The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia

I moved to Canada's west coast from Montreal in 1993 to start my own business and since then I've been an entrepreneur for most of my working career. It wasn't until I discovered Permaculture in the autumn of 2008 while listening to a live web-stream with raw foodist David Wolfe, that I intuitively knew my life was about to take a turn. During that broadcast he announced 10 open spaces for a Permaculture retreat at his Noniland home in Hawaii with grassroots Australian Permaculture Teacher, Tania Leilani Manea-Strebel. Within minutes of hearing the one condition to winning a spot, I began to write my essay on why I should be selected, and within weeks I received notice that I had been selected and in January 2009, I was on a plane headed to Kauai, Hawaii.

I am forever grateful to David, but especially to Tania, for her inspiration and positive fun attitude and high energy throughout the design and implementation of Noniland's garden. Her authentic connection with nature inspiried me to rethink my goals and to help make a difference in the world.

Upon my return from Hawaii, I signed up for a PDC course in WA. state and in December 2011, I completed my PRI Internship at Zaytuna farm with Geoff Lawton. Thank you Geoff, Nadia, Paul and Nick for the blessed teachings and for my new skills which I intend to cultivate and share with others.
However, in between Hawaii and Australia, I completed Dr. Elaine Ingham's Soil Food Web workshop, and the Master Gardening Certification through Gaia College in BC. I have also cultivated 2 successful food gardens from seed, created herb spirals, seed saved, built a 3 layer compost system, built cold frames and set up a green house. The thing that fascinates me most about Permaculture is the more I learn about the natural complexity of ecological systems, the more I want to dwell into and accelerate my learning.

Ever since I could remember, my heart's desire has been to experience life in the Caribbean and now that I am PRI Certified, I would like to set up PRI Barbados if permitted. A Permaculture Reseach Institute and demonstration site that teaches Caribbean's about Permaculture ethics and principals that Bill Mollison designed and has scientifically proven since the early 1970's.

With Barbados having food security high on its National Agenda and having a genuine goal to become the Green Island of the Caribbean what better time to introduce Permaculture to the region. Besides, Permaculture is expanding throughout 180 countries worldwide with tens of thousands of organic food gardens and projects that build up bio-diversity, self-reliance, dynamic communities and so much more like the sequestration of C02 and the buildup of the humus layer by use of natural systems. Paul Taylor's Bio-Vital 3 step formula that supports regenerative agriculture is a perfect example of this.

I recently discovered that the Caribbean imports $5 billion U.S. of food annually. Barbados imports $700 million U.S., but $300 million as human food consumption while Bahamas, imports $500 million. Realistically, these cost will continue to increase due to peak oil and unsustainable global economic monetary policy, so increasing local food production will help to decrease the use of foreign currency expenditures in this area and allow better use of it.

Bajan people are some of the most beautiful people I have come to know. If I can make my dream come true, I will have Bajans rethinking their residential and common space into small scale productive and sustainable gardens that will not only serve and lower their food budgets, but will improve their diet, stress and health. Reviving the peoples connection back to the land may not be so simple, but I hope begin part of a dynamic team will make all the difference. After all, farming has been their cultural way of life for several hundreds of years so I do not intend to teach them what they already know, but rather introduce them to Permaculture which is really about bringing back many of the pre-agrochemical farming techniques plus technological improvements since then.

Although, farming and slavery has created a kind of negative stigma among the many, I hope we can help reverse this attitude and contribute to the revival of urban farming that will turn their Gaps (districts) from looking greyish to lush and green produce gardens so that communities share their harvest among each other and take pride in their efforts to create more viable and dynamic community relationships.

Nonetheless, Caribbean's, developing countries and people worldwide are waking up to the misconceptions and illusions of modern times that have failed us and because of this has us reconnecting back to family, back to community and essentially back to a place that our lives depend on, back to the land.

For me personally, empowering people to grow food using sustainable practices is the most rewarding contribution I can offer humanity. It's no longer about how much money I can earn or the car I drive, but rather how many people I can reach out to and make a difference in their lives and ultimately, humbling and valuing my own life. What better feeling is there than to create sprouting productive gardens everywhere all within a natural ecosystem that supports diversity than to shop in a grocery store for produce that has been picked unripe, lost its nutrient value and shipped from other continents which contribute to the C02 problem we are now challenged with?

Several days ago, I stumbled across a much forgotten Barbados Free Press Blog that I commented on back in 2008. Not in my wildest dreams, could I have ever imagined seeing it again unless, I went searching for it which I didn't. My original comment shown below was the last comment on that feed before I recently added my second comment only days ago.

Here are my posts:

April 23, 2009 at 5:35 pm
I would pack my bags and head to the Caribbean in a flash to contribute my time and help create urban gardens everywhere and anywhere if my help is needed. Although, it would be my first go at gardening, I am eager to learn, a hard worker with a very positive attitude.
Peace and Blessings!
Canada

January 3, 2012 at 8:22 am
Well here I am almost 3 years later since my original comment above. Since then I decided to get educated in Permaculture. I completed my PDC (permaculture design certification) in 2009 and just recently Oct/Dec 2012 I completed my PRI Internship at the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia. So do you think Barbados is ready for Permaculture now? Growing food forest and learning about real sustainability? Hope so because I intend to move there and teach others how rewarding it can be to grow your own food plus a whole lot more. Blessings to my fellow Bajans. I simply love Barbados, Lorraine from Vancouver Canada January 2012.

Well the nice thing about this story is that my blog post was noticed and I've been guided to a couple of influential Bajans. If everything works out, I'll be needing a few permies to help out. Stay tuned...I'll keep you posted!