story by Bill Mollison, 1980. Autumn Edition.
WELL, things at Tagari are starting to get a little hectic, but nevertheless exciting developments are taking place.
First of all, Permaculture Two‘s printing costs are virtually paid off so now we can expect some money back to put into developmental work.

Workshop helps develop a permaculture network

Back in the middle of January we held a consultant designers’ workshop to which 18 people came from all over Australia.
These people — among them architects, an Aboriginal community worker, a botanist, a design draughtsman, a landscape designer, a horticulturist — will become franchised permaculture design consultants around Australia, having completed the course and after submitting a number of design reports.
This is a further step in setting up an Australia-wide network of permaculture association members, regional permaculture groups, regional permaculture consultant designers (listed below), communities, alternative groups and interested people in order to foster information and resource sharing.
Bill Mollison is writing a pamphlet about this concept and its benefits for all which you will see within the next three months or so.

Short-term plans

We are holding a set of one week courses in April in Stanley for people who want to design their own property, for nurserymen or gardeners seeking contracts to build or supply permaculture plantings (advertised elsewhere in this issue).
Bill M, a group of Tagari communards and associates from around Australia are heading off to the USA in May for about three months to begin spreading the word as well as initiating a network over there by franchising designers contacted and interested and like-minded groups, and selling the books, quarterly subscriptions and some hardware. The feedback from this trip should be incredible.
On the way, Bill is doing a consultancy job in Hawaii for an island leper community. There is a possible broadscale design job in north India on the books too.
So, permaculture is spreading internationally.

Compiling the standard designs

The standard designs written of in Permaculture Two are now being put together for printing (with additional standards), the preliminary catalogue of which is printed opposite and will be available, finally, within three months from Tagari.
Also the Species Index written of in Permaculture Two is being worked up and will take quite a time to come together because its production entails a lot of methodical research and collation. We’ll keep you in touch by way of this magazine.

Much happening at Tagari

So, as you can see there is a lot happening apart from the building of a visitors’ centre, running a community, gardening, work on ‘the swamp’ etc.) at Tagari.
Consequently, with all this work and having come through a financially tight period we are looking for more members (we haven’t really stopped). At this stage looking for adaptable singles or young couples or older families who can afford to accommodate themselves. Tagari is a total commitment community with a minimum probationary period of three months.
For more information contact ‘The Gate’, Tagari Community, PO Box 96, Stanley Tasmania, 7331.

Permaculture consultancy

The Permaculture Consultancy services include:

  • urban, small  and broadacre country permaculture design (involving total self-reliance design in energy, food, water, fire control, commercial enterprises, etc. and includes a species documented and diagrammed report)
  • town/village siting and services design
  • low-energy housing and structures design (‘The Permaculture House’ etc).

Fees are $300 minimum (covering transport, on-site consultation and report production). Fees, or similar, will be negotiated with unemployed groups disadvantaged groups, Aboriginal groups, etc.
Low-energy housing and structures design has a separate fee scale with prices on application.
Head office covering at present Tasmania, Victoria, large contracts, overseas contracts and low-energy structures design, at P.O. Box 96, Stanley, Tasmania, Australia, 7331. (004) 58-1142.
Consultants:

  • Simon Fell
  • Andrew Jeeves
  • Ted Lament
  • Bill Mollison
  • Earl Saxon.

And at 15 Niagara Lane, Melbourne, Victoria 3000. (03) 602-3624 (Low-Energy Structures Design).
Consultants:

  • Denis Sweetnam
  • Jenny Bolwelt.

Regional Consultants:

  • Western Australia – 102 Holland St, Freemantle.
    Ginger Gordy, Kirsten Beggs.
  • South Australia – 26 Buller St, Prospect, 5082.
    Doug Swanson, John Fargher and David Blewett.
  • Queensland – 56 Isabella Avenue, Nambour.
    Max Lindegger, Bill Peak.
  • Rainbow Region – Rolands Creek Road, Uki. 2484.
    Bob Roe, John Palmer.
  • NSW – 12 Mansfield Road, Galston 2154.
    Ruby Kynast. John Llewellyn.
  • ACT – 12 Greenaway Street, Turner, 2601.
    Judith Turtev, David Watson.

Please send all correspondence to Permaculture Consultancy at the above addresses.
A further consultants’ franchising course is planned for October 1980. People are particularly sought for northern Queensland, Kimberleys and Top End, Pilbara and Goldfields WA and western NSW and Queensland.

Preliminary design catalog for the alternative nation

The Permaculture Consultancy Head Office, PO Box 96, Stanley, 7331, Tasmania, Australia is the design repository of the alternative nation, which means that they receive, edit, publish, mail order and wholesale any sort of design for the alternative nation (network), and at six-monthly intervals pay royalties of 15 percent to the authors, as a proportion of the retail price.
The consultancy prices each design, taking the advice of the author in this but having the final say on pricing as large-volume sales will mean price reductions and designs will therefore become cheaper as they are more in demand — sort of a self-pricing system.
Designs are standardized to A4 size and may be supplied punched or unpunched on a 4-post folder system. Folders can be bought from the consultancy, spine and front printed Permaculture Consultancy Standard Designs. Hand punches and 5-cut index sheets (packs of 10) can also be supplied. All these things can be bought at good stationery suppliers.
Kits and booklets are also supplied for specific areas and some of these may be handled on a retail basis only.
For some designs (eg. houses, boats and complex structures), a set of full-scale drawings are also available (at higher prices). Good books on specific design areas are retailed by mail order and entered into the general catalogue.
At long intervals (2-5 years) it is proposed to collapse all designs into a single volume publication and then to recommence new standard sheets. Microfiche and other condensed storage may later be available.
We appeal to any person with expertise to submit designs to the catalogue. Criteria are that they:

  • are harmless to the environment
  • use minimal energy or better, produce energy
  • are clear, plain and well draughted
  • are well-specified as to materials and usage.

We can draught for designers to a limited extent but prefer to receive A4 size sketches of good quality, with type written or clear handwritten copy.
A study of the preliminary catalogue will show that our designs and kits cover a wide range of alternative needs and will extend a lot further with time.

Code/Standard Design/Price($)

  • A1 Tomato/Asparagus Polycutture $4
  • A2 Culinary Herb Spiral $4
  • A3 Home Production ot Potatoes $4
  • D1 Complete List of Poultry Forage Species $6
  • D2 Collecting Water from Rock Dome Seepage $6
  • D3 Cattle Forage Species $6
  • D4 Pig Forage Species $6
  • D5 Sea Coast Species for Salt, Wind Resistance $6
Entrepreneurial Designs and Kits
  • E1 How to Publish and Export Books (Australia) $20
  • E2 How to Run a Festival Without Losing Money $20
  • E3 How to Start and Run a Community $20
  • E4 Criteria for Starting and Financial Enterprise $$6
  • E5 How to Run a Trust (retail only) $40
  • L1 Rock Dome Planting $4
  • L2 Tidal Flats Ponds $4
  • L3 Flatland dam and House Site $5
  • M1 Farm Link $4
  • M2 Wayside Marketing $4
  • M3 Self-pick Sales $4
  • P1 Mosquito Control $4
  • P2 Blackberry Control $4
  • P3 Fox Predation prevention $4
  • P4 Planting in the Presence of Rabbits $4
  • P5 Traps: 1-Rabbits $2; 2-Government Sparrow
  • Trap $2; 3-Blowfly $2
  • S1 Trellis Structures and Planting, Sun Traps $4
  • S2 Collecting Water $4
  • S3 Shade House (documented) $8
  • S4 Attached Glasshouse (documented) $8
  • S5 Flatland House Designs with Dam (and variations) P.O.A.
  • T1 Pruning in Permaculture $4
  • T2 Domestic Sewage Disposal $4
  • T3 Community Sewage Disposal $7
  • T4 Planting on Broactscale $4
  • T5 Uses for Tyres $4
  • T6 Fuel Production from Plants: 1-Alcohol Distillation Design Layout $8; 2-Diesel Oil Seed Processing $8.
  • U1 Contact Cropping in Neighbourhoods $5
  • U2 Dispersed Tree Crop with Contract Sates $5
  • U3 Dispersed Livestock With Contract Sales $5
  • U4 Types of Public Allotments $5
  • U5 Urban City Farm Development $8

1980: Time to link-up

30 Jan, 2018 | Remembering Bill in Print

The Lost Stories are Bill Mollison’s articles published in the print magazine originally named Permaculture, then International Permaculture Journal and finally the Permaculture International Journal that was published between 1978 and 2000.
All stories and other content ©Permaculture Australia unless otherwise noted.autumn

Story by Bill Mollison, 1980,  Autumn Edition.
There are now enough of us (the alternative society) with enough talents and land to link-up throughout Australia.
Already, we have set up an Australiawide (and NZ) distribution network through which we can distribute books and goods, seeds and manufactures.
Now after many group discussions we can isolate skills, needs and opportunities. Permaculture people are more or less one large, hard-working community.

What is proposed is:

Gene pools

Gene pools of plants and animals in each main climatic area, possible as a linked institute.
We have some 300 species at Stanley and expect to plant more.  Others have sub-tropical and tropical areas under way.
These may eventually be a new sort of botanic garden system demonstrating design, technique and species assemblies for the area.

Distribution Net

Our publications or goods can enter this at any point.
Tagari can cover Tasmania, and MeIbourne city has core groups in every state and nearly every district.
Shopfronts, markets, warehouses and groups need to be registered.

Accommodation

Brisbane Alternative Group (BAG) is developing an ECHO (Environmental Community Hostels Organisation). Contact Daryl Bellingham, c/- PO Box 238, North Quay, Brisbane, Old 4000.
BAG has plans for a hostel and we hope others take up this idea. Tagari is in the process.
What other system can we offer ‘ecological travelers’?

Locating

A catalogue of addresses of talent is needed — if we need a design engineer, lawyer, planner, poultry breeder, where do we find them?
Permaculture Nambour may collate this as a group project. The idea is not to list all people, but to list all the skills known to exist in any area with a key person there to locate each request.

Designs and Instruction Kits

As Tagari already lists and sells permaculture-related designs and catalogues these, we could include any others for resale and listing on a fair royalties basis.

Land Loans

Many of us have spare land or money and with these we could set up our own land bank and land loan system.
Who will run or will help run this?

Transport Co-op

Carriers are expensive — can we pool or run local transport for our own goods?
Who will collate?

Specialties

Let us co-operate, not compete.
Again, PO Nambour has PO T-shirts and bumper stickers — ‘Permaculture is Growing’. Let us buy from them (and submit designs) instead of duplicating.
What other ways can we fund other groups?

Insurance

Dare we tackle a combined insurance (fixed amount) scheme for ourselves, replacing funds only when they are used?
Now, who can help, who can suggest new and better links?

Talented, scattered and many

We are talented, many, scattered, mobile and ready tor the next evolution — that of a truly linked community.
It’s time (to pinch a phrase) and if life wasn’t meant to be easy at least it could be better organised to support the alternative.
By co-operating we can support each other instead of people who don’t care and people who use the profits for themselves.
…Bill Mollison

Editor’s note

In the second last paragraph Bill makes reference to what became two cultural artifacts from the late-1970s.
“It’s time”, with which he starts the paragraph, was a popular song of the Australian Labor Party’s 1972 election campaign that saw Gough Whitlam elected to lead an federal Labor government.
Listen: http://whitlamdismissal.com/1972/11/13/its-time-audio-video-lyrics.html
The later passage in the same paragraph, “life wasn’t meant to be easy”, was a line by 1970s Australian prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, that was taken out of context .
The line was a quote from George Bernard Shaw that, rather than signifying only difficulty, signified the taking of courage. Left from the quote by Malcolm Fraser’s critics was the rest of it: ” …my child, but take courage: it can be delightful.”
More: https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Malcolm_Fraser

Links with other ideas

The article suggests that Bill Mollison and his Tagari Community communards saw the development of a national network as necessary to permaculture’s spread. Design consultants qualified through a consultant’s course at Tagari would form a core of the network.
The ‘alternative society’ mentioned is a reference to the large numbers then participating in what was a significant social movement around environmentally and socially-better ways of living. Although the movement was amorphous and lacked any set of core ethics and principles, those participating in it felt part of it and also felt themselves apart from mainstream society. Permaculture incorporated some of the elements of the movement and, in turn, came to influence it. Many of permaculture’s early recruits came from the alternative movement.
The ‘Accommodation’ idea listed under Proposals might be seen as the incipient idea that would years later manifest from outside the permaculture network as WWOOF — Willing Workers On Organic Farms — the farmstay-in-return-for-work scheme. Although not stated in the article, there is a tenuous like with Bill Mollison’s idea of permaculture educators and designers moving around the country, teaching and designing in different places.

1980: On this'n that

30 Jan, 2018 | Remembering Bill in Print

The Lost Stories are Bill Mollison’s articles published in the print magazine originally named Permaculture, then International Permaculture Journal and finally the Permaculture International Journal that was published between 1978 and 2000.
All stories and other content ©Permaculture Australia unless otherwise noted.

Story by Bill Mollison, May 1980. Autumn Edition

Editor’s note:

This was a column in the News & Notes section of Permaculture.

THERE IS SOMETHING about a mob of cattle kicking up a cloud of dust in a landscape of dying trees. The whole scene is like a prelude to the fall from grace of Western man. The trees are dying because the cattle bruise their roots. The dust is flying because grass is destroyed. The cattle are objects, ‘cash on the hoof’, sometimes almost ceremonial possessions of men.
No man can need more than one or two cattle but many have thousands of head of cattle, sheep, goats, camels, buffalo and like grazers. They oppress the land, create deserts, kill forests, create salt pans and denude thousands of acres. Just to be owners of cattle, and to obtain power, men destroy the landscape.
Small men try to build up their herds. Big men grow fat in areas the size of a European country. The land suffers and in the final analysis no price is too high to pay to rid the earth of the herdsman and his flocks.

The pathology of bad land management

A return to the communal flock, the domestic cow and goat, the forests and a conserved landscape is now not only urgent, but essential, for the flocks expand at the expense forest and the forest decreases at the expense of all air-breathing life. Flocks of the wandering herds are the cancer in the lungs of the earth. Woodchip companics are the TB germs and pollution the silicosis.
No wonder trees die, the elm stops breathing, the chestnut falls prey to blight and the oak shivers in the wind. Omens are all about us and we do not want to see nor to listen to sensible voices.
Shut off in his oil-heated house, breathing the air made by forests in the Third World, Western man is like an ostrich in the classical poses: head in the sand and exposed in his vital parts to all the winds that blow. Those winds blow harder, drier, dustier, colder and more often.

Bill Mollison. An illustration accompanying the original article.

Speculative ecologies

Speculative ecology 1

Chatting to Walter Jehne of Brisbane, he reports an exotic patch of rainforest in a dry area with a brush turkey nest at centre. Some of these nests date back 5000 years or more of continual use. For the Aborigine, they are well mapped and visited seasonally for eggs.
Walter speculates that such an event (a large compost heap) may trigger long-term soil changes that give rain forest species a chance to take hold. Bob Radnell of Gap Creek in Queensland finds the peripheral nest material superb for potting.
Our further speculation might be that such compost piles could trigger nucleii for desert reclamation. There is not much to a compost heap, after all, and self-composting plants can continue the process.

Speculative ecology 2

Don Frankcombe of Tasmania noticed a foliage change in vegetation, from aerial maps. He traced a line of trees with ‘pinhole’ (Lictus beetle) in rainforest and found it to be the tracks of 7-9 men (steelshod boots) who had erected a radio aerial on a mountain range. Bruised root balls allowed parasites to enter the trees, causing a die-back about a chain wide (see Editors notes at end).
The crew had been in some seven years before. We might speculate that bushwalkers and foresters kill the forest simply by walking through it, hence the need to enter fragile systems barefooted! Cross-country bikes and bulldozers may cause the same damage.
(Both the preceding notes suggest that even small events have long-term effects on vegetation; forest history is a much neglected study).

Speculative ecology 3

Ecology may have been at the basis of myth. Most myths have the following fixed essential components:

  • the act of a man or woman
  • a biological transformation (usually organic/inorganic change)
  • invocation of an elemental force (fire, wind, flood)
  • an ecological change.

For example: Two boys climb a tree to take an egg. One throws it down and it turns into a stone. This angers the bird who invokes the wind. A cyclone rips through the forests and destroys the village. Atonement may need to follow.
The whole moral is that the acts of men have profound effects on the elemental and natural forces, that unnecessary acts may have very long-term effects, and that one should therefore proceed cautiously, and according to need in one’s dealings with nature.

Speculative ecology 4

Dead and dying eucalypts are obvious in both tropical and temperate rainforest.
A sort of large fireweed, the eucalypt provides shade and seedbed for rainforest species which invade beneath it. Once established, the rainforest holds a lot of water in the topsail and we may speculate that the eucalypts drown, or suffer physiological drought.
Only fire (mainly from man) can reverse this natural evolution to rainforest in areas of good rainfall.

Speculative ecology 5

The spectacular Cairns-Kuranda railway runs through what was once tropical rainforest.
Billy fires on the railway fine have burnt-out the rainforest above the line. Thus, the railway mysteriously marks off a belt of rainforest below from denuded slopes of monsoon grasses above. One might speculate that the eventual landslides and floods from above will eventually wash out the line or that continued fires will wipe out the tourist attractions. Either way. the railway became a major factor in the ecology of the Cairns-Kuranda ecology.
…Bill Mollison

Work

We would like to link-up the unemployed groups — some to collect seed, some to plant under contract, some to develop long range forests (or their own future, from unemployed to retired in seven easy years).
Please use these columns for link up.

Here’s a start:

Permaculture Canberra (Marc Julienne, Howard Sedgeman and crew), C/- 48 Kambalda Cres, Fisher, A.C.T.
Order now for a variety of tree seed, stone pine, oaks, honey locust. Prices on application. A very valuable group.
BUG (Brunswick Unemployed Group) C/- Neville Stern, 21 Smith St, Thornbury, Victoria.
Developing the city farm concept. Attached glasshouses for heat and food, training programmes in permaculture. Lots of contacts and energy.
Don’t forget, unemployed groups can order and distribute P.1 and P.11 locally; list your group in these pages.
We could set up an Australia-wide and global link for forestry and futures. We are lucky to have plenty of land and energy. No-one can stop us.

Some Suggestions:

  • Collect local selected seed and advertise it in PO (free). Cost collecting time tor prices.
  • Get land (1-20 acres) from local council for display planting, use this for selling seed, seedlings, your labour in planting.
  • Find sympathetic local ‘alternative’ land owners to lease land or to form a co-op to plant long-term yielding forests.
  • Concentrate on special animal species as stud species for others (poultry, small livestock). Link with local state and Institute Horticulture teams for advice and species. Plant bee forests for honey, poultry fodder forests and select useful hedgerow and alcohol-fuel species for farmers. (There is no end to the need for alcohol fuels).
  • Develop small appropriate technology; use ethnic groups for their skills in processing and try the city crop idea — you plant out trees and collect fruit etc. from householders for marketing. Thus, you do not need your own land to run an orchard.
  • Olive, chestnut, cotton, tea, coffee, ginger, tomatoes, peppers, yam,passionfruit etc can all be grown this way. The householder sells at a wholesale price, you collect, process, distribute and market the crop.

Best wishes, Start now.
…Bill Mollison.

Editors notes

Dimensions

1 chain = 20.11 metres
1 acre = 0.404686 hectare.

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1979: The harvesting of possum, wallaby and kangaroo

11 Aug, 2017 | Remembering Bill in Print

— an initial contribution to domestication

The Lost Stories are Bill Mollison’s articles published in the print magazine originally named Permaculture, then International Permaculture Journal and finally the Permaculture International Journal that was published between 1978 and 2000.
All stories and other content ©Permaculture Australia unless otherwise noted.

Story by Bill Mollison, August 1978. Edition: 1979, Autumn/Winter.
IN TRIBAL Aboriginal areas and in forests and permacutture systems designed for complex yield, wallaby and other Australian native species have a place. All those listed in the title yield furs, meat and sinew products. All have a role in forests for fire control (as ‘marsupial lawn’ browsers), weed control (especially for the fireweeds such as Ericthtites), thinning of seediings after fire and as natural components of the total system.
In today’s forests they are poisoned or fenced out and few farmers, gardeners or public authorities have a positive management policy towards marsupials.
Some notes on their usefulness are therefore in order, as the marsupials have been banished from the European-oriented ecosystems and the forests of the pulp companies.

The value of native animals

First, graziers such as Ian Swan of Birralee, Tasmania, who is also a qualified forester, have analysed the economics of wallaby versus sheep.
Needing neither improved pasture, machine tilling, complex buildings and no drenching etc, wallaby can be managed by fewer men on worse country and for greater energy gain than sheep. The situation is analagous to the African savannah analyses, where clearing, ‘improvement’ and fencing plus monoculture of sheep and beef reduced the animal protein available to 1/80th of its ‘unimproved’ yield.

Population dynamics of native herbivores

Antelope (the dik-dik is under investigation) and the wallaby are quickly tamed by feeding, are efficient in utilising low-quality browse, and have a variety of management potential. For instance, males are 67 percent, 47 percent and 18 percent of the tertiary (adult) sex ratios in mature populations of brush possum, Tasmanian pademelon and the rednecked wallaby respectively. These are part-arboreal, dense scrub and scrub edge species, in that order.
Plains or mob species of kangaroo may have even fewer males in association with breeding females. The ‘mobbing’ or social gathering size, and the social structure (familial, undifferentiated group and differentiated ‘family’, plus male mobs) is influenced by the sex ratio. The more males, the less the species can gather or split social functions. Analogies can be made with seals, swans, etc.
In every case, it is the number of mature females that keep the population size up, and the number of immature animals (both male and female) plus surplus males that can be harvested without affecting populations.
Where no harvest occurs, overgrazing, seasonal drought, disease and crowding stress will do the harvesting, sometimes in a catastrophic way. All bushmen have seen the crash of native cat, possum and wallaby populations in such crowded conditions, sometimes taking years to replace themselves. As Aborigines undoubtedly knew and practiced wise management of marsupials (by a system of taboos) it is doubtful whether managed populations ever reached disaster numbers in tribal areas.
Most species of marsupial breed regularly where rainfall is sufficient to maintain steady forage. In cooler areas there is usually an Autumn (May) oestrus with a smaller Spring (November) oestrus, so that 100 percent, and then (say) 15 percent of mature females breed in these seasons, weaning August-September and April-May.
Dryland species may breed opportunistically following rain, and tropical species more irregularly as befits the continuous and steady plant growth in the tropics.
There is little doubt that we could manage or select for double breeding in many species much as one selects for twinning in sheep flocks.

The cultivation of wallabies

The forest wallabies are of special interest as they thrive in dark understorey, feeding on moss sporangia, fungi and the rare shrubs under canopy and along forest edges. They occupy niches no
domestic species can fill. Similarly, plains species select coarse browse left untouched by sheep, geese, or other domestic livestock. All species become very tame after a few days of supplementary feeding if not hunted by men or dogs. All are easily trapped in solid wooden traps, easily handled in bags and can be selectively culled.
Bran, pollard, calf food and like feeds are readily accepted by all species as are waste materials such as vegetable peelings and culls and food scraps.

Wallaby — a plus for polycultural farmers

Free of fat, with useful furs, subject to crashes of overpopulation, good-natured, useful in a variety of ecologies and in the management of forest and pasture, the marsupial has a valuable but as yet underdeveloped and neglected part to play in every sane ecology as does the water buffalo, the forest bison of Poland, the Canadian beaver, the African dik-dik, the hare and the deer. All need management (as do all domestic species) but all have unique values.
In short, the wallaby is a plus in any ecology and should be encouraged by all polycultural farmers. Trapping, handling and culling data and some yield estimates should be available from reports to the Division of Wildlife Research, CSIRO, Gungahlin, ACT.
We have wasted and mismanaged our wildlife resources (bird and mammal) by unthinking and often harvesting, taking valuable adult females and the selected (by survival) adult males. No species can stand the harassment and senseless culling, the poisons and monoculture philosophy currently practised.
It is long past time we set up study groups and management systems to include such species in an integrated colony.
Why look at pine forests as pulp? Why not sow Mitchellia repens below the canopy and raise partridge or pigeon?

A new diversity

I point out, in conclusion, that all I am proposing is a commonsense and controlled approach to a new diversity. I am not advocating the release of unmanageable species in unregulated lands. Large species, being visible, can always be regulated and slow-breeding small species (eg. hares) are the same. Predatory and fast-breeding species (eg. rabbits) are a danger  and should be closely regulated.
Both our managed ecologies and our nutrition would improve by wise inclusion of useful species.

1985: permaculture aid

2 Jun, 2017 | Remembering Bill in Print

The Lost Stories

Remembering Bill in print — the legacy of Bill Mollison from the pages of the Permaculture International Journal
The Lost Stories are Bill Mollison’s articles published in the print magazine originally named Permaculture, then International Permaculture Journal and finally the Permaculture International Journal that was published between 1978 and 2000.
All stories and other content © Permaculture Australia unless otherwise noted. ……….

Permaculture aid

1985, Edition 22, Permaculture

SEVERAL PEOPLE have written indicating support for a Third World ‘Trust in Aid’ to teach permaculture courses in areas where people need help. Some have sent sums of from $100 to $1000 to go into such a trust, and we have established the account. We do not as yet have tax deductibility but have instructed our lawyer to try to get this for us, if necessary by changes to our trust document.
Some people have indicated that they will be approaching organisations like Live Aid to assist, and we would be grateful for any independent initiatives to any such nongovernmentat organisations or even government organisations for grants towards our Trust in Aid.
We have been giving this subject considerable thought and have discovered that very few Third-World projects work.
Those that do seem to work have these characteristics:

  • they arise from projects that are seen to be important by local people; while there is no reason not to lay out a smorgasbord of possibilities, the choices of priorities and possibilities must be left to the people on the ground
  • they know what time they have to spare and what skills can be developed.

Once some priorities are defined:

  • the approach that works is practical-educational — actual ground projects formed as teaching projects but solving a specific problem or set of problems and developing local skills
  • assistance may then be required as back-up; materials, plants, and seed or information supplied to support local initiatives
  • all of this works only if people get a direct return for effort; if we do not we dependency and exploitation; this is the critical impediment to aid where large landlords or corrupt bureaucracies benefit from aid (most cases funded by foreign banks or governments)
  • any project should have the potential to make its own way, either as savings, sales, or a teaching centre, and preferably all of these approaches.
  • Our teaching courses are good initiators of such an approach but must be followed by support of a group in-country. ‘Self-help training for long-term development’ sums it up.

The needs of volunteers

Aid volunteers need to be very practical and skilled, able to give training at certificate level in any one area. Enthusiasm is not enough and in fact an inexperienced enthusiast creates more problems for everybody.
Other points to watch are:

  • That individuals are not selected for help. This causes a host of local problems and leaves the community situation unaffected. Thus, aid should be to local groups, preferably as aid in training and in business.
  • Aid should never be charity, which is dependency-generating, but should be invested in basic change (independence and self-help assistance). Injustice is the root cause of poverty.
  • There should be no strings or requirements on aid, no ‘thanks’ required nor reports to be given. Donors need to trust local people once a good group has been selected.
  • Prestige projects and paid administrators are often insupportable locally.
  • A joint project may very well work. For example, a trade exchange where profits are split. There is no charity involved here, just some initial investment and work on both sides. •
  • It is a good idea to work with an already-established aid group made up of nationals and locals. Their achievements are easy to see and many cultural impediments can be avoided.

There are probably three to four levels of aid, each suited to a different set of conditions:

Aid in disaster (plague, famine, flood, earthquake)

This does seem to be a suitable area for government-to-government aid although most studies reveal that very fast action to help people help themselves is the only effective course, and it would seem sensible to have funds set aside annually to mobilise within days, not to slowly react over a period of some months by which time an aid programme has become a refugee programme, longterm and basically insoluble.

Training aid

For ‘normally bad’ conditions. the training of in-country designers for self-help and long-term change. This is where ourselves and many agencies believe we can most effectively operate, but even this sort of aid is ineffectual if we ignore, or fail to develop strategies for basic justice and honesty in the government of the country. There is no apolitical aid.

Joint projects aid

This seems least contentious. It involves setting up a small industry, enterprise or cooperative project, selling locally and on a world basis and sharing profits with the disadvantaged group. Carefully planned, this seems straight-forward. The main ethic to observe is that what is exported or sold doesn’t impoverish the area. Information and seed are good examples, or manufactures from imported raw materials. Publishing is a possible area.

Local enterprise aid

Effective if soundly assessed for social, ethical, and environmental impacts. Such fields as food preservation, domestic water purification and crop storage as well as autonomous energy supply using biogas. Training and funding local people to supply or improve on existing systems is usually effective and creates little harm, whereas expanding cattle herds and supplying large institutions or centralised power systems does have profound social effects favouring an already-privileged class (landowners) as do ‘miracle crops’, large irrigation systems and large technology centres. Even large biogas systems disfavour households.
Aiding change in land tenure to give people access to owned housing and land, or to legal systems to allow or facilitate community self-help is a key strategy unrelated to technology or crops but permitting any changes to benefit people. Aid to individuals is ineffective and creates a new privileged class. Aid to existing effective groups is ideal.

How we intend to proceed

As our plan is to spend only the interest from monies donated to the Fund, we may have to wait a few years while funds are accumulating. As stated before, we intend to deposit royalty payments from the next permaculture book into the Fund, and so we hope that within three years we would have a tidy sum if all goes well with book sales. In the meantime, we will be researching effective aid programmes already in place  it would be pointless and expensive to go looking for projects when there are so many that already exist and concentrating on those that offer educational programmes. There are many nongovernmental organisations to contact, ranging from Community Aid Abroad to World Neighbours, and we will eventually be able to narrow the list to those with whom a mutually beneficial relationship can develop.
Over the next few years, many of our trainee consultants will be gaining experience, and some have already had overseas work. Although initially we from Australia or the US. may be the first teachers we hope eventually to fund Asians, Mexicans, Africans, etc. to teach both in-country and across borders.
We will be collating information on skilled and experienced people over the next two years. We are grateful to those who have already donated to this Fund, and hope that more people will follow suit.
Bill Mollison, Permacuiture Institute

1984: The bioregional association

1 Jun, 2017 | Remembering Bill in Print

The Lost Stories

Remembering Bill in print — the legacy of Bill Mollison from the pages of the Permaculture International Journal
The Lost Stories are Bill Mollison’s articles published in the print magazine originally named Permaculture, then International Permaculture Journal and finally the Permaculture International Journal that was published between 1978 and 2000.
All stories and other content © Permaculture Australia unless otherwise noted. ……….
The Bioregional Association

1984, May, edition 16

THE BIOREGIONAL ASSOCIATION is an association of the local residents of a natural and identifiable region. This region is sometimes defined by a watershed, sometimes by remnant or existing tribal boundaries, at times by town boundaries, suburban streets or districts and at times by some combination of such factors.
Many people identify with their local region and know its boundaries. Ideally, the region so defined can be limited to that occupied by from 7000 to 15,000 people. Of these, perhaps only a hundred will be initially interested in any regional association, and even less will be active in it.
The work of the regional group is to assess the natural, technical, service, and financial resources of the region and to identify where leakage of resources (water, soil, money, talent) leave the region. This quickly points the way to local self-reliance strategies.

Compiling resources

Specialists inside and outside the region can be called on to write accounts of their specialties as they apply to the region, and regional news sheets publish results as they come in.
Once areas of action have been defined, regional groups can be formed into associations dealing with specific areas:

  • food — consumer-producer associations and gardening or soil societies
  • shelter — owner-builder associations
  • energy —  appropriate technology associations
  • finance — an Earthbank association
  • crafts, music, markets, livestock and nature study or any other interests.

The regional centre

The job of the regional office is complex and it needs four to six people to act as consultants and coordinators with others on call when needed. All other associations can use the office for any necessary use such as registration, address, phone and newsletter services.
Critical services and links can be built by any regional office. The office can serve as a land access centre, operating the strategies outlined under that section. It can also act as leasehold and title register and for service agreements for clubs and societies. More importantly, the regional office can offer and house community self-funding schemes and collect monies for trusts and societies.
The regional office also serves as a contact centre for other regions, and thus as a trade or coordination centre. One regional office makes it very easy for any resident or visitor to contact all services and associations offering in the region and also greatly reduces costs of communication for all groups. An accountant on call can handily contract to service all groups.
The regional group can also invite craftspeople or lecturers to address interest groups locally, sharing income from this educational enterprise.
Some of the topics that can be included in the regional directory are as follows. These can be taken topic by topic, sold at first by the page and finally put together as a loose-leaf notebook.
Topics to include in the regional directory:

  • plants and trees of the region
  • agricultural and market garden products
  • nurseries, growers, seed suppliers
  • social welfare services
  • finance, lending and self-funding
  • craft associations and retail outlets.

History and historical resources 

  • water sources and quality testing
  • soil analysis and mapping
  • recreational associations and reserves
  • building co-operatives and associations
  • volunteer organisations
  • medical facilities
  • legal firms and legal aid
  • secondhand goods and exchanges
  • health centres and retail outlets
  • books and information published in the region
  • computer facilities
  • educational opportunities
  • food co-operatives
  • markets and outlets
  • land trusts, land grants, public reserves
  • musical suppliers, musicians, venues
  • calendar of events in the region
  • political parties
  • skilled workers eg. carpenters, plumbers
  • councils, shires, railway and road reserves can be included.

Earthbank Societies

People interested in self-financing need to form a regional branch of an Earthbank Society, gather data on strategies and fashion these to suit local conditions.
A local Earthbank Society exists first to locate and inform its members of good products and systems, and second to set up ethical financial systems in the region.
On a federal level, the Earthbank Society collates and reports on alternative economic and legal strategies through the Permaculture Quarterly.
It is a great help to others if regional groups try out various local finance strategies, report on them at conferences and send accounts of successes and problems to the Earthbank Society.
Contact the Earthbank Society, PO Box 255, Crows Nest, N.S.W. 2065.

Land access strategies

The establishment of a regional office opens up the potential for offering a set of strategies enabling better landuse and suited to the finances and involvement of people using the service.
A selection of strategies follows but hybrids or other modifications can succeed.

  • Oxfam or land lease systems within built-up areas
  • city farms
  • city-as-farm and gleaning
  • farmlink systems
  • commonworks
  • farm and garden clubs.

Oxfam model

This is the least troublesome and is particularly suited  to young families in rental accommodation.
The regional office posts paired lists. List A is for those who want 200-1000 square feet of garden to grow food. List B are those (usually elderly or absentee landlords) who will lease 200-1000 square feet on an annual, renewable basis.
People list themselves and, as local land comes up, introduce themselves. The regional office prepares the standard lease specifying rental (if any), goods exchange, length and type of lease, access and the names of the parties. Councils, shires, railway and road reserves can be included.
Thus, many young families get legal access to garden land on an allotment basis. The regional office may need to map and actively seek land and should make a small service charge for registration of leases.

City farms 

These can be areas from one to 100 acres in (usually) poorer or industrial areas of the city with a long lease of from ten to 30 years (renewable or purchase-lease). A management group os appointed.
On this land the following activities are promoted:

  • demonstration gardens
  • garden allotments where permits
  • domestic animals, sheep, cows as demonstration and breeding stock
  • recycling centre for equipment, building materials (income-producing)
  • tool rental and access
  • gleaning operations
  • plant nursery
  • seminars, demonstrations, training programmes, educational outreach
  • seed, book, plant, and general retail sales.

City farms are spreading rapidly world-wide and usually serve 1000 or so suburban families. They can become financially independent within five to six years by sales and membership subscriptions, and seek to serve the interests of the community.
Some specialise in, for example, herb or fish products or as domestic animal supply centres. Others offer design, consultancy or implementation services to the city area and undertake house insulation, contract gardening and so on. The one essential is a long term, legally binding lease.
City as farm
This needs a tight, small (two to four person) management group.
Surplus city product is collected, sorted, packaged and retailed. Some groups collect, grade and sell citrus or nut crop and may provide young trees to gardeners on contract for later product off the trees. Others range sheep, duck, or geese flocks for fire or pest control.
All seem to make a very good income by treating the city as a (specialist) farm. A processing, shearing or like facility may be needed by the group. Glasshouse crop is another possibility.
Farm Link (producer-consumer co-ops)
These are appropriate to high-rise or rental families in an urban area. From 20-50 families link to one farm in the nearby country.
They can purchase and manage a property but usually come to an arrangement with an already-established market gardener. Quarterly meetings are held between both parties to work out what products can be trucked direct from farm to families who use the product and can retail surplus to others on pre-orders.
The farmer adjusts production to suit family needs and as the link grows, the system can also accommodate:

  • holidays on the farm
  • educational workshops and teach-ins
  • city help on the farm at rush periods.

Commonworks

A farm held by a land trust near the city or a country town arranges a whole series of special leases for forestry, livestock, crafts, teaching, flowers, fish, bees, dairy, mudworks and other complex enterprises. Some of these need land (area) leases, some only activity leases.
Urban or village people can lease and develop separate enterprises. If about ten percent of nett profit is returned to a commonwork fund, then the land can be developed for further leases.
On one such place in Kent (UK) up to 20-30 people obtain a living from one nearby farm. This is one of the best models of farm use at the highest level.

Farm and garden clubs

These suit families with some capital to invest as shares, with an annual membership (shares can be sold).
A farm is purchased by the club or society on a public access route one to two hours from the city. Depending on aims and share capital, people can lease small areas or appoint a manager. Rich clubs develop motel accommodation and recreational fisheries. Worker-based clubs usually develop private plots with (caravan-style) accommodation for weekends.
A management committee plans for the whole area (access, water, fences, rates, etc) and can be selected by the club. This, too, suits condominium or high-rise groups and provides a rural outlet.
The essentials to remember are:

  • firm, legal access organised; this is very basic to success
  • lean management (two to four people plan for the rest)
  • no frills
  • arrangements based on friendship and ethical social values.

Summary

Regional association membership fees can be kept low and regional groups charge only normal handling and service fees for work done.
A bioregional office should be able to make its own way providing it is staffed by a small group who usually offer services in energy-efficient architecture, permaculture design and implementation, legal aid, accounting, Earthbank (money management) or ethical investment advice.
Given that any small group in a region can come together to set up such an office, then the results on local unemployment, food supply and investment capital can be striking.
Normally, via international corporations and banks, money, monocultural food or mass manufacture are exported out of the region, reducing residents to what is effectively an unregarded work force dependent on centralised share-market whims or distant managerial decisions.
If only a proportion of capital and skills are used to produce the food, shelter, energy and finance needed locally, employment and goods become controlled by the region itself via resident owners.
Many residents become small shareholders in local service or provision industries which are no longer susceptible to external manipulation and, by providing for local needs, command loyalty as a matter of self-interest.

Accompanying article

A short story accompanied Bill Mollison’s The Bioregional Association:
Valley Farm, which is on five acres of land owned by Sutherland Homes for Children, is at present providing work for five people under the federal government’s Community Employment Program.
Coordinator Peter Chambers, project officer Tony Watkin and three project workers started work following the allocation of $60,000 in late January.
By the time the project was opened officially they had already begun to implement the permaculture design prepared by Mr Watkin.
If the design is a success, the farm workers will not need to bring in food for the animals or fertiliser for the plants. Instead, all facets of the project will be beneficial to each other.
Mr. Watkin said the design incorporates the planting of vegetables, flowers, herbs and fruit trees. The workers also plan to establish forage systems for chickens, sheep, bees and other livestock at the farm, which means the animals would be able to find all the food they require in the areas to which they are confined.
There will also be a solar-powered greenhouse and a building incorporating an office, resource centre and food co-operative.
Mr. Chambers said the farm would be operating in three different areas — employment initiatives, community education and as a food co-operative. The farm will eventually provide fruit and vegetables for Sutherland.
The long-term aim of the project is to give all members of the community the opportunity to pursue an interest in farming, working on a co-operative basis.

Editor’s note

Notes on Bill Mollison’s The Bioregional Association

Dimensions:

  • 1 square foot = 929.0304 square centimetres
  • 1 foot = 30.48cm
  • 1 acre = 0.404686 hectares.

The Oxfam model

The Oxfam model mentioned in Bill’s article is similar in principle to the landshare schemes set up in Australia and the UK in recent years. Neither appear to be operating now and their websites appear to be closed.
Essentially, the landsare model of land access provides an online platform through which people seeking land for food production and those with land they are willing to make available make contact.
It would now be regarded as a type of platform co-operative within the Cooperative Commonwealth model of social organisation.
In March 2011 Australia’s Milkwood Permaculture reported on the Landshare model of land access: https://www.milkwood.net/2011/03/14/my-land-is-your-land-the-landshare-concept/
Another report appeared in the same year: http://www.pigswillfly.com.au/2011/03/landshare-australia-up-and-growing/

Historic note on bioregionalism in Australian permaculture 

Bioregionalism became a topic in permaculture design courses in the 1980s. In the 1990’s the late Peter Berg from the Planet Drum Foundation, a US-based bioregional organisation, visited Australia, spending time in Sydney where he met with the then-Permaculture Sydney Association at Lurline’s Permaculture Cafe in Annandale.
Bioregionalism was also a deep influence on the Australian Association of Sustainable Communities, set up following the 1994 Aquarius Festival-ten-years-after event in Nimbin, northern NSW. Permaculturist, Stephen Ward, was a leading figure in the organisation in Sydney, which published the periodical Evidently/Sustainability, an “alternative news agency” press clipping service compiling reports of environmental and social challenges and solutions.
Planet Drum Foundation: http://www.planetdrum.org

Other notes 

Consumer-producer associations

The consumer-producer associations mentioned in the story are more commonly known today as CSA — Community Supported Agriculture. They link farmers in a region to food buyers in nearby population centres, providing access to, usually, organically produced (certified and uncertified) foods produced in the region.
In larger cities, distributing regional farm produce has proven a transportation challenge, so intermediatery social enterprise and small businesses have established as food aggregators, services to which farmers deliver their produce, where it is boxed and from where it is delivered to subscribers. These are variously known as hybrid CSAs, food hubs or food box systems. Examples include Brisbane Food Connect and Sydney’s Ooooby (Out Of Our Own Back Yard).
Brisbane Food Connect: https://www.foodconnect.com.au
Ooooby: https://www.ooooby.org

Earthbank Society

The Earthbank Society was a permaculture initiative set up to promote the ethical investment movement that was emerging in the 1980s as well as related social investment initiatives. More at:  http://pacific-edge.info/2009/09/earthbank-and-permaculture-a-productive-nexus/ 

Ethical Investment Comes of Age ….finally


The new economy reborn in Sydney


The man who brought ethics to investment

City farm

In Australia, city farms have evolved within the same urban agriculture/sustainability education context as community gardens. Generally, city farms are larger social enterprises than community gardens and incorporate a wider range of activity. Australian examples include Northey street City farm in Brisbane, Perth City Farm and CERES in Melbourne.
More on city farms and community gardens: http://communitygarden.org.au

City as farm

The city as farm model was implemented in the US where people made their gardens available to a food aggregator for a fee. The produce was then sold to a community food system.

Owner-builder associations

Owner-building was a characteristic of the alternative or back-to-the-land social movement of the 1970s. The movement both influenced permaculture and was attractive to permaculture practitioners in the 1980s. Earth construction, usually mudbrick but also pise or rammed earth in suitable climates, were popular as they were low cost, providing the builder had the time to make the bricks and to build.
In the US, Lloyd Kahn and his Shelter Publications was and continues to be a documenter and educator in owner building. Lloyd with Bob Laston produced the influential book, Shelter, in 1973.
Shelter Publications: https://www.shelterpub.com
Shelter: https://www.shelterpub.com/building/shelter
Owner building became a significant enough approach to affordable housing, more so perhaps in rural areas, to spawn The Owner Builder magazine in 1981 http://www.theownerbuilder.com.au/

Regional directory

The regional directory, sometimes called the bioregional directory, was a compilation of regional resources published by bioregional groups in an unknown number of locales in Australia including that produced by AASC — the Australian Association for Sustainable Communities — in Sydney.

Commonworks

The commonworks model of livelihood creation through small business or social enterprise on shared land and with shared infrastructure was implemented by the Permaculture Institute when it was based near Tyalgum, in northern NSW’s subtropical Tweed Valley, in the 1990s.