The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia

I am a humanitarian relief worker, researcher and writer with a background in geography and environmental studies.

For a number of years I worked for Oxfam in countries such as East Timor, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, DRC and Ethiopia, implementing large-scale relief programmes to deliver water and sanitation, public health education, food security, sustainable livelihoods and civilian protection, principally in situations of armed conflict and large-scale population displacement.

More recently I have focused on research. Currently I am a Research Asociate at the Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). Right now I am working on a book examining the political ecology of conflict-related humanitarian crises in Kenya, Uganda, DRC, Sudan and Somalia.

I became interested in permaculture in the mid 1990s while I was living in Australia, but only began to get actively involved recently. I have been drawn to permaculture as I have become increasingly frustrated with the inadequacies of orthodox international aid and development programmes, particularly given the unsustainable and exploitative practices that are commonly used by international aid agencies in the pursuit of 'development'. Combined with a growing personal conviction that the ideals and practices of western civilization upon which 'development' is founded are not only unsustainable but destructive, I have decided to commit myself to integrating the ethics and principles of permaculture into my life and work as much as possible. In 2011 I did my PDC in Amman Jordan and benefitted from the great knowledge and wisdom of Bill Mollison, Geoff and Nadia Lawton, Warren Brush and Brad Lancaster.

The next step of the journey has been the formation of Resilience Now, an initiative which I have started with Florence Gibert, a lawyer, humanitarian worker and permaculturist from France. Resilience Now aims to promote the application of permaculture principles and techniques to build resilient communities in particularly vulnerable landscapes, especially those experiencing humanitarian crises as a result of climatic changes, land degradation, uneven socio-economic development and conflict.

Focusing initially upon the integration of permaculture design principles and techniques into the areas of humanitarian response and disaster-risk reduction the initiative is working:

1) to gather and disseminate resources and guidelines for the use of permaculture principles and techniques in emergency environments and highly vulnerable communities;

2) to promote resilience thinking and the use of permaculture principles and techniques in the humanitarian sector through training, lobbying and advocacy, and the development of practical tools;

3) to develop and support the implementation of permaculture based projects for disaster-risk reduction and resilience building within vulnerable communities, particularly in Africa.

We launched the initiative at the Second World Conference on Humanitarian Studies in Boston in June 2011, where Florence gave a presentation on the benefits of permaculture for humanitarian relief operations.

In September 2011 I led a discussion on the subject with Jean Renouf at the International Permaculture Convergence in Jordan.

Together with Florence I am now in the process of:

1) developing research papers to illustrate the benefits of using permaculture in situations of chronic humanitarian crisis;

2) building a resource database for humanitarian workers and permaculturists intending to implement humanitarian response projects

3) seeking out project partners to begin the implementation of practical permaculture projects aimed at building the resilience of communities threatened by climate change, natural resource degradation and conflict

4) establishing resilience centres in Kenya and DRC where we will set up permaculture demonstration sites and engage in training and education of local communities in the use of permaculture design and support them in setting up a variety of social enterprises. You can find more information about these initiatives under the project title "Kudumu Resilience Centre"