The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia

I grew up in a small country town in southern Ontario in the crazy 80's. From there I moved on up to Thunder Bay in northern Ontario to study philosophy and occupational ethics and upon completion left the country on a one way ticket to Hokkaido, Japan. Planning on only being in Japan for one year, I was surprised 10 years later when I was still here, although having located to the city of Osaka. During that time I mostly taught ESL at a variety of job posts as well as continued my undergraduate education obtaining a second major field in history with a focus mainly on the culture and peoples of the ancient Mediterranean. In 2010, having had enough of the ESL world in Japan, I relocated to Honolulu, Hawai'i where I where I completed a Master of Education degree and a post-graduate certificate in teaching humanities.

It was through this program and the opportunities that many workshops I was exposed to lead me first to the school garden culture and through that, on to Permaculture. Upon completing an introduction course not only was I hooked, but began to realize that the failures of the past in many civilizations and societies throughout history are not a necessity of replication in our present world should we choose to accept the alternative route of working towards a solution to the problem instead of merely grumbling about our grievances. Upon completion of my studies in Hawai'i I made the trip to wonderful Golden Bay area of New Zealand and completed my PDC. This for me was an eye opening experience like no other - for not only did I become immersed in the potential for design of existing systems, but also had the opportunity to realize the potential to foster the good from the bad in unfortunate circumstances via damage restoration and mitigation.

I am in the thinking process and beginning doer phase at present spending my time working on some experimental patio greening and beginning a Permablitz Osaka network. Beyond this I am most interested in the facet of urban greening, orchards, and food forest agriculture. I am also very interested in working towards aiding and developing projects that incorporate permaculture principles into education in both developed and developing nations around the world. I think that both of these facets are very important for the future of our identity as both local and planetary beings. It is my hope that I will be able to get some projects up and going where ever I may be to bring both the green and the means for environmentally sound food production back to the (sub)urban realm as well as enable a process whereby education of the next generation of children can view their relationship with the land and others as one. On this last front, I am especially interested in becoming involved with and developing systems that can be implemented in schools to both 'teach the rich' and 'enable the poor' to see the benefits of environmentally responsible practices of self sustainable co-existence with both their immediate communities and the surrounding ecosystem at large.