The Center for Holistic Ecology and Ecological Artisans will be offering a summer Permaculture certification series in Hohenwald, Tennessee. This series, as part of the Sonnenschein Green Initiative, will provide local residents with a unique opportunity to receive training and certification in Permaculture at a very reduced price. The organizers of the series anticipate training up at least a dozen locals and hope that the price reduction will enable low-income residents to attend. Aside from receiving this valuable training, participants will partake in the community design and implementation of the local Museum’s new downtown Discovery Center Permaculture site. This training and the development of the new demonstration site will be a first for Hohenwald. In fact, prior to a year a go, there were only a handful of locals in Hohenwald city limits that could identify the term Permaculture. This has changed dramatically since the October 2008 Financial Permaculture Summit and the post-summit outreach efforts.Permaculture is a design science that takes a whole ecosystem approach to sustainable development. The word Permaculture means permanent agriculture and permanent culture. Permaculture developed in Australia in the late 1970’s by Ecologist David Holmgren and Natural History Professor Bill Mollison and has since spread throughout the world. Leaders of the sustainability movement are applying Permaculture principles and design methodologies to everything from gardens, home sites, village designs, businesses and entire regional economies. The residents of Hohenwald Tennessee are beginning to use Permaculture a primary tool for redesigning their local economy.
The summer series will be taught by local Permaculture Designers: Matthew English, Cliff Davis, Greg Landua, Jennifer Dauksha English, Albert Bates and Adam Turtle.
Summer Saturday Series (click here for full itinerary)
June 13 - Permaculture and Systems Thinking
- Evidence, ethics, principles and design science
June 20 - Natural Systems - Forest, Trees and Climates
- Tour different forest ecoregions in Tennessee
June 27 - Natural Systems - Water and Soils
- Principles of bioregion repair to restore water and soil sheds for productivity
(water storage, conservation, and soil food web)
July 11 - Domestic Systems
- Alternative energy, natural home building and landscape design
July 18 - Cultivated Ecologies - Gardens
- Gardening, mulching, companion planting and composting
July 25 - Cultivated Ecologies - Agroforestry
- Orchards, forest gardens, propagation, aquaculture, bamboo, mushrooms and domestic animals
August 1 - Community Design and Infrastructure
- Business 101, financial ecosystems, regional currencies and strategies for earning a living
August 8 - Broad Scale Permaculture
- Urban design, village scale, ecovillages, transition towns, green ways, bioregionalism and carbon farming
August 15 - Elements of Practical Design
- Tools for site analysis (including zones and sectors), mapping exercises and conducting client interviews
August 22 - Design Day
- Tools for project management, giving presentations, costing and drawing
August 29 - Design Presentations (Open to the public)
COST of SERIES
$150 Lewis County Students
$250 Lewis County Residents or Chamber Members
$500-full series or $75/day for Non-Residents
Event Location - Downtown Discovery Center, Hohenwald
The event will be held in downtown Hohenwald. Meals, lodging and course books are not included in the course price. Classes will be taught at the Strand Theatre and Lewis County Museum Depot. In February of 2009 Directors from the Museum and Lewis County Historical Society approached the Sonnenschein Green Initiative Permaculture Team, requesting that the group design the Museum’s Discovery Center into a Permaculture demonstration site.
Participants of the summer Permaculture training series will partake in the community design and implementation of this new downtown Permaculture site. The full implementation of the site may take many years to complete. The design will likely include: interactive Permaculture and soil food web areas, forest gardens, wetlands, water harvesting features and riparian zones, and a Native American and pioneer historical settlements with naturally built dwellings.See picture of preliminary site drawing above right.
To register or to receive further details about the Permaculture training contact info@holisticecology.org or call 888-878-2434x5. For details about the Discovery Center project contact tonyturnbow@bellsouth.net. The Museum and Historical Society are accepting donations and volunteers to complete the development of the Discovery Center.
