Conscious Choice Seattle: Permanent Marking

October 2005 | Back Woods

Permanent Marking

As gas prices zoom past $3 per gallon, city and government planners see permaculture as even more urgent.

By Ritzy Ryciak

High above the bustle of a Seattle late-summer workday, more than 100 environmental professionals have gathered under fluorescent lights at King Street Center near Pioneer Square. The occasion is a permaculture workshop. And two things make it special. One is the appearance of David Holmgren, co-founder of the permaculture movement, who is on his first trip to the U.S. The second is that the workshop is teeming with city planners and government managers.

“Permaculture is a process for reclaiming our place in nature,” said Holmgren.

Part of that process, he explained with a thick Australian accent, is coming to grips with the limits that nature imposes.

“We mise-well find our place because very soon we will be shunted into it,” he said.

Nobody in the audience sees reason to disagree.

Permaculture, or permanent agriculture, is an environmental discipline and science practiced all over the world. Its underlying theme is finding biological harmony and balance with your environment. No matter if you are looking for your place in the nature of your backyard, the downtown grid or along I-90.

Holmgren presented his permaculture design course to, among others, representatives from Seattle Publics Utilities, the city’s Department of Transportation, the state Department of Natural Resources and Parks and a good number of non-profit organization leaders. The event was planned by Katie Spataro, project manager of King County’s Green Building Program; Sego Jackson, principal planner for Snohomish County solid waste; David McDonald, resource planner with Seattle Public Utilities; and Darcy Batura, from the environmental education arm of WSU King County.

“It is a whole new experience giving a workshop to people who are making policy decisions,” said Spataro, who recently returned from a two-week permaculture design course in Sri Lanka.

The event provided a welcome opportunity to take the nature-based principles of permaculture—defined by Holmgren as a design system for sustainable living and land use—out of the countryside and into the city. Despite his wide-reaching international renown, Holmgren stepped on American soil just this summer. Before arriving he traveled through Eastern Europe, The Netherlands and Germany to speak about permaculture and promote his recent book, “Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability.” His partner, Su Dennett, accompanied him on the world tour and provided stretching and breathing exercises during the workshop breaks.

Sego Jackson, director of the Permaculture Institute of North America in the 1980s and now with Snohomish County, “lightbulbed” the idea for the Holmgren event.

“I have had a long-term interest in introducing permaculture principles to a more diverse group of people,” said Jackson. .

During the workshop, Holmgren outlined the peak oil crisis that our national and global culture currently faces. He followed up with permaculture solutions for the “energy descent of the future,” the decline in net energy available to support humanity.

“Why doesn’t the crisis hit home?" he asked, referring to the environmental, climate, social and economic challenges that this generation faces. Holmgren pointed out that a rising energy base has allowed rich countries to avoid the crisis for 30 years.

“While we have been the frog in hot water,” he said. “We have also been comforted by consumer luxuries.”

Using a permaculture principle, “the problem is the solution,” Holmgren segued to the potential opportunities available when and if we face an energy crisis in the future.

According to Holmgren, as the price of oil escalates and availability declines, some important, wide-ranging shifts will occur: Local products will become more competitive than imports. Low-input and organic farms will compete better with intensive land-use farming. And self-reliance will be a necessity.

In the “energy descent society” of our future, there will be a higher demand for permaculture life skills.

“Hearing him speak was a really good recharge,” said Kathy Buller, networking coordinator for Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center. “Rather than seeing the crisis as catastrophic, Holmgren presented the situation as a chance to correct our over-consumption and inequities in a way that still sustains the health of future generations.”

Buller, who has worked on environmental issues and pollution prevention for more than 30 years, added she was inspired by the possibility of using permaculture as a way to address some of the peak oil problems.

“We are over-reliant and we need to shift our practices in a major way, but here is a practical stewardship model that can address those shifts,” said Buller. “It’s not all gloom and doom.”

Holmgren said food gardening has always been a central point of permaculture because it is the best way for people to reconnect and develop a relationship with nature. During his presentation he showed photos of harvesting tree fruit, worm farms and mulching from his own farm in Australia, Melliodora, and from farms he visited during his world tour.

“Permaculture offers an empowering set of integrated solutions for both personal and community change,” said Holmgren. “We can actually live in a way that is positive and practical without being dependent on the three-day food supply chain or a constant and reliable flow of electricity and natural gas.”

Necessity is the mother of invention, was a common theme interwoven within the workshop. Holmgren noted how frighteningly dependent the majority of our culture is on a set of uninterrupted conditions.

“The likelihood of those remaining seems fairly remote,” finished Holmgren. “The main way of developing homeland security is starting to do it at home.”

The workshop was conducted before Katrina delivered the tragic message that the uninterrupted conditions are far from a given. Permaculture and self-reliance are all the more relevant as effectiveness of our government comes into question regarding the rescue and repair of New Orleans.

Ritzy Ryciak is a regular contributor to Evergreen Monthly.
For more information on David Holmgren and permaculture opportunities in Seattle visit
www.holmgren.com.au or www.seattletilth.org.

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