The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia

Andrew is currently the manager of the family vegetable garden, and has been studying part-time through Athabasca University. Andrew is passionate about cultural diversity, indigenous ecological knowledge, indigenous and rural peoples' justice, and actions that strengthen and build community everywhere.

Andrew has always loved the natural world, and dreams of ways to "fit in" with natural systems in harmonious ways. From Holistic Management to Herb Hammond's Ecosystem-based conservation planning procedures (www.silva.org), Andrew has read extensively on ecological design and management systems. Exposure to all these good ideas led Andrew to take the permaculture design certificate course from Rob Avis of Verge Permaculture in 2011.

In spring and early summer of 2011, Andrew travelled to both Africa and Indonesia to study international sustainability issues firsthand. In Zimbabwe he attended community training sessions at the Africa Centre for Holistic Management. In Indonesia Andrew was a student in an ethnoecology field school, spending over a month with Wehea Dayak villagers and learning their methods of swidden rice agriculture and complex food forestry. These experiences further fuelled Andrew's passion for culture, community, and regenerative eco-social design. Both here in Canada and abroad, Andrew is considering further opportunities to contribute to community-based renewal and regeneration, toward a future that celebrates and strengthens both ecological and cultural diversity.

“The dichotomy of nature versus culture deeply embedded in Western culture can be deconstructed as we examine the ways that other peoples live in and with their landscapes.” --Leslie M. Johnson