Formal and

Informal
Permaculture
Cooperation to
Save the World
Transition to Permaculture
through Cooperation
 Overview
• Context
• Permaculture
• Related
• Cooperation
• Cooperatives
• Ideas
• Solutions
• Contacts
“Permaculture is more
than a gardening
system”
Bill Mollison
“perennial polyculture
vs annual
monoculture”
 3 Ethics

• Earth Care
• Fair Share
• People Care
 Context
State of the local & global
 Global Change

“Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet

Under Pressure”
 Human Welfare and
Ecological Footprints
Environmental Refugees

http://www.agassessment.org/
Conservation Refugees

“indigenous tribal peoples, like endangered species, are

being driven to extinction. Their languages are swiftly
dying and we're losing a huge resource in their invaluable
knowledge derived from millennia in their respective
homelands. Environmentalists, determined to preserve
biological systems and entities, should now be equally
Conservation Refugees
driven to preserve aboriginal cultures.” 
 Anthropocene

http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/anthropocene.ht
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Anthropogenic_biomes
Wilderness? 10% more
than 48 hrs

Travel time to major cities: A global map of Accessibility

.
Permaculture
State of the movement
 Permaculture ?
• “permanent agriculture”
• “permanent culture”
• Utopian ideal
• Open global design
system
• Sustainability framework
• Social movement
International network Mollison, Holmgren, Cran
•
(APC9)
• Accredited Permaculture
Training (AUS)
• FarmReady (AUS)
 Permaculture Movement
• Klimaforum09
Copenhagen
• IPC9 Africa
• APC10 Cairns
• 4000 sites (Ethan Roland)
• 500 institutes (Tony
Andersen)
• Transition Movement
• Education via schools,
technical colleges,
universities (global)
• Subsidies for farmers
(AUS)

Bill Mollison “Senior Australian of the Year 2010 – National

Permaculture: 3 Ethics & 12
Principles
 3 Ethics

• Earth Care
• Fair Share
• People Care
 Holmgren’s 12 Design
Principles
1. Observe and interact 
2. Catch and store energy 
3. Obtain a yield
4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback 
5. Use and value renewable resources and
services 
6. Produce no waste
7. Design from patterns to details 
8. Integrate rather than segregate 
9. Use small and slow solutions 
10.Use and value diversity 
11.Use edges and value the marginal
12.Creatively use and respond to change
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture#Holmgren.27s_12_design_princi
Permaculture Flower

http://permacultureprinciples.com/flower.php
Home Gardens
School Gardens
Community Gardens
Sustainable Homes,
Armidale
Transition Towns,
Armidale
Village Homes, Davis

http://www.villagehomesdavis.org/
 LA
Botanic:Permaculture/Or
ganics
Permaculture Guilds &
Groups

http://www.permaculture-sf.org/
http://www.18thandrhodeisland.org/
Accredited Permaculture
Training

http://permaculture.com.au/online/
Seed Savers Networks
Farmers Markets
Mandela Foods worker-
coop, Oakland
Free Permaculture
Riverside Church,
Manhattan
Street Culture
 Prince Charles
Permaculture Patron
• “What is so deeply
impressive is the
practical way in which
the Institute
demonstrates how
genuine sustainability
can be achieved by
applying the principles
it has developed.”
• HRH Prince Charles
 Permablitz
• started April 2006 as
collaboration between
permaculture students and
a South American
community group in the
South-Eastern suburbs of
Melbourne, Australia. 
• 40 permablitzes
• international reputation
successful tool fast-tracking
suburbs towards
sustainability

PermaBlitz
Broad-Acre Permaculture
• Darren Doherty
• Fellow travellers
• Natural Sequence
Farming of Peter
Andrews
• Allan Yeomans of
Keyline
• Agroecology
• Sustainable
Agriculture
• Ecological Agriculture
Carbon Farming
Keyline and Carbon
Farming

Fusion Farms, VIC

 Organic Farming
• International Federation of Organic
Agriculture Movements “relies on
ecological processes rather than the use
of inputs.”
• Oceania, with some 12.1 million hectares,
has more than one third of the land being
farmed organically, most of which is in
Australia

Vital Signs: Organic Agriculture

 Organic vs GMO Farming
• More than three
times as much
land is devoted to
genetically
modified crops
than organics
• Less than 1
percent of the
world’s
agricultural land
is now managed
organically.3

http://www.agassessment.org/
Vitalsigns WorldWatch: Organic Agriculture
 Related
Concurrent movements
 Natural Sequence
Farming

• Peter Andrews
• Australian Story (most popular ever)
• Of Droughts and Flooding Rains
• Right As Rain
 Major-General Jeffery &
Peter Andrews
“Major-General Jeffery hopes
that within a decade a third
of Australia's farmers - and
eventually all - will have
stopped using artificial
fertilisers, dramatically
boosted vegetation species,
substantially reduced or
ceased irrigation and Image: Carbon Coalition
adopted a more holistic,
natural approach to farm
management.”

2009, Sydney Morning Herald

 Natural Sequence Farming
Principles
• Natural sequences can be harnessed
• A farming system founded on working with
nature
• Maximum natural outcomes with minimum
financial and manufactured inputs
• NSF can be applied to Grazing
• NSF can be applied to Agriculture
• Sustainable Landscape Outcomes under
Natural Sequence Farming

http://www.nsfarming.com/Principles/principles2.ht
World HQ Transition
Movement

http://permaculture.tv/photos-of-totnes-of-transition-towns-totnes-f
Transition Towns Totnes
• Transition Towns
movement has
evolved into
Transition
Movement
• Transition
Initiatives exist in
rural
areas, villages,
towns and cities. 
http://permaculture.tv/photos-of-totnes-of-transition-towns-totnes-f
(Not) transition (grumpy)
pilgrim

http://permaculture.tv/photos-of-totnes-of-transition-towns-totnes-f
Schumacher College

http://permaculture.tv/photos-of-totnes-of-transition-towns-totnes-f
 Transition Culture
• “Transition is determinedly inclusive
and non-blaming, arguing that a
successful transition through peak oil
and climate change will by necessity be
about a bringing together of individuals
and organisations, rather than a
continued fracturing and antagonising.”

Transition Culture response to Trapese

 The Rocky Road to a Real
Transition
• “One of the aspects of
their critique of Transition
is that it shies away from
directly confronting what
they see as being the
enemy. Their starting
point can be summed up
in the sentence “it is
fundamentally important
to identify and name the
cenemies in the battle to
make a real Transition””
• Transition Culture response to Trapese
 Next Generaration
Permaculture
Institutions, Sectors, Systems &
Industries
• Urban & Rural Food
• Town Planning (TTT?)
• Cities (TTT?)
• Organisations ?
• Manufacturing ?
• Government ?
• Politics ?
• Trade ?
• Education ?
• Barter?
http://www.symbiosis.dk/industrial-symbiosis.aspx
Copenhagen, Denmark

Klimaforum09, the Peoples

Summit
Climate Circus
Copenhagen
Sustainability Market
Climate social circuit
Permakultur Denmark
stall
 Cuban permaculture

http://permaculture.tv/cuba-permaculture-power-roberto-perez-climate-change
 Narsana, Indian
permaculture pioneer

http://permaculture.tv/india-permaculture-pioneer-narsanna-koppula-of-aran
 Walter, IPC9 Organiser

http://permaculture.tv/africa-permaculture-report-klimaforum09/
 Padma, India water
permaculture pioneer

http://permaculture.tv/indian-permaculture-report-klimaforum09/
Brazilian permaculture
41% Copenhagen
commuters cycle
 Klimaforum09
• “does not just work for
climate change, it works
for systems change”
• a forum where activists start working
with grassroots
• network for activists/grassroots
• practical actions meet radical actions
Permaforestry
Tony Andersen, 10 000
Trees
 10 000 Trees Strategy

A Practical Strategy for Climate

Change
10 000 Trees Elements

Permaculture

Climate change

Carbon sink in ecology: trees, mostly
soil

More 10,000 TREES / person /
lifetime

Less 1 TON CO2 / person / year

Failing U.N. Climate Conference
process

Parallel activist/grassroots
 2 Aspects of 10 000
Trees

Planetary 
Global Energy
Permaforestry Descent

10 000 Trees per 
1 ton C02 quota
person per person per

Global re- year
afforestation 
100 Euro Carbon
project tax after 1st ton

Perennial 
100 Euro tax pays
polyculture for planetary

Agroecology permaforestry

 Permaforestry

carbon tax spent on perennial
polyculture (permaculture) style
forestry programs

perennial polyculture and soil become
carbon sinks

local permaculture groups implement
10 000 trees program, expanding
existing permaculture institutes from a
few hundred into the 10s of thousands

if 5000-7000 trees can be planted per
person in the next 25 years we can
stablise extreme climate change
Soil & Tree Carbon Sinks

best means to take C02 (GHG) from
the atmosphere is not technical
means, it is trees

Most carbon is sequestered (trapped)
in soil, partly in trees
Cooperation
more powerful than
competition
 Informal Cooperation
• Movements
• Informal economy
• Community
economics
• Household sector
• Gift economy
• Barter economy
• Clubs
• Associations
• Special Events
• Church
 Formal Cooperation
• Incorporated • Consumer Cooperatives
• Producer Cooperatives
Cooperatives • Housing Cooperatives
• Mutual Societies • Rural Cooperatives
• Worker Cooperatives
• Building Societies • Marketing Cooperatives
• Incorporated • Social Cooperatives
School Cooperatives
Associations •
Hybrid Cooperatives
•
• Industrial &
Provident Societies
 Cooperation
• Mutualism is an interaction
between two or more
species, where both species
derive a mutual benefit
• Similar interactions within a
species are known as co-
operation
• mutualism has historically
received less attention than
other interactions such as
predation

Wikipedia: Biological_interaction
 Lynn Margulis
• Theory of symbiotic relationships
driving evolution
• “ believes that proponents of the
standard theory "wallow in their
zoological, capitalistic, competitive,
cost-benefit interpretation of
Darwin”
• Cooperation is greater than
competition - coevolution
• Gaia Theory colloboration with
James Lovelock
• Endosymbiosis / Symbiogensis

http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/margulis/
 Elinor Ostrom
• Nobel Prize for
Economics 2009
for "her analysis
of economic
governance,
especially 
the commons“

Nobel Prize lecture

Photo: Arizona State University
 Nobel for Ostrom on
Commons
• “by showing how common resources—
forests, fisheries, oil fieldsor grazing lands,
can be managed successfully by the people
who use them, rather than by governments
or private companies”. Ostrom’s work in this
regard, challenged conventional wisdom,
showing that common resources can be
successfully managed without government
regulation or privatization ”

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Ostrom

 Commons

Old Commons New Commons

• Fisheries • Internet
• Forests • Knowledge
• Atmosphere
• Wikipedia
• Grazing lands

http://www.indiana.edu/~iascp/
Peer to Peer Foundation

http://p2pfoundation.net/The_Foundation_for_P2P_Alternatives
Homebrew Industrial
Revolution

http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com/
 Riversimple

http://www.riversimple.com
 Open Source Ecology
• Open Source Ecology
 use permaculture
and 
digital fabrication
 together to "
evolve to freedom
."
http://www.openfarmtech.org/index.php/Main_Page

http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/
 OpenFarm Tech

http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=LifeTrac
 Farmer to Farmer
Movement

Juan N. Rojas, Presidente, 

Instituto de Permacultura de El Salvador
 Global Sustainability
Corps

http://globalsustainabilitycorps.org/
Permaculture America
Latina
 Social Movements
• Permaculture Movement
• Carbon Farming
• Organic Gardening & Farming Movement
• Keyline & Natural Sequence Farming
• Environmental Movement
• Transition Movement
• Climate (Global) Justice Movement
• Social Justice Movement
• Cooperative Movement
• Indigenous & Peasant Movements
• Open-source & Free Culture Movement
Cooperatives
Why not the default?
 International
Cooperative Alliance

http://www.ica.coop/coop/statistics.html
 Statement of
Cooperative Identity
1. Voluntary and Open Membership
2. Democratic Member Control
3. Member Economic Participation
4. Autonomy and Independence
5. Education, Training and Information
6. Co-operation among Co-operatives
7. Concern for Community

http://www.ica.coop/coop/principles.html
 The Co-operative Group
UK
• UK consumer
cooperative
• Hybrid consumer society
• Direct descendent of
Rochdale Pioneers
• 4.5 million members
• 123 000 employees
• food, travel, banking,
insurance, pharmacy,
funeral, legal services,
investments, online
shop, electrical and beds
(trains?)
 Totnes Pound

http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org/totnespound/home/howitworks
Mondragon
Mondragon or Arrasate
in Basque
 Mondragon Cooperative
• Mondragon Cooperative largest
worker-cooperative in world
• 120 worker-cooperatives
• 100 000 plus worker-owners
• Global enterprise
• Started by Catholic priest
• Global corporation making consumer
goods
COOPERATIVES WITHIN
MONDRAGON

•INDUSTRIAL 87
•CREDIT 1
•CONSUMER 1
•AGRICULTURAL 4
•EDUCATION 8
•RESEARCH 13
•SERVICES 6

•TOTAL 120 cooperatives

MIKEL LEZAMIZ
 MONDRAGON CO-OPERATIVES
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

SALES 9.638M 10406M 11.859M 13.390 M

euros
16 300 M euro

INTERNATIONAL SALES 2.555M 2.699M 54% 57% 58%

BY INDUSTRIES

INVESTMENT 836M 784M 1.081M 1.243 M

euros
2 800 M euro

PERSONNEL 68.625 70.884 78.455 83.601 100 000

NET PROFITS 411M 502M 545M 677 M 792 M euro

euros

MIKEL LEZAMIZ
 Mondragon Cooperative
GENERAL
SUPREME BOARD
ASSEMBLY
ACCOUNTING WATCHDOG
AUDITORS COMMITEE

GOVERNING
RUNNING BOARD COUNCIL

SOCIAL COUNCIL ADVISING BOARD

GENERAL
EXECUTIVE BOARD
MANAGER

MANAGEMENT
COUNCIL

DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT

MANAGER MANAGER MANAGER MANAGER MANAGER
A B C D E

MIKEL LEZAMIZ
 Structure in MONDRAGON
CONGRESS
Permanent Council

GENERAL COUNCIL

INDUSTRIAL GROUP
Automotive

RETAIL CHAIN GROUP

FINANCIAL GROUP

Components
Construction
Industrial Equipment
Domestic Appliances
Engineering and Capital Goods
Machine-Tools

Training and Research Centres

MIKEL LEZAMIZ
Mondragon Framework

COOP COOP
COOP COOP
COOP

COOP COOP

RESEARCH AND
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT (R&D)

EDUCATIONAL
FINANCIAL

MIKEL LEZAMIZ
Mondragon Coop Tour
Arrasate
Arrasate
 Caja Laboral

Caja Laboral’s profit after tax for

2009 came to 56.5 million euros,
which is 43.8% down on the figure
posted in 2008.
Fagor
Mondragon Grafitti
Grafitti artists,
Mondragon
Basque Independence
Save the Nature
 Emilia-Romagna

http://www.cooperativegrocer.coop/articles/index.php?id=623
Worker Coop Credit Union Brent Emerson
Proposal Mike Leung
Worker Cooperative
Employment

Entrepreneurial Startup/Expa
Activities nd
Worker
Coops
Loans
Credit
Union
Deposits Deposits

Grassroots Support for Established

Worker Cooperatives Worker
Cooperatives
 Permaculture Credit
Union

• The Permaculture Credit Union pools the financial

resources of people who believe in the ethics of
Permaculture - care of the earth, care of people, and
reinvestment of surplus for the betterment of both.
We apply those resources to earth-friendly and
socially responsible loans and investments.

http://www.pcuonline.org/
 Radical Routes
• Radical Routes is a network
of radical co-ops whose
members are committed to
working for positive social
change. The network is
made up mainly of housing
co-ops of various sizes
(none with more than 16
members), a few workers
co-ops and a couple of
social centres.

http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/
 Rootstock
• Rootstock is the ethical investment arm
of Radical Routes. By investing your
money in Rootstock you can financially
support the setting up of grassroots co-
operative projects, enabling people to
take control of their own housing, work
and social life. 

http://www.rootstock.org.uk/
Green Worker
Cooperatives
• GREEN WORKER
COOPERATIVES is a
South Bronx-based
organization
dedicated to
incubating worker-
owned and
environmentally
friendly
cooperatives in the
South Bronx. 
http://greenworker.coop/
Suggestions
What can be done?
 Appropriate Technology

http://www.aprovecho.net/pg/gallery4.htm
http://www.appropedia.org
 Community Development
Cooperatives
• “Set up the many simple cooperatives enabling all
the unemployed, homeless, bored, retired, people
to get into the community gardens etc. that would
enable them to start producing many of the basic
things they need.  Can we set up co-ops to run a
bakery, bike repair shop, home help service,
insulating operation, clothes making and repairing
operation….  ” Dr Ted Trainer

http://pacific-edge.info/the-trainer-papers-1/
 New Commons Design
Principles
Ostrom identifies eight “design principles” of stable local
common pool resource management [4]

1. Clearly defined boundaries

2. Local rules for giving and taking of commons
3. Collective decision-making process
4. Effective monitoring accountable to users
5. Scale of sanctions for violating resource community
rules
6. Conflict resolution cheap and easy to access
7. Self-determination of community recognized by higher-
level authorities;
8. organization in the form of multiple layers of nested
enterprises, with small local commons at the base
level.
Source: Wikipedia
 Democratic Carbon
• What would happen
if we made the
entire Carbon Cycle
democratic? Not
political, but
democratic. Not just
the science, but the
industry too, the
business of energy
(oil, gas) and
agriculture (food
and fibre) ?
http://gaiapermaculture.com/projects/climatewar/blog/2009/11/30/democ
 Permaculture Credit
Unions
• Why not a PCU in
every town ?
• If farmers get
carbon credits why
not households?
• Can local credit
unions establish
special funds ? http://www.rootstock.org.uk/

http://www.malenycu.com.au/
http://www.pcuonline.org/

http://www.australianethical.com.a
 Rural Broad Acre
Permaculture Coop

• A broad-acre and rural permaculture

cooperative
• Technical, financial, legal assistance for
members
• Pool resources for Keyline, Earthworks,
http://www.permacultureusa.org/2009/12/03/sustainable-land-manageme
perennial polyculture
 Rights of Nature
• Ecosystems have rights “Suits brought to
• People have rights as part enforce those
of ecosystems
rights shall be filed
• Ecuadors Constitution
• Bolivia holding climate
in the name of the
summit in April to declare natural
a Universal Declaration of communities or
Natural Rights
ecosystem whose
rights have been
violated.”
World People's Conference on Climate Ch

http://www.celdf.org/Ordinances/RightsofNatureOrdinance/tabid/133/Defa
 Cooperative
Development
• Cooperative reform and resurgence in UK
(Tories & Labor), Australia (NSW leading)

• Change: Cooperatives have to adapt or die.

• Challenge: The modern global economy is hard.
• Capital: To grow and compete, co-ops 
need funds, and laws financing innovations.
• Clusters: Clustering cooperative development
increases synergy, solidarity and reciprocity

Derived http://www.cooperativegrocer.coop/articles/index.php?id=623
Industrial Symbiosis

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Kalundborg,_Denmark
 LifeBox TM

The Life Box™ was
invented by Paul
Stamets, mycologist,
author and founder
of 
Fungi Perfecti®, LLC
. The Life
Box™ suite of
products builds upon
the synergy of fungi
and plants by
infusing spores and
http://www.lifeboxcompany.com/
 Seedballs

http://heavypetal.ca/archives/2007/07/

http://kidskorps.org/2009/03/27/590/
Events
What can be done?
Coop Fortnight, UK

http://www.thereisanalternative.coop/
 APC10 - Australasian
Permaculture Convergence
• Cairns, September 2010

•  Practical pathways to stepping

up permaculture learning in local
communities around Australasia.

• We'll learn what's working

effectively and why.

http://apc10.org/
Fair Share Festival,
Newcastle
TBD, Coming soon
possibly
 Permaculture
Cooperative
Transition to Permaculture via Cooperation

Products
• Permaculture.TV – videos
• News.Permaculture.Coop - news
• PermacultureGroups – groups

Planned
• Permacultura.coop – Spanish &Portugese
 Contacts

• Nicholas Roberts & Kirstie Stramler

• Permaculture Cooperative
• permaculturecoop@gmail.com
• News.permaculture.coop
• PermacultureGroups.org
• www.Permaculture.TV