Permaculture thinking helps us connect with each other and with nature. principles. The ethics defy the notion of self-sufficiency. Instead, they foster respect and build community. Kerrie Anderson of Synergy Permaculture Australia lives and grows on the Central Coast of NSW, Australia. Her work has nurtured hundreds of others learn, grow and thrive. Here, in her own words, Kerrie tells us how she works to efficiently connect with others.
Kerrie Anderson talks about Mindfulness in Permaculture
Ethics at core of everything
The strength of Permaculture is the three ethics at the core of everything we do. And while they might seem quite simplistic to people, if you’re just looking at them from a superficial level. Of course, the deeper you delve, the more complex you realize they are. And they are all-encompassing. And that was definitely the aha! moment for me. Having an ethical foundation or centre is probably a better way to describe it. Because we know it’s not a building block it’s literally core to everything we do. So it informs all my decisions in my life and and that makes sense to me to bring them back to those three core ethics.
Strive to Connect
Somebody once asked me what’s my superpower with permaculture? I think it’s connection. So, connecting people with the content of what permaculture is and and really the feeling, like I really always try and work with my heart. Obviously, the head’s very important and the knowledge and and the skills that just working with the heart of why do people want to learn more about permaculture why do they want to weave it into their life and base their life around it. Then creating that with the heart really inspires people and enthuses people. And for me, that’s really central. A lot of people have the misconception that permaculture is is about just organic edible gardening, which of course we know, is much broader than that.
Some people think that they can express their permaculture as a lone individual, creating that self-sufficient lifestyle. But, once you really truly understand permaculture and work with the ethics and the principles you see that’s completely the wrong model. It’s about Community.
Kerrie Anderson
Build to Connect
Permaculture is about connection. Not just with the planet with nature, but with human nature as well. So, I realized very quickly that social permaculture, actually yes, is an area of permaculture that’s really often overlooked. But is so critically important we can get every other aspect of our practice, you know, spot on. We know the ideas, we’ve got the design down, and know the principles and ethics and we’re working with them. But if we’re not working with people in an effective and meaningful way, learning how to accept diversity in human behaviour and human interaction. And how to work with groups and how to connect with people about this message. Then, we’re not going to go anywhere as a permaculture movement.
defining their own connections – social permaculture design determined by the members
We have to lead by example. For me, I guess coming from a Healthcare model where I was that old-fashioned nurse having to care for people, learning a lot about human nature in that medical system and human frailties and and how to communicate with people well. That helped keep me in good stead. But also my personal practices of practicing heartfulness meditations helps.
Connect with the Good stuff
I’m always about trying to let go of patterns that don’t serve my behaviour. And in my communication doing better and being aware of other people. And aware of how they’re feeling in certain circumstances has been fundamental. So, I think that really helped inform my teaching style and who I am as a person. And I keep trying to always bring it back to that. So, even if you’re on the head level staff and you’re giving the theory and getting the practicing with students that you’re always very mindful of that people care. And with the Permaculture fair-share ethic. And most of all, you’re modelling that. By having that consciousness of diversity and and designing the coursework for everybody.
Rosemary tells us “I could see how very Western, middle-class permaculture was, where, in those countries people might say air pollution is easy to fix – just don’t drive cars. But my mind is global now and considers whether such statements are true across the world. My mind is less western. I’ll say, “Well, no, air pollution is not easy to solve for a refugees in Sri Lanka, in Dhaka in Bangladesh, or in Afghanistan. Because all you have there to burn may be plastic bags, to keep warm, or to cook your food. The air pollution from plastic is and poor quality coke is dangerous. Unknowable numbers of people die of air pollution every year. Don’t accept the western response to a problem as global. Certainly don’t teach it as if it is. Western solutions are not always valuable globally”
Evolving from individuality
There are a couple of big contrasts for me. One is the language of individuality which runs through all western speech such as, “My garden, My fruit trees, My place, My chickens, My everything!” Yet most of the people I work with speak of “Our community, Our chickens, Our fruit trees. They’re not consciously ‘eco-villagers’ but they think of themselves with others. And, when you’re living in Afghanistan you live in a compound with either your husband, your children, your brothers and sisters and their children. There can be 20 people sharing a bathroom and toilet. And they speak of We. The extreme individuality of westerners doesn’t help permaculture. It is very possessive.
Rowe Morrow – Photo Supplied
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Individuality’ affects the Permaculture curriculum
I have changed my teaching methods. Yes, you still design your place and that’s yours, but you also need to work with your street and neighbourhood. It may be street trees, it might be verge gardens. It could be growing food for surplus and sharing so people can pick apples or oranges freely. In my case it’s kiwi fruit. You think of how your abundance can serve your local community. Move from ‘me’ to ‘we’.
‘This is the space this young participant had. She is using the family’s grey water.’ Rowe Morrow
The Third Ethic of permaculture – Fair Share
And another thing is the way people I’ve been working with for the past decade or so, are working naturally and extensively with the third ethic of permaculture and the gift economy than westerners do. There isn’t so much talk about money. People would like to have money and better incomes but much of the conversation is about giving and lending, swapping and working together.
Starting a garden in Lavrio Refugee camp
Refugee Ecosystem Thinking
The third ethic, distribute surplus to need, as it is written into permaculture, is derived from ecosystem structures. Create no pollution with your surplus. Use everything completely and pass on what you’re not using – that’s your surplus to need. Westerners want to grow an individual garden, retrofit a house or farm. They struggle more with the Third Ethic. We need to create the conditions under which people can flourish and you can do this living the Third Ethic.
Food grown and homes cooled in Bangladesh
No More ‘Sages’
Originally I came up with some very chalk talk ‘Sage on the stage style of teaching’ which I felt was directly opposed to care of people. Teaching is often seen as “I’ve got the knowledge!” I think teaching, which behaves as if there’s care of people, would listen to what they know, what they want to offer and what their queries are.
Discovering contours
But these learner centred methods give much more noisy, discussing, interactive classroom. And really, if you are teaching because you want people to look at you, listen to you, or you regard yourself as the source of all knowledge, then you’re not taking care of people. It’s not respectful to just deliver content as if people did not arrive with knowledge and experience. Bored students are sending you the message, ‘I know, I know’.’
Kahrl – Plant study Syrian women refugees Turkey
Be Respectful, Keen and Deliver Quality Content
Another reason is to change my teaching process was about the quality of knowledge….We have a wonderful curriculum which doesn’t need much alteration. We can add up to date research. Be very, very keen, moral and accurate about content which further confirms permaculture and is growing in depth and, breadth. Deliver quality courses. This is true for everyone, not just for refugees but especially for them. However you need the process we’ve been talking about. – processes of teaching which demonstrates care of people and ensures that everyone has an opportunity to learn, does learn and and can express themselves. It’s harder than chalk-and-talk, but once you get good at it, it comes quickly and is deeply satisfying. The process I use comes from a ‘create peace background’ called Alternatives to Violence (AVP).
Lesvos Refugee camp participants discuss hopes and expectations‘This participant taught many others’ Rower Morrow
How do you get to help Refugees?
I’m invited and hosted by NGOs (non-government organisations). You can’t turn up at the gates of a refugee camp say “Hey, here I am, I’ve come to teach you permaculture and I’ve got all this good stuff for you and you need me!’. Realistically, there’s a whole process to go through. We have just finished a book called Teaching Permaculture in Refugee camps and it sets out what you need to do to follow this vocation.
‘Using whatever is at hand’ Rowe Morrow
Multipurpose for each visit
I work out multiple tasks for each visit. I never go and return with one objective. So, I look at other projects. I spend time with the host community, offering seminars with local permaculture groups and looking at new projects.
Refugee Camp Conditions
Plastic rubbish on the ground
Gardens made out of rubbish including old shoes
The conditions are often hard. The food can get to the point when you look at yellow dall heavily laced with chili in week five and think ‘I can’t eat this anymore.’ But you serve yourself some because you’ve got a big session coming up. You can’t afford to be hungry and lightheaded. Someone has prepared the food and others would be grateful for it. You may share a room at night with as many as six others and there can be whining mosquitoes, barking dogs, there are mice in your luggage and other mysterious noises. I’ve had rats run over my mosquito net, and a huge cockroach inside it.
making models in Lesvos Refugee Camp
Challenges working with refugees – Put your needs aside
We ran into a two week long missionary program in Cox’s Bazar. This Islamic program was presented on public loudspeakers. They broadcast loudly all day, and all night. from slightly out-of-sync speakers in the five neighbouring mosques beginning at 3.45 am. You wake up – reach for your ear plugs and mutter “Oh no, I need my sleep!” Well it doesn’t matter what you need – you will still do a full day’s work to the best of your ability and without complaint.
lunchtime line-up in Lesvos Refugee camp
A Secret to a Meaningful Teaching Projects – include NGO Staff
One secret to a really good project is that your host wants you because they know permaculture will significantly give better quality lives. Always include NGO staff as course participants because when the course finishes they will write project proposals to continue permaculture. They know what they need and want and can usually get resources.
Rowe in Turkey with Syrian women PDC graduates
Include Local Inhabitants with Refugee Participants
Include local inhabitants because, as it happened in Greece, the Moria refugee camp. The camp was burnt down. And then the day centre was burnt down. People were walking around Lesvos without food, papers and records and then a group of Nazi Greeks started bashing people. The local residents who had been in the refugee classes set up centres for them. They found a couple of acres of land where people could live safely and grow food and learn how to develop incomes.
When covid came to the camps, local people were those who took over because the NGO staff left. To maintain the project needs local components to continue. When I come home we include those NGO leaders into the Permaculture for the Refugees group and we continue talking and mentoring. We have left them two thousand dollars each course and ask them write a permaculture project proposals saying ” Here’s the money, write up a project you really need here: the project you want. Send us photographs and a few words as a report over the next two years.”
Working and understanding in Lesvos
Bright Futures for Refugees
Nearly two years later in Bangladesh they’re implementing big permaculture projects. They’ve multiplied and multiplied. Permaculture is everywhere in some camps. This way of working is important to embed permaculture in the NGO. And in the country. Yes, you can tell people to set up a garden and so on. But, it wont endure unless you’ve included local people, taught the NGO staff. And, left some funds and left permaculture in/with the people in the country who will take it over and scale it up.
We’d like to see all NGO organisations who work with refugees make permaculture training compulsory for their staff. We believe we’d see a real change in lives, incomes, satisfaction and even joy, by all who were engaged in social and environmental transformation of refugee lives and camps.”
Learn more about Permaculture with us at PermacultureVisions.com
Giving can break expectations and enrich relationships. But best of all, the gift economy has the power to manifest system change.
Our presentation tackles the issues surrounding the art of giving.
Giving is system changing because it provides an opportunity to break expectations. Here is the chance to go above and beyond.
Gift Economy Unwraps a Fair Share
One of the principles of permaculture is to share surplus and distribute a fairer share of resources. The gift economy and volunteering are easy ways to give away surplus good and services. It is also a way to show support of others. Being supportive is an undervalued style of giving. By being kind and supportive you won’t get famous. But, help is delivered quickly when and where it is needed.
Supporting others is a valuable gift
Traditional Gift Economies
Gift giving is a huge part of many cultures and economies. For instance, in Japan it is customary to give a gift to say you are sorry. Or to say welcome or thank you. In fact, it is traditional in Japan to remember the trading of gifts and services. A formal register often records who owes whom. And this register between families and neighbours is often kept for centuries.
In Australia, it is common to give money for a major event like a wedding or to use their bridal registry. But this monetary gift doesn’t explore our relationship with the receiver. In nearly all traditional giving situations we can’t give too much (for fear of making the receiver feel obligated). And we can’t give too little (for fear of looking mean).
But we can be assured that nearly everyone enjoys colourful memories and hearty food.
scratching a back – the gift economy
Gift Economy versus Monetary Economy
The gift economy uses gift giving and services instead of money. Terry Leahy talks about the gift economy as a pathway out of capitalism. So, let’s tackle the elephant in the room -money. Money separates us from our work. And this is evident when we’re buying something. We rarely ever ask “who made this?” Or “Who mined the materials?” Or, “who invented the software?” Yet marketers know that buyers care a lot about who branded the item.
Advertisers know that the look of the product creates an emotional response. And this response overrides many other factors such as the durability efficiency and price. And in all honesty, a car that ‘travels faster than human reaction time’ is not only unsustainable [because it is more likely to crash], it’s lethal. Although it runs on more environmental energy, the real environmental question is “can it sustain itself and sustain life?”
Forest of Tranquility
Money Disregards Environmental Justice
The monetary economy deals poorly with environmental Injustice issues. Yes, we have compensation and legal systems to repay losses. But the monetary system can’t afford to factor in these costs up front, before they happen. And there are a few companies who willingly incorporate environmental and safety quality systems. Only regulation and legal structures encourage us to buy from environmentally responsible quality manufacturers?
Greed is Not the Evil. The Problem is the System Without Ethics
The monetary market requires that companies buy goods cheaply and sell them at a higher price. Terry says “Greed is not the evil here”. Instead, the system is the problem because the monetary system sustains only companies with highest profits it weeds out those who can’t compete. At an individual level we can be ethical in our choices. This makes a difference if we buy direct from the producer because especially when we give feedback. But, as Terry Leahy points out, big companies that make decisions based on ethics, completely destabilise the monetary market.
Make time to serve who we love, not just who we have to – find your place in the gift economy
Hidden Economic Power of Volunteers in Gift Economy
Carers and rescue teams who provide safety nets are nearly all volunteers. The vast collective of volunteers are integral to our recovery and resilience. One in three people in Australia volunteer their time. This is a huge contribution to our economy. Especially through increasing climate change disasters.
Give a Little or a Lot
In the gift economy you can produce as much as you like. There’s no motive to produce unnecessary stuff. And prestige comes from producing stuff that doesn’t damage the environment. Studies by social ecologists such as Terry Leahy revealed two-track thinking. 50 percent of people want a system change like a regulated green economy but only 15 of those people actually vote for it. Because, in the second track of our thinking we’re worrying about jobs, safety comfort and perhaps, even a luxurious retirement or staying in what we see as our normal life even though the planet is not capable of sustaining the normal.
finding the wonder of worms
Dive In
Fortunately, the gift economy is the easiest economy to dip your toes into. If you want to have a go at making a change, this is easy. And it’s not going to cost you the earth. Look around and see what you can make, share or give away. And volunteer your time. In 1916, Lily Hardy Hammond wrote about Paying it Forward in her book called In the Garden of Delight. This means, instead of paying somebody back, you give something forward. So when you’re giving gifts of kindness and distributing your wealth on a regular basis you are enriching the world acts of kindness every day.
The essence of our sustainable existence lies in our design. Because all elements within a system crave efficient and meaningful connections.
Emeritus Prof Stuart Hill reminds us that the essence of permaculture is design. He remarked “It really struck me being in an agriculture faculty in a major university there was no teaching about design”.
In this interview, Stuart reflects on the core power of Permaculture. The essence of makes Permaculture unique. Permaculture focuses on design and drives us to build knowledge about all the components within the design and how they interact. We start to see ourselves in the picture, as part of the system. We can also learn from traditional farmers, researchers and build our own observations.
The future of permaculture is in all of our hands. Stuart urges us to expand our knowledge by adding social understanding to our ‘tried and tested work’ on permaculture design.
Epping forest where delegates from Africa and Hong Kong marvel at the wasted abundance in a major city
Design requires knowledge
In Stuart’s early teaching years “design was taken as given” and practiced as simplified monoculture with some very simple rotations based on inputs and extraction. Instead we need to give attention to the maintenance of the system. He remarks “When I first saw about permaculture and not just permaculture but also the new alchemy institute [who] had also put out a book and report about what was needed in agriculture. And it was the same concept of design.”
What is design?
Stuart explains “So the question about design is what do you include in the design? And where do you put it? When do you put it? How do you manage it? All that requires a considerable amount of knowledge. Whereas when you’re just practicing monoculture you don’t actually need that sort of same level of knowledge.
And design encompasses an understanding of ecological processes. As well as the functions that the different organisms carry out. Also we need an understanding of what these organisms need. As well as understanding about what their interrelationships are and how that varies over time and space. So, there’s not an assumption that you can do anything anywhere, anytime. Instead, we get an understanding that there are things you can do optimally in certain places and at certain times”.
An Ancient Essence
“This appreciation for design takes a certain amount of experience and knowledge to know when and where those those things are. What has particularly what impressed Stuart about permaculture…is that design is the central issue. Other organizations such as biological agriculture, ecological agriculture, organic farming, biodynamic farming, regenerative farming and convergence farming etc. acknowledge the importance of design. But not with the same understanding and central focus that permaculture does.
David Holmgren‘s list of principles demonstrates the essential core of design. And Stuart notes that we “would only add to his list in terms of the psychological so my take is that our internal permaculture is a foundation for external permaculture. And that has been neglected I think in conventional permaculture until fairly recently. A few people have been acknowledging this you know the whole concept of polyculture systems and succession.”
Design is an Ancient Practice
Indigenous cultures, particularly in the tropics, understand the power of design. Stuart recalls “When I when I worked in Trinidad coffee and cocoa was grown under flame trees which provided shade for them. And they got more optimal production when they had a certain amount of shade. And north American Indians planted squash and beans and corn together. So the beans captured Nitrogen for the corn and the squash grew up the corn as a support. There are lots and lots of those sort of examples. And also, in terms of rotations, moving crops so you don’t follow the same crop year after year. And there are certain things that you can’t follow because something leaves a toxin in the soil that affects the subsequent crop. So, all that sort of knowledge is quite essential.” This creates the essence of sustainable design.
