Episode 1, Why We Do Permaculture, a Call to Action with Peter Bane:



Today’s guest is one my good friends and mentors Peter Bane, who is one of the most experienced permaculture teachers in the midwest. He’s the author of The Permaculture Handbook; Garden Farming for Town and Country. He’s also been the publisher of Permaculture Activist magazine for 25 years, which recently changed to Permaculture Design Magazine.

Instead of putting a lot of energy into lobbying corporate and world leaders to take action, Peter seems to be outlining a grassroots approach where we each take responsibility to do all that we can in our own personal sphere on influence. The two main strategies he outlined are 1. sequester a lot of carbon out of the atmosphere by planting trees, and building topsoil. and 2. Produce most of our needs from our immediate landscape and community (think within biking distance), eliminating energy intensive transport costs and strengthening the local economy while restoring the local ecology.

Peter does a great job of taking all these different threads; climate change, resource depletion, war, economic decline, human justice issues, and tying them together into a cohesive meta-narrative of the times we’re living in. The picture that comes in to view is definitely unsettling to say the least. But at the same time, the glimpses of a different world that are everywhere slowly coming into being give great hope for what’s to come.

Definitely check out Peter’s website, PermacultureActivist.net and seriously consider taking his upcoming Advanced Permaculture Design Course in Akron, Ohio on Nov 8-13th.

But you don’t need to take a course to get started. Just get outside and try stuff! You’re going to make a lot of mistakes, but those are just as valuable as the successes because they still produce a very good lesson. Just start small at home, get the systems working there first before you rope in the whole county. Trust me, that was one of my lessons on this path.

Thank you so much for taking the time to listen in. We have many more excellent guests on the way on the Permaculture Realized Podcast.