People
Permaculture Mentors
Rick Valley discovered permaculture in 1981 as a result of the nascent local food movement, ethnobotany, solar design and his two years spent in Latin America. He was on the teaching team of the first PDC's in Oregon, Canada, Belize and Alaska. He has been on design teams for cohousing projects and is on the Big Bend Hot Springs Ecovillage design team and the Lost Valley Ecovillage site plan team.
As an urban farmer/nurseryman he was a founding member, president, and newsletter editor of the PNW chapter of the American Bamboo Society, making cultural connections for this group of edible and useful plants. He is currently developing an urban farmstead in Eugene Oregon, and is a partner in Earthkeeper Landscaping LLC, OLCB# 7922 and teaches...
Gary and his partner Emily live on a small farm in the lower North Island of New Zealand. They have regenerated this 50 hectare property over 25 years, retiring large parts for native forest regrowth, and carrying out a wide diversity of farming and forestry activities on the remainder. This includes home gardens, orchards and food forests, staple crops, animal grazing, firewood and plantation forests, and tree buffer and wilderness areas. Their stewardship of the land has been guided by the principles of permaculture and the practices and methods of organic and biodynamic agriculture. Gary sees himself as an integrated part of the larger organism that is his family home and farm.
The home and farm buildings have...
Since childhood Cynthia Robinson had a deep love for nature and natural healing and always knew she would devote her life in service to the healing of people and the planet.
Initially Cynthia got her BA Degree at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design with a focus in Design, Communication and creative problem solving. After graduation she pursued her passion to bring deeper values for nature and humanity into the world working as a brand strategist and designer supporting both Fortune 500 as well as smaller companies to implement Permaculture thinking into their infrastructure, product designs and marketing.
Working in Corporate New York City lead her to discover a more profound passion to support herself and...
Harald´s project, Folxgarden, which was designed and implemented in 2008, aims to show small scaled permaculture at work for an average family household. The crucial aspect is the interaction among resilient households, forming likewise stable ecosocial communities. The idea of this organization is to increase the impact of permaculture design on mainstream society and to transition out of the eco- and ecovillage scene. His credo is that every village can become an ecovillage.
Harald was born on the German Dutch border in 1955. At the age of 16 Harald became part of the social and peace movement and worked as a printer. As a result of a life inspiring trip to Asia, he made a choice for land and people...
Melissa Miles is an Environmental Biologist, Conservation Planner, ecological restoration practitioner, Permaculture Designer/Teacher, Urban farmer, author (and social agitator!). Melissa has been serving as the Organizer of Eastern PA Permaculture Guild and the Director of the Permanent Future Institute, a regional center for regenerative design consulting and education located in the Metropolitan Philadelphia area, for the past five years where she consults with private and institutional clients, working to create more productive and resilient landscapes.
Melissa the founder and farm manager of Two Miles Micro-Farm (a one-acre, Certified Naturally Grown, urban micro-farm), growing healthy, local food for the farm's CSA members and...
Chuck has gardened since he was a boy growing up in Colorado, a medical research fellow in California and the past three decades living with his wife and two daughters on a Puget Sound island. He and his wife harvest perennial fruit and nuts, chickens, bees and annual veggies from their fifth-acre homesite and community permaculture forest gardens.
Chuck earned a Ph.D. in neuropharmacology from CU medical school. After a post-doc in molecular immunology at UC Davis, he and his family relocated to the Pacific NW where he led molecular biology research teams at two different biotechnology labs.
Chuck left research to teach science at an innovative, alternative public high school, integrating permaculture projects (solar greenhouses,...
Richard gained his diploma in permaculture with Dan Hemenway in 1988, is a certified landscape architect, a past president of the Irish Landscape Institute, and was formerly a Fellow of the Arboricultural Association in the UK.
For the past 12 years he has taught permaculture in the MSc Sustainable Development course at the Dublin Institute of Technology, on Bolton Street and has frequently been involved with student dissertations. He has also taught two full Permaculture Design Courses at the University of Hong Kong in 1991 and 1992 and at Cloughjordan Eco-Village in Tipperary in 2005. He trained in adult education at the University of Hong Kong in 1994.
Richard's PhD is in community forestry through the University of...
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