Why should you study the Permaculture Design Course?
Why should you study the Permaculture Design Course?
Everyone can benefit from learning about Permaculture and how to apply Permaculture design principles to your life. You can apply these design principles to your garden, community spaces or to the larger environment. This course will allow you to broaden your understanding of Permaculture theory, building your knowledge of all the necessary aspects (like growing food, enriching soils and using waste as a resource) to become fully conversant with Permaculture design. By the end of the course, you will be able to confidently create your first Permaculture design plan.
This course not only provides you with the theory and practical knowledge to create design plans, it allows you to take a step into the world of Bill Mollison, one of the co-founders of Permaculture. Bill's global experience in sharing the principles of Permaculture design, along with his entertaining story telling, will captivate you and challenge you to think critically about how we can all apply the principles of sustainable land use design to our lives and communities.
All students enrolled in the course are invited to join our private Student Group on Facebook. Check your Welcome message to gain access.
Please note: This course does not include an assessment component and therefore there is no formally recognised Permaculture Design Certificate.
What exactly is Permaculture and why is it applicable to everyone?
The concept of Permaculture was first presented by Bill Mollison and his student, David Holmgren, in the mid 1970's. Permaculture is sustainable land use design, based on ecological and biological principles, often using patterns that occur in nature to maximise effect and minimise work. Permaculture aims to create stable, productive systems that provide for human needs, harmoniously integrating the land with its’ inhabitants. The ecological processes of plants, animals, their nutrient cycles, climatic factors and weather cycles are all part of the picture. Inhabitants’ needs are provided for using proven technologies for food, energy, shelter and infrastructure. Elements in a system are viewed in relationship to other elements, where the outputs of one element become the inputs of another. Within a Permaculture system, work is minimised, “wastes” become resources, productivity and yields increase, and environments are restored. Permaculture principles can be applied to any environment, at any scale from dense urban settlements to individual homes, from farms to entire regions.
Who is the Permaculture Design Course delivered by?
This Permaculture Design Course was first convened in 2005 through collaboration with Tony Walkins and Lisa Mollison, Tagari Publications. Tagari Publications' primary function is to support the work of The Permaculture Institute by publishing educational materials on sustainability, with Lisa Mollison fulfilling the role of Managing Director since 1997. All lectures available in this course are a recording of the live delivery of the course in 2005 and feature presentations by Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton.
Throughout your participation in the digital course, you will be supported by Lisa Mollison, who has been teaching Permaculture design principles to students, volunteers and 'Wwoofers' at Tagari Garden Farm (the home of The Permaculture Institute) since 1996. Lisa Mollison is furthering Bill Mollison's vision to spread Permaculture design principles and ethics across the globe by offering the Permaculture Design Course to a wider audience.
Lisa Mollison, Tagari Publications and The Permaculture Institute, is the copyright owner of all course content and resources. Please note, although unintentional, there is a possibility that some content presented in this course may contain references to deceased people, sacred or secret material and terminology or language which some people may find inappropriate or offensive.
About Bill Mollison
Bill Mollison was the Founding Director of the Permaculture Institute, the first and longest running Permaculture institute in existence, and taught and developed projects from the Arctic through Sub-tropic and Equatorial regions of the planet. There are few countries left in the world where he did not personally plant the seeds of Permaculture. The Peoples of the Pacific, South East Asia, South Africa and seven Amazonian language groups have been inspired by and acted on his teachings, embracing Permaculture as a dynamic tool. He also gave courses in the drylands and developed projects with Native Americans, Indigenous Australians, tribal women of the Deccan, Kalahari, San groups and Pima people of the Sonora. In the USA, Europe and Scandinavia, Bill lectured and helped to develop ecological designs for urban and rural properties, including many city farms and CSA’s (Community Supported Agriculture).
Bill Mollison was vitally concerned with the environment for over forty years. His many roles included: scientist, naturalist and university professor. Later, he became a vigorous campaigner against environmental exploitation which led him to develop Permaculture as a positive solution. Bill devoted his energies towards designing sustainable systems, writing text books and articles on Permaculture, and most importantly, teaching. Permaculture now laps the globe, resulting in thousands of independent associations involved in the areas of sustainable agriculture, reforestation, education and village economics. True to his vision, throughout the world, Permaculture is becoming an everyday part of life.
Lecture one covers the following topics:
Introduction
Permaculture Institutes
Permaculture Applications
Permaculture Defined
Toxins in Food
Rising Sea Levels
Perennial Pasture
Mast and Pannage
Marshes and Mangroves
Supporting Functions
Lecture 2 covers the following topic:
Learning Permaculture
Source and Sink
Compressed Air
Yield
Housing Insulation
Methodology of Design
Inputs and Outputs
Chook Heated Glass House
Lecture 3 covers the following topics:
Energy and Zones
Sector Planning
Observe Nature
Observation to Design Strategy
Experiential Aspect to Design
Zone Planning
Water Overview
Slopes
Crops
House Placement
Overview
Test your knowledge!
Lecture 4 covers the following topics:
Ethics
Life Web
Elements in Design
Zones
Sectors
Hemispheres
More on Zones
Maps
Design Process
Worldview
Functions of a Designer
Lecture 5 covers the following topics:
Directives
India
Serial Evolution
Science
Arctic Dreams
Birch
Fractals
Aboriginal Maths
Lunar Cycles
Glass Blowing
Lecture 6 covers the following topics:
Knowledge and Information
Opportunistic Resources
Whale Story
Resources that Decrease
Resources that Destroy
Radioactivity
Avoidable Risks
Trees
Squid
Lecture 7 covers the following topics:
Traditional Patterns
Refraction Navigation
Bure Navigation Lessons
Undersea Light Path
Pattern Navigation Summary
Events
Order of Size
Lecture 8 covers the following topics:
Orders
Application of Design
Banana Circles
Coconut Circles
Stacking the System
Edge Effect
Random Assembly
Farming with Ducks
Energy Audits
Termites
Sharing Information
Lecture 9 covers the following topics:
More on Pattern
Relations of Edge Effect
Climate Specifics
Temperate Biomass Equation
Australia and Permaculture
Tropic Biomass Equation
Observe Your Weeds
Arid Biomass Equation
Lecture 10 covers the following topics:
Temperate Grazing
Arid Soil
Pollard and Coppice
Climate and landscape
Condensation/Evaporation
Living Resources
Profile of Landscape
Key Point
Water, Access, Structures
Lecture 11 covers the following topics:
Planting Slopes
Flatlands
Arid Landscape
Gabions
Runoff
Limonia
Water Harvesting
Dune Country
Lecture 12 covers the following topics:
Swale Origin
Planting Patterns
Acid Alkaline
White Cedar
Weed Indications
Herb Spiral
Tropical Water strategy
How Big is a Dam?
Swale Information
Borders and Blackberries
Limestone
Sun Angle Formula
Broom Specieis
Lecture - Desert Landscapes
Lecture 13 covers the following topics:
Gilgais
Erosion Gullies
Botanical Resources
Building Camaraderie
Kalahari Resources
Termite Mounds
Rodents
Gibber Desert
Lecture 14 covers the following topics:
Termites Continued
1421
Drylands
Coral Islands
Atoll pH and Soils
High Islands
Lecture 15 covers the following topics:
PDC Learning
Volcanic Islands
Tsunami
Types of Lava
Islands and Coasts
School Garden
Wetlands and Chinampas
Lecture 16 covers the following topics:
Chinampas continued
Swale Case Study
Estuaries
New Orleans
Trompe
Compost
Local Diet
Gley
Lecture 17 covers the following topics:
Trees in Action
Tree Relationships
Light Saturation
Albedo
Solar Factory
Wind
Cauliferous
Rain Makers
Isotopes
Rain Trees
Enaranado
Lecture 18 covers the following topics:
Rain Transfer Bands
Adis Ababa
Ensete
Throughfall
Sublimation
Classes of Forest
Conservation Forest
Urban Production
Lecture 19 covers the following topics:
Dryland Food Forest
Coppice Forest
Pole Timber forest
Forage Forest
Timber Forest
Establishing Forests
Nitrogen Fixation
Lecture 20 covers the following topics:
Food Forests
Stacking the System
Trees in Communities
Orchard Conversion
Chicken Tractors
Questions
Lecture 21 covers the following topics:
Qualities of Water
Roof Water
pH Scale
Food Miles
Tree Disease
Tank Algae
World Water
Soy
Aquaculture
Energy Systems
Wallace Plow
Lecture 22 covers the following topics:
Tanks
Biocides
Suburban Situations
Keyline
Swale
Revelations
Contours
Swale Profiles
Case Study
Lecture 23 covers the following topics:
Humid Landscape
Barrier Dams
Valley Dams
Contour Dams
More on Swales
Botswana
Rainwater Issues
Radiation
Lecture 24 covers the following topics:
Waste Water
Melbourne's Engineers
Bronx Frontier
Gley Farm
Sewage
City Farms
Irrigation
Dryland Trees
Questions
Lecture 25 covers the following topics:
Soil Composition
Soil Salting
Trail Ride
Components
Creation
Macrofauna
Respiration
Increasing
Poverty Flat
Large Scale
Additives
Lecture 26 covers the following topics:
Clay and Non-Wetting
Swale Effect
Change
Botswana
Sea of Cortez
Paddy Culture
Moving Earth
Ha - Ha
Ocher
Machines
Lecture 27 covers the following topics:
Soil Life
Roots
Chemical and Biocide Cocktails
Dead Sea Valley
Enrichment
Sunshine Coast
Compost
Lecture 28 covers the following topics:
Compost
Activators
Corrections
Animals in Compost
Weeds In compost
Toxins
How Much?
Worm Farms
Ben Hur
Lecture 29 covers the following topics:
Questions
Locusts
Dams
Design vs Build
Common Earthworks
More Questions
Bamboo
Terraces
Lecture 30 covers the following topics:
Aquaculture
Mixed Aquaculture
Prawn Pond
Kelp
Aquatic plants
Trout
Lotus
Questions
Lecture 31 covers the following topics:
Animal Use
Minerals
Design Case study
A Garden Layout
Talking to Earth Movers
Lecture 32 covers the following topics:
Road Water
Stumps
Dams
Dam Slide Show
Sealing Dams
Rocks
Dam Slide Show continued
Lecture 33 covers the following topics:
Reactive Temperate House
Scandinavia
Mass
Insulation
Air Movement
Earthen Floors
Bruce Effect
Deflective Wind and Sun
Heat
Desert House
Wet Tropical House
Another Desert House
Lecture 34 covers the following topics:
Tropic House
Review
Earth and Water Shapers
Dravidian
Mud Houses
Three Day House
Rammed Earth
Straw and Renders
Settlement Pattern
Lecture 35 covers the following topics:
Temperate to Subtropical
Radiant Heat
Review
Developing Countries
Tropical
Desert
Shade, Snow, Earth
Lecture 36 covers the following topics:
Shrimp Ponds
Temperate Swale Planting
Hemp
Agave
Insurance
Road Gutters
Property Location Service
Avoidable Risks
Location Service continued
Invisible Structures, Trusts
Lecture 37 covers the following topics:
Trusts Continued
Church Stories
Credit Union
August Investments
Research Group
LETS
Micro Banking
Informal Economy
Promissory Note
Permaculture Academy
Lecture 38 covers the following topics:
Aloe Vera
Local Groups
Themes
PET
Markets
Bioregional Organisation
Lecture 39 covers the following topics:
Slumping
Books
Faraday Effect
Soil Gases
Cane Toads and Fire Ants
Swale
Ethical Investment
Possums in New Zealand
Wombat
Keyhole
Zone 1 to 5
Consultancy
Aid Work
Lecture 40 covers the following topics:
Design Assignment
Making Plans - Group Discussion
Design Presentations
Certificates and Diplomas
Giving of the PDC Certificates
What are Bill and Geoff up to next?
Round Table Discussions
Closing Remarks
Review what you've learnt
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