-- Lawrence F. London, Jr. - Venaura Farm - Chapel Hill, NC, USA mailto:london@sunSITE.unc.edu http://sunSITE.unc.edu/InterGarden mailto:llondon@mathernet.com http://mathernet.com/llondon
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- To: "'Permacultire Mailing List'" <permaculture-mg@amani.ces.ncsu.edu>
- Subject: FW: my view of the conference
- From: April Sampson-Kelly <askpv@ozemail.com.au>
- Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1996 11:07:34 +-1100
---------- From: April Sampson-Kelly[SMTP:askpv@ozemail.com.au] Sent: Sunday, 20 October 1996 11:20 To: 'Sal Schettino' Subject: my view of the conference Hello so much to tell you and yet again I am torn between teaching perma on the computer (which is why I sign on in the mornings supposedly) and actually attending to jobs in the garden and/or feeding workers, and then - my favorite escape talking on the net. So please exuse if I talk in instalments I feel that the conference was a success for myself, for others there and the movement in general. There were people there of all ages and maturity in permaculture - novices and those looking for new inspiration. the conference was a dynamic mix of incredible people - WOW I don't think there was a boring person in the room - 500 in all, I managed to converse with about 250 I guess, I am usually open and friendly but that doesn't always help with other cultures -some like the opposite to my friendliness and might think I am slow or subnormal like city people treat country bumpkins.!! Also, some people don't favour eye-contact or chatting too quickly - there has to be respect pauses between comments. Being female turned out to be a challenge. There we noticebly more men than women at the conference, well at least with every topic I chose to attend - I realised that I am into the manly stuff - soft technology, worms, composting toilets, solar power, turbine engineering, internet etc, and that I can live with. But to add to this I forgot that some cultures treat females as possessing lower intellect and not to ask questions and this came as a shock. Anyway - I will get to the view of the conference, just giving you I little background on my limited perception... FIRST AND FOREMOST - we realised from the last day at the converegence that we must ALL promote the permaculture internet news groups more. In fact we should list them on our home page each one of us, I will ask the mailing list for help on this. Day one, Mollison spoke and it soon became apparent to me that there are friends and foes of this guy and I must admit it, he likes to shock people so that would be part of package. He spoke on the last evening at the syposium - attended by graduates in Permaculture only, about the struggle between GREEN FACISTS and permaculturatlists. He openly admitted he didn't care about being politically correct on recommending only certain species for this area and that, he pointed out that purist greenies were spending energy removing weeds while the rest of the world is losing soil at an upstoppable speed. I must say that although I came from the greening movement, I have come to realise that he is making sense although I wouldn't call my people eco-facists. I realise that I don't eat only endemic species and so I need to eat those weeds called vegetables and fruit. The highlight of the conference for me was hearing Robyn Tredwell speak. She spoke of the her attempts to regenerate her station with endemic species and how that just didn't survive because the land had been changed over time, the land was no longer supporting native species so she used the cattle as weeders to remove a native species Accacia tumoorata (spelling most likely wrong) that dominated an area - my personal definition of a weed is one that doesn't respect diversity. Then she used the cattle as seeders, she would feed them on the seeding pastures and move them on to poo on barren areas. She also gave them oil to speed up the passage of seed to reduce its digestion in the four stomachs. She also defended her use of cattle too - she must have had years of fighting against greenies - she pointed out that the indigenous people of her area love cattle and it is their way of life now. She talked more about her success in growing pasture seed and this has become an income for her in addition to cattle. She does a kind of Fukuoka thing and harvest the various crops - mixed up on the pasture and used the different heights so that the harvester only gets the protruding tall head of seed and leaves the other species closer to the ground to come up in turn. she has 100% equity in her huge station/ranch and this has given her the freedom to make decisions and make mistakes. She was a wonderful example of observation and reading patterns. for other people, the highlights of the conference seemed to be Alan Savoury, but personally I found he has three aspects of his presentation -which I later was told cost the conference a lot of money - the three parts were HIM, His PRESENTATION, and HIS THEORY about HIM- He came across as very arrogant, talking down at us (my sensitive Australian viewpoint of course) for instance he asked "Tell me, who amongst you works against goals??" only a few of us put up a hand, he repeated the words exactly again and again in disbelief, seeming to think that we were lying, so I came up and suggested that we had an language problem so he rephrased the question "..who works towards goals" and was rewarded by most people show of hands. But then later he says to George Chan, whom he didn't know as someone special, "well, e.t.c. is exetera and this means...." At this point a lot of us were insulted and embarrassed. But Alan Savoury didn't seem to notice. He also used the very typical religious tool - of admitting he was wrong - once and has now seen the light! I grew up Salvation Army and - well he improve on that bit.!!! About HIS presentation, it was slick, fancy and full of assertions and leaps such as 1. all previous declines of civilisation are directly related to loss of bio-diversity 2. He claimed to have analysed at least 7 other management systems and found no wholistic thinking in them, he said he spent " half a day" analysing all of these. And I know that our family business in Total Quality Management has meant years of study for the staff, and requires a holistic approach!! about HIS THOERY Well the basis of his THEORY, that you have to pay hundreds of dollars a day to learn is the simple scientific method. You presume you are wrong before you start acting on a theory. About my experience with writings and examples of his ideas up to the conference. He does have some incredibily refreshing ideas, such as cell grazing, but I don't believe that it is the answer to all fragile soils and I don't believe that deserts are degrading all of the world, in fact many of the Australian deserts are more diverse in species that rainforests, and this I have seen on my journey with my own eyes. There were more bugs, more colours on my windscreen through the desert than through pasture and grazing lands!!! I also look at recent history of Australian soils and don't agree with Alan's assertion that we once had hard-hooved animals unless you want to go back to the dinosaur period. I do see that the soil has a beneficial realationship to its soft footed animals like Kangaroos and emus and I know that the soil and micro-oraganisms are seeded and fertilised by small mammals and birds. OK some major problems have occured by other soft footed critters - the rabbit. Basically I am pleased we don't have the water to support Alans ventures Australia wide ON A MASSIVE SCALE immediately- cattle need a lot more water than our native species. we also can't afford cell grazing as this means a lot of fencing but I wish pasturalists would try it if they intend to graze hard hooved animals. I think Australians have had enough experiences of decision making on a large scale, our country thrives with quiet, observant and patient people. I always judge a decision partly on the basis of - how is easy is it to reverse - this is probably part of our Australian heritage. Alan had a lot of people wanting to know more and lot of other people fired up which made some of the next sessions a real challenge. Another memorable session, was one poorly titled Walking the permculture Talk, which turned out to be a living example, supposedly of Student centered learning. the room degenerated into a bun-fight and pacifists like myself were a nuisance.!! I then saw there were a lot of isolated people working in permaculture, quite formidable and strengthened by their individuals struggles. On the second day, Frank Moran, a lovely white guy from Zimbabwee, told me of John in Uganda's friend was killed by police the previous night and he feared for his wife's safety. John decided that he had a job to do, talking about Rwanda and his work with orphanages and so, he stayed to give his presentation which has so confronting for most people that Only a small group came to the talk, I had even drummed supporters and still there were 30 people in the room but Bill Mollison was there and I truly grateful, Mollison sat and listened quietly, giving support and offering help. The story from Rwanda was horrific and I had to fight hard not to loose it and start bulbbering as I knew this would upset John as he was trying to present. John needs seed and opens the Orphanage and project to backpackers to generate extra income. There was an article about him and his project in PIJ this year. My presentation on Money and People went better than I had hoped, I will include the notes on the web page. The conference proceedings will be available on the web I hope, Peter Austin is doing this. George Chans presentation was great, although a lot of statistics, he showed that his group were growing fish and using the excess nitrogen to grow vegetables and cut flowers, he mentioned his concern that sending stuff off to market means that you are losing minerals from the system. And this is a real problem for farmers in permaculture it seems to me - that is why villages are better than farms, the system is closed and no input are required to meet deficiencies due to export. I really liked his presentation because it supported my thoughts that we should avoid debt and build by small successes - thus only allowing small debts at any one time to fund projects and ideas. Ecovillages had a long hard session, they started as we were trying to eat our dinner and keep on til late. On one hand they were showing how great life is in a so called intentional village (this I find perplexing - i mean who lives unintentionally?) but I do understand their meaning. and on the other hand they started asking us for money!!! and yet they had shown that one village - city farms USA was incrediblly rich. I'd like some of their money to stay in my village - do you think that will qualify?? don't think I'm all that rude, its just that I love my village and encourage village living in all my work but never ask for money after seeing how much other nations really need it. We don't need money for more internet play or more publications when others need it for simple harvesting tools, medicines and basic education! Well that a bit from me April ---------- From: Sal Schettino[SMTP:sals@rain.org] Sent: Wednesday, 16 October 1996 1:16 To: April Sampson-Kelly Subject: RE: April so good to hear from you and of your travels. Tell me all about it.Tell me allllll about it. April are you going to write up that conference on your homepage. I wish we could get some of the speakers to publisher on the web. People (me included )are so hungry! not for bread but for understanding. I read the .Sixth International Permaculture Conference & Convergence in Perth, program and have been watching what I can of the conference on the web with my mouth watering for more information. If I can do anything to help let me know. What else did you learn at the conference while it is fresh in your mind eye. Wish I could see your notes. What conferences did you attend . What were the workshops like. TELL ME MORE. MORE PS No I have no old apples but would sure like to find a good tasting old low chill apple myself. I have one called Anna that is low chill but I think it is new out of Israel.
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