Permaculture Design Course

David Holmgren is best known as the co-originator with Bill Mollison of the permaculture concept following the publication of Permaculture One in 1978. Since then he has developed three properties, consulted and supervised in urban and rural projects and presented lectures, workshops and courses at a wide variety of events and venues in Australia and around the world. His writings over those three decades span a diversity of subjects and issues but always illuminating another aspect of permaculture thinking.

At home (Melliodora in Hepburn, Central Victoria), David is the vegetable gardener, silviculturalist and builder. Within the international and growing permaculture movement, David is respected for his commitment to presenting permaculture ideas through practical projects and teaching by personal example, that a sustainable lifestyle is a realistic, attractive and powerful alternative to dependent consumerism.

As well as constant involvement in the practical side of permaculture, David is passionate about the philosophical and conceptual foundations for sustainability, the focus of his seminal book Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability.

Graeme George

Graeme lives on a 5 ha property near Healesville in the Yarra Valley where he runs a small market garden and heritage fruit orchard in a bushland setting. He has a background in conservation biology and the captive breeding of endangered wildlife, has been teaching Permaculture Design and Applied Permaculture courses since 1994 and is compiler of Permaculture Melbourne’s “Syllabus for Permaculture Design in Cool Temperate South Eastern Australia”. He served on Permaculture Melbourne’s Committee of Management for many years, was a founder of the Yarra Valley Permaculture Group and is currently Coordinator for the Yarra Valley Group’s weekly Organic Farmers Market at Healesville.

He developed and for several years taught Permaculture by Distance Education as a second year subject for Charles Sturt University’s degree in Ecological Agriculture based at Orange. He has been a Seed Saver for many years, and is also a member of Birds Australia, the Australian Mammal Society and the American Society of Mammalogists. His publications on the evolution, zoogeography and conservation of New Guinea’s marsupials earned him a Master of Applied Science degree in 1994.

Graeme has a passionate interest in the application of Permaculture concepts to land use patterns.

Joel Meadows

Joel Meadows is an energy auditor, sustainable transport consultant, environmental educator, designer and maker in steel and wood, cooker of food, avid gardener and musician. Joel has worked for private, government and not for profit organisations and runs his own business – the Green Hand Institute. Joel lives with his family in Castlemaine – Central Victoria, where he is working on a permaculture house and property.

Donna Livermore

Donna is an educator, biologist, permaculture teacher and community activator.  She is passionate about living a life of good health, sustainable abundance and with a strong connection to the environment and local community.

In a previous working life, Donna has developed, implemented and managed education programs at Zoos Victoria (Melbourne Zoo, Healesville Sanctuary and Werribee Open Range Zoo) utilising behaviour change, wildlife and education research.  She has spent the last 20 plus years helping students of all ages develop deep connections to wildlife and the natural world, so that they take action to save them from extinction and lead a more sustainable life.

Donna is an active member of the local community and is part of the initiating group of Transition Hobson’s Bay, a grassroots community group responding in a positive way to climate change, peak oil and economic instability.  She is one of the founders of the Inner West Commons LETS (Local exchange and trading system), providing the inner west community with an alternative to the cash economy where members exchange goods and services for “Blueys” (Bluestones), the local currency.

Donna has an on-going commitment to school education and she is on the board of a new school in Melbourne’s Inner West.

With chickens, worms and a productive permaculture food garden in the front yard of her tiny suburban block, Donna is reimagining what it means to live a good life in the city and shares this with others through local fermenting and gardening workshops and through her Facebook page A Good Life in the City

Adam Grubb

Adam is a permaculture designer and Co-Director of the Melbourne based urban permaculture consultancy, Very Edible Gardens PTY LTD (VEG) (www.veryediblegardens.com) with Dan Palmer and Nathan Edwards.  Adam came to permaculture largely through a concern about Peak Oil, an issue in which he was active for many years as founding editor of the global energy news clearinghouse EnergyBulletin.net starting in 2003, and co-founder of community radio 3CR’s Food Fight show about food issues also in 2003.  Adam took a PDC in 2004 with Darren Dorerty and David Holmgren and others in Bendigo.  In 2006 he was involved in the first permablitz — a volunteer backyard makeover day — and has been a long time facilitator of the now global permablitz movement (www.permablitz.net).

In 2007 he was a caretaker of permaculture co-orginator David Holmgren and Su Dennet’s property Melliodora, and he has collaborated with David on his Future Scenarios work (www.futurescenarios.org).  He has been involved with over 50 urban, community garden and small acreage permaculture designs and implementations, and in the last two years has given somewhere around 100 workshops and presentations on permaculture related topics such as energy literacy, peak oil and climate change strategies, permablitz, the science of compost for kids, backyard ecosystems and organic pest control, living soils, soil geology, useful weeds, fermented foods, alternative economic models and integrated urban permaculture systems.

Peta Christensen

Peta Christensen has worked in the areas of urban agriculture and community food projects for the past 20 years.  In the early 2000s Peta was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to explore community gardens and markets in low income communities which took her to the USA, Canada, Brazil, Denmark and Cuba. Peta and her family are part of a small community in Fish Creek where they are trying to make their grander permaculture dreams come true.

Tiff Bollhorn

Tiff has over a decade of experience working in Outreach Environmental Education with children, schools and in the community. She has a Masters in Environmental Education and Communication which sent her on a new trajectory seeking creative and innovative ways of engaging in the field and in day to day living. After becoming a mom and completing her PDC, Permaculture has helped provide Tiff with a solid ground for positive, beautiful practice in life and work.

Inspiring her work in the Children’s Playspace at CERES and as a school-garden teacher, Tiff hopes to continue her Permaculture journey in co-creating spaces for imaginative learning and living.

Ben Habib
Dr. Benjamin Habib is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. Ben is an internationally published scholar and blogger with research and teaching interests including the political economy of North Korea’s nuclear program, East Asian security, international politics of climate change. He also teaches on global environmental politics, Australian politics and contemporary China.

Ben is a board member of OASES Graduate School in Melbourne and is an Asia Literacy Ambassador for the Asia Education Foundation.  He has worked previously for Flinders University, the University of South Australia, the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship, and has spent time teaching English in Dandong, China.  In June 2014, Ben completed a Permaculture Design Course (PDC) at CERES Community Environment Park in Melbourne and is now a contributing facilitator within the CERES PDC program, focusing on the application of permaculture design principles to socio-economic systems.

Ben completed his PhD candidature at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia in 2011, after graduating with a B. Arts (Hons) from Flinders University and a B. Arts from the University of South Australia.  He has also studied at Keimyung University in Daegu, South Korea.

Book now at CERES reception – 9389 0100

The schedule for February will be uploaded shortly.

Refer to the August 2016 course outline as a guide. CERES PDC #20 Schedule

Be prepared for classroom work and work in the field. Excursions will be in the course schedule and participants will need to be dressed in outdoor gear to protect against the weather.

Book at CERES reception 03 9389 0100