Translator: Rhonda Jacobs Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Okay, I'm here to talk to you about permaculture,
and my first screen here shows that reach -
that humanity reaching for something, some ...
permanence in culture.
And I'm here to give you an insight into that,
what that actually means, and what it can be,
and how optimistic it is
that design is the key -
design with ethics linked to provable science.
So it's a system of permanent culture,
and it's a reaching for regenerative human culture.
We're reaching for something beyond counterculture
where we all wanted some individualism,
we wanted something different from the present culture.
We wanted to move in a better direction,
but we kind of provided an opportunity for the present culture
to supply all that individuality.
So we wanted something that gave us that infinite set
of variations in identity, some kind of status,
but a common mission that left us with a situation
where the world would be inevitably repaired,
an Earth repair policy, if you like, through our very action,
to turn humanity into the most positive element,
the opposite to where we are now,
with appropriate technology and combinations of useful biology,
so to move into truly
a culture we are proud of,
a real culture.
Culture is defined as a stage of civilization,
and a way people relate to each other
and the land.
That's what culture really is.
For culture to be permanent, we actually need to have that intention
to design ourselves into a really developed and really civilized world.
So ... the question:
How did we relate to land and people
in a way that is really regenerative?
How do we actually do that?
We are going to have to use very meaningful connections,
and we've got to connect back into systems
between disciplines,
between the disciplines that are important,
the subjects and disciplines that humanity provides its needs with,
need to be connected in a really positive way.
And orientated in the direction of solutions.
So, connections between elements in a landscape.
Connections between land and people,
so we really understand the connectivity of design,
and connections between people,
so we share our skills, share our understanding,
and together move in a common direction,
with total uniqueness,
real status identity
with a common purpose.
So let's just have a look at those disciplines,
the disciplines themselves.
We're going to have to look at watershed management.
Such an important part of life -
water based in life and carbon cycles -
we have to understand water, intimately.
We have to slow the entropic loss of water within our system
so that energy is stored, and life is increased as it flows.
So we need a very serious design connection
between water management and agriculture,
the way we supply our needs from primary resources.
Then we need that connection to be absolutely clear
that architecture, and architecture of cities, and major cities
have massive water collection mechanisms in their hardware
that can be designed to be so positive,
instead of just fast run straight into cities or into rivers,
they can take long paths over great distances
with as many passive friction life connections as possible,
so we can really enhance water flows from architecture,
and also supply water to our living systems of the cities.
So watershed management to people systems is so important
because we need high quality water.
We need that clear, clean, pure water for ourselves as a priority.
And then to soil science:
In recent years, the science of the soil has exploded,
so that we really understand more and more the life system
and connection of importance between feeding the life in the soil
to feeding the primary products of the soil
so that we get true nutritional quality,
nutritional density in our products.
Animal husbandry and its connections to agriculture
are major links that need to have benefit of connection
because animal husbandry to architecture,
animal husbandry to people systems,
animal husbandry to soil science,
because with the right design, animals can benefit the soil,
and soil, of course, is a benefit to the animal systems
so that their nutrition and their links by design
are all extensions of a better result.
Soil science and agriculture has become
the new cutting edge of biological agriculture.
All of this links back to healthier populations within our cities.
So people systems to soil science is not only an environmental importance
but people health importance.
So people back to agriculture,
people to architecture,
our life systems and our built infrastructure
make everything an improved situation for the way we live in human settlements.
And agriculture to architecture -
these are all links that we need to understand.
By design, the elements themselves, if we look at people central to design,
we can find that links happen in all sorts of unusual ways -
a dam in a pond linking to a kitchen garden.
Even obscure elements like bamboo have links to dams and ponds
in their stability and their multifunctions,
and irrigation from dams and ponds,
and irrigation to kitchen gardens,
irrigation to a greenhouse,
irrigation to bamboo,
irrigation from bamboo to even an obscure element like pigeons
which in a lot of cultures are part of food cycles
and part of nutrient cycles.
And also a habitat within bamboo,
and bamboo can be used for many, many, many purposes
to replace many non-living elements
because bamboo is so usable within systems,
and can build greenhouses, can be part of structures,
and even link to irrigation systems,
back to nutrient cycles from elements like pigeons to gardens to food sources.
These are all connections we have to explore
and extend through harmonious design
within human development,
developments within cities, developments within landscape.
So when we look at land, we look at soil health,
we look at that link from soil health to plant health.
We look at plant health linking to animal health,
back to people health,
and animal health to people health,
and the peoples' health majorly comes as a source from the soil.
The soil is the main resource
where everything returns and everything initiates.
So from that, we get that great nutritional density
within our plant health,
and our animals from that again.
So this really creates a designed supply line
through ecosystem-type thinking.
We're talking about ecosystemic systems
as a human supply line.
So once that link,
that most imperative link is made,
that we can design human supply lines through ecosystemic thinking,
our effect globally is one that's positive.
So when we look at our people systems,
our community,
our community, in recent years,
has had a great rise in the communal voice.
We voiced that we need a different system.
Our community's risen to say, we need a better way,
things are not the way we would like them to be.
There's a permaculture initiative that's spreading worldwide,
the Transition Towns movement.
It came out of a Permaculture Design Certificate course,
and it's initiated worldwide to help people understand
we need to move through a transitional phase
to a better cultural-positive future.
Community land trust has become a new evolution beyond the ecovillage.
The Community Land Trust movement has shown that there are possibilities
of redesigning people back into villages, back into the landscape
as a positive part of the landscape itself.
Alternative currencies have become part of new movements.
Where conventional currencies fail,
alternative currencies immediately rise as an alternative,
and a reskilling and barter within economics
outside of the money system
where we share our skills and barter our work exchange.
So there is a whole reskilling about what we need to remember
that used to be understood.
In the information age, self-sufficiency, interdependency and resilience
are the new possibilities because we have the information available to us.
We have more information available to us.
We know more possibilities.
We need to build our skills again,
and we need to stop being afraid and move forward with good design.
So ...
a particular stage of civilization
defined as a way people relate to land and each other: culture.
To quote here,
"the measure of a civilization is not how tall its buildings of concrete are,
but rather how well its people learn to relate to the environment
and fellow man."
This is so important to understand.
Having worked on some of the largest proposed
carbon-neutral city developments in recent years,
I was very privileged to work as a consultant to the design team
of the landscape architecture of Masdar City in Abu Dhabi
in the United Arab Emirates,
working with some of the best technical experts on Earth,
working on a wonderfully brave and forward-thinking proposal,
a carbon-neutral city.
My continuous initiative was to inspire people
that we can go beyond carbon neutrality,
we can go into carbon-positive cities,
where cities can be a beneficial positive element on Earth.
At that point, we win the game by design.
At the moment, the world is in check,
that one checkmate move,
that one community-people- system affirmation,
that we can be carbon positive by our very actions.
Working with the technical experts there at Masdar City,
it became rather obvious
that the best technologies we have to offer
can only neutralize
the carbon consequence of a city
60 percent;
40 percent is linked to the biology, the living systems,
the agriculturally-produced supply lines.
If we don't make more than 40 percent
links between technology and biology
with ecosystemic design,
we cannot move into a carbon-neutral situation
and beyond carbon positive.
We need to imagine what is truly possible,
because it can be the new evolution
of human future
through a change in design-mind thinking,
a new neural pathway
where we actually take the position
of a future that we truly deserve
for the future generations.
I would like to thank Kenton Zerbin, who helped me with this presentation.
I would like to show you some of our major websites
that give you information on these systems:
permaculturenews.org.
And a global connecting mechanism
that shows you how much permaculture action is out there in the world:
permacultureglobal.com.
And we're about to expand our permaculture education systems
into an Internet expansion which you can be part of,
a major new educational program
by connecting to
GeoffLawton.com very soon,
we have a very special new system available for everybody to be involved in.
Thank you.
(Applause)