Permaculture in New Zealand

Towards APC10

Watch this baby grow

Update of progress towards the

Australasian Permaculture Convergence

Kuranda, Cairns, September 24—27, 2010

www.apc10.org /apc10 [dot] 2010 [at] gmail [dot] com

Wednesday 14, April 2010

Planning and preparation for APC10 is powering along. This year the Australasian Permaculture Convergence (APC10) will be hosted in the beautiful Wet Tropics township of Kuranda, 30 km west of Cairns and with the involvement of Major General Michael Jeffery and a host of organisations getting behind the event, Permaculture has come of age.

Two companion events will run across the 5 days. The “Festival of Permaculture” is an opportunity for us to participate in practical workshops, learning from one another is specialised streams and showcasing all this to the public. APC offers an opportunity to engage our farmers, designers, urbanites and ideas-people in a forum that’s unlikely to be repeated for some time to come. The “Official Convergence” runs over 2 full days, the traditional space for the movement to explore a variety of themes including: the future of formal and informal education in Permaculture; the movement’s structure and voice; tackling governance and policy settings on issues that matter such as population and climate change responses; and the regeneration of Australia’s agricultural landscapes.

The Convergence programme has been drafted and will be posted to the website shortly. We also would like to invite groups or individuals to consider posting a discussion paper in advance of the Convergence themed workshops.

Speakers

We are extremely grateful to General Jeffery to open the Tenth Australasian Permaculture Convergence. A former Govenor General of Australia between 2003 – 2008, General Jeffery is currently the Chairman of the Royal Flying Doctors Service and the volunteer group Outcomes Australia. The “Restoring Our Landscape” initiative, launched by Outcomes Australia is an effort to convince 120,000 farmers to change their practices. General Jeffery hopes that within a decade a third of Australia's farmers - and eventually all - will have stopped using artificial fertilisers, dramatically boosted vegetation species, substantially reduced or ceased irrigation and adopted a more holistic, natural approach to farm management. General Jeffery intends to participate in the entire Convergence programme.

This convergence will feature innovators from within the Permaculture movement and several people who are working alongside us – who have ideas and solutions for practical integration in our own repertoire of skills and practices. Some of the world–class speakers we have lined up include:

Eugenio Gras - A Mexican Integrated Agricultural System Designer, Developer and Educator with formal qualifications and extensive experience in Industrial Engineering, Permaculture, Dairy Management and Processing Geo-Biology. Eugenio will be in Australia at this time as an Instructor for the 2010 Regenerative Agriculture Workshop Series to be held throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Colin Seis has been developing and fine- tuning “Pasture Cropping” which is a technique of sowing cereal crops directly into native perennial pastures at his 2000-acre property “Winona” on the central slopes of NSW. In 2005 Colin won the Central West Conservation Farmer of the year award and in 2007 won the inaugural “Carbon farmer of the year award in NSW.

Petra Schneider - The founder of an Indonesian NGO who has coordinated recovery efforts in Aceh, Bali and East Timor. She has written books, and toolkit materials to be easily accessible to guide the permanent and sustainable restoration of communities.

Gerry Gillespie - Founder of the ‘City to Soil’ program in NSW is committed to reducing green waste in urban landscapes. Householders’ organic waste is collected to make high quality compost. It enables the community to be part of the solution of falling levels of organic materials in agricultural soils.

Dr. Christine King - Developed the ‘Building Resilience in Rural Communities’ tool kit and has led major RD&E capability and capacity building projects for Queensland’s agricultural industries. With ACIAR / AusAID she facilitates agronomists, economists, and social scientists, working with farming families, to solve agricultural, resource management and livelihood issues in Asia and the Pacific Islands.

We’re also very fortunate to have Daryl and Lucy Taylor, and daughter Maggie. The Taylors are survivors of the Victorian Bushfire tragedy. What they have learned about good design to prepare communities for horrendous natural disasters, like fire is essential for us all to think about. Daryl’s career spans 20 years of community development and is currently fully engaged in the post-February 7th Black Saturday Firestorm recovery and rebuilding process.

Special Events

The Department of Education is excited to back a unique workshop for professional educators. This day-long workshop for school teachers will be led by Janet Millington who will be joined by other Australian and International educators including co-author of the Outdoor Classroom book, Carolyn Nuttall. Teachers attending the education stream of the conference will receive a copy of this groundbreaking and essential book, Outdoor Classrooms. Other notable educators on the day will include: Dean Turner of the Crossing Land Education Trust, Aaron Sorenson and Dan Deighton from The Living Classroom, Penny Pyett Permaculture educator in TAFE, Virginia Solomon, co-contributor to the establishment of Accredited Permaculture Training and Leonie Shanahan who has set up nine successful school gardens in South East Queensland. The professional development day will empower teachers to use Permaculture design principles for: a whole site school plan incorporating a garden of appropriate size for their needs and capabilities; a School Environmental Management Plan; links to school gardens and curriculum opportunities; and understanding links to opportunities outside the school gate including outdoor education; TAFE accredited training; certificates/diplomas in Permaculture and related fields.

For those interested in making the journey north one to truly remember, there are a string of pre and post APC10 events, including a 2-week residential Permaculture Design Course with world renowned Permaculturist Darren Doherty, to be held at FreeRange Permaculture’s small acreage demonstration site Rosella Waters.

Jude & Michel Fanton founded the Seed Savers' Network will bring their knowledge to the Far North with the first Seed Saving workshops ever held by them in the Far North to be hosted by Seedsavers Up North. With a focus on Seed Saving, the workshop will run over 2 days, on the 19 – 20^th of September.

Following presentations at the Australian Permaculture Convergence in Cairns three post-event workshops will be hosted on the Tablelands featuring; Sensitive Permaculture, with Alanna Moore, Wednesday Sept 29^th; Living Architecture, with Peter Cowman, Thursday Sept 30^th and a 5 day workshop; Make Your own Household Wind Turbine from Wednesday - Sunday, October 6th - 10th with Ireland's Eirbyte team ( course limited to 15 participants only) - see www.eirbyte.com

Early bookings are strongly recommended. Email: sheltermaker [at] gmail [dot] com (sheltermaker [at] gmail [dot] com)

And, don’t forget the Official APC10 Post-Convergence Tablelands Tour – places on this will be limited to 50. A unique chance to get up close and personal. You can book now through the APC10 website.

Food and Entertainment

We’re locavores - with local food prepared by local cooks and with local music and entertainment. Local sponsors are providing in-kind support to acquire staging, catering facilities and there’s even talk of a local resort’s chef preparing our Convergence Dinner.

Permaculture Cairns is involved in a wide range of projects with partners in our transition network. We’ll proudly showcase many local projects and initiatives, as well as put into practice our ethics to reduce waste and strive towards a neutral carbon emissions event.

Our venue is the Candlenut Steiner School 5 km north of the Kuranda village. The beautiful natural setting, wide open spaces and brand new facilities will be available so that we can contain the entire Convergence programme on site including meals, entertainment and our own APC Bar, The Wet Topics. Camping will be in small clearings within the rainforest or you can consider hiring a Wicked Camper at a discounted rate for APC Registrants. There are local hotels/resorts in the area. We urge you to talk to our sponsor Experience Cairns

We haven’t forgotten the kids. Permi-Bubs and Permi-Kids will care for everyone young. Childcare will be provided by professional carers in the schools new kindergarten facilities. An extension of the home, the Steiner kindy is nurturing and safe. The kindy is enclosed with its own playground, kitchen, laundry and bathrooms, sleeping room, in and outdoor play spaces. Permi-kids will be doing workshops, dance and drama, playing with wildlife, and lots more.

Helping out

Lots of people are chipping in and doing something to make APC 10 affordable and worthwhile. Already sponsorship is making a huge difference to overall cost of hosting APC10. Several permaculture businesses and individuals have chipped in helping us cover hiring, transport, printing and all the other costs associated with managing a 4 – 5 day event.

We are presently looking for two Silver sponsors to support the airfares of several guests, from countries including India and Cameroon, and 3 domestic airfares. Can you’re business help APC10?

The best help of all is spreading the word. Visit the event on Facebook and send it to all your facebook friends. Email this Update along to your friends.

Better still - register for the event. The registrations page is open. You can pay be PayPal, Direct Debit or old fashioned cheque or money order. Send us your registration details by post or email too.

Lastly, if you are planning fly, please book your flights as early as possible as it will be school holidays at that time. Don’t pay more than you have to!

Visit the Official APC10 website at www.apc10.org and watch for updates and developments in the program. Email the organisers at apc10 [dot] 2010 [at] gmail [dot] com