Blog

Greetings! Oh, summertime. Bursting berries, shimmering sunshine, growth in all directions, north, south, earth, sky. Many of us are busy tending to gardens, stewarding seeds and plants, smashing the patriarchy, unlearning biases, dismantling white supremacy, tending the land, caring for our communities, and sharing the surplus this season. It’s all connected. We hope you are all striking a positive balance between work, play, and self care during these times we’re in and have always been in. 

So, what’s been new for PAN? 

Strengthening the Network 

We see value in offering tools to our members and the northeast permaculture network that strengthen communication, collaboration, and connection with each other. This can be hard to achieve in our region since many of us are physically far from each other and will continue to be an issue due to risks associated with traveling and convening during this COVID-19 era. Because of this, we have invested in new membership software – a program called, Membership Works. While this tool also helps us better manage our membership database, it provides a suite of features on the PAN website for members to use including a membership directory, interactive map, and member profile. As we integrate this software into our website, we will work with all of you to ensure that this transition is seamless. This will greatly improve the ability for members to connect with PAN and with each other! Please note that PAN will be offering an introductory session at the 2020 Virtual Northeast Permaculture Convergence, so tune in there for more information about this program! 

2020 Virtual Northeast Permaculture Convergence

In lieu of cancelling the in-person Northeast Permaculture Convergence, PAN coordinated a 2020 Virtual Gathering that brought in speakers who discussed topics related to wild edibles, revolutionary permaculture, urban ecosystem justice, and more! For access to the recordings, please visit https://northeastpermaculture.org/convergence-2020/. 

PAN Webinars 

PAN has been upping its webinar game! Since the pandemic began in March, we’ve hosted virtual conversations on the role of permaculture during the pandemic and teaching permaculture to youth. We’ve also begun planning a two-part webinar series exploring suburban and urban permaculture systems. Our next webinar is focused on Permaculture for Suburban Landscapes, so keep an eye out for more information on this! 

Do you have an idea for a future webinar topic or speakers? Let us know by sending a message to info@northeastpermaculture.org 

Equity Statement

The PAN Equity Statement Committee is working to collaborate and co-create an organizational equity statement and implementation plan. The equity statement will identify a vision and actions related to building racial equity and resisting white supremacy in our organization’s decision making structure, organizational culture, and non-profit projects, and within the broader northeast permaculture community. The next work group meeting is on Tuesday, August 18th at 5-6 PM and all PAN members are welcome to attend. For more information, please contact info@northeastpermaculture.org. 

Please enjoy this free recording of our recent webinar from May 27 entitled PANdemic Webinar: Permaculture Tools and Strategies in a Time of Crisis and Possibility.

Info below:

Join us for a conversation with Permaculture activists, designers and educators as we explore questions about mutual aid, people care, and organizing in this time of COVID-19 including:  What are some permaculture tools and strategies people are leaning on to get through this time collectively and equitably? How can we leverage this moment to create lasting transformational change?

Panelists:

Scott Kellogg is the Educational Director at the Radix Ecological Sustainability Center, an urban environmental education non-profit in Albany, New York.  Radix maintains a one-acre farm that presently is focusing on supporting local food sovereignty and pandemic resilience.  Scott is Chair of Urban Agriculture for Albany’s Sustainability Advisory Committee and teaches at Bard College and SUNY Albany.

Bonita Ford is the author “Embers of Hope: Embracing Life in an Age of Ecological Destruction and Climate Crisis.” She gives courses and workshops in permaculture (ecological design), Nonviolent Communication (cooperative communication), Reiki (energy work), and gardening. Bonita has led groups around the world for over 18 years. To learn more, visit www.livinghEARTH.net.

Keith Morris of Prospect Rock Permaculture has been applying his lifelong love of nature and culture and experience as an activist to permaculture and ecological design since 1996. Since 2000, he has worked professionally as a designer, builder, and grower of ecologically regenerative, socially just, and culturally appropriate whole-systems in cities and countrysides around the world.

Adriana Magaña is a drummer, permaculture designer, visionary, and eternal student of the natural world. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her partner Andrew Faust and daughter Juniper where they operate the Center for Bioregioinal Living, a permaculture education, design, and consulting organization. She believes that an education founded in the patterns and practices of nature will help people understand their connection to and place within the natural world and works to facilitate and teach these skills to all who want to learn.

Moderated by: 

Lisa DePiano is a PINA certified permaculture designer, teacher and practitioner with over 15 years of experience. She is a lecturer in Sustainable Agriculture at the University of Massachusetts and a research fellow at the MIT media lab.  She runs the UMass Carbon Farming Initiative on the 40 acre Agriculture Learning Center.

This event is free, with donations welcome: http://northeastpermaculture.org/get-involved/donate/ 

Please consider membership in PAN to support our educational mission:

Membership – Join PAN

Greetings!

We hope you and yours are well and are able to creatively respond to the numerous changes in our midst!

This spring, a global pandemic is inviting us to live out our permaculture principles from a deeper place as never before. It feels as if we are all being drawn inwards to uncover Earth’s infinite wisdom to guide this journey. Hopefully we can pull out what we need to balance ourselves and strengthen social and economic cohesiveness. Let’s work together to learn new skills and nurture new networks.

While some are sharing necessary permaculture techniques, we want to support the exchange of permaculture ideas for our Northeast region. PAN wants to refresh our communities with online forums that move us out of anxiety and engage the unique conversations that face us at this moment in history. Be on the lookout for more information about these in the near future!

We are also spending this time creating a new membership website and database that allows members to more easily connect with each other and share resources. We believe this is essential moving forward to ensure our network remains strong and resilient into the future.

We believe we will get through this together by strengthening our collaborations and finding the solutions waiting for us in the challenges we are currently facing. We look forward to you joining our online forums to dialogue about how we can apply that wisdom in a way that nourishes our planet as well as our personal and professional well being. 

Sincerely,
The PAN Board of Directors

Want access? Email us for payment instructions or…psst, they’re free for members!

Wednesday, April 1st, 2020 12:30-1:30 PM USA ET

Join us to hear Matthew discuss his research on permaculture convergences, the focus of his Ph.D. studies in Environmental Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. Matthew has traveled widely throughout the US attending convergences, fueled by both his research and his own practice and love of ecological design and permaculture. He will share from both his research and his own perspective.

Register today and receive a 30% discount code to Chelsea Green Publishing in your confirmation email!

Register here: http://northeastpermaculture.org/webinar/

PAN has recently affiliated with PINA, the Permaculture Institute of North America, to become the official northeastern hub representing our region.  PINA is a professional association of regional hubs working across North America and Hawaiʻi to:

    •    Elevate the status and impact of Permaculture by influencing public policy and private development to improve the quality of life for all

    •    Bring permaculture solutions to bear on the challenges of social justice, land regeneration, and climate cooling

    •    Promote permaculture pathways to professional development

    •    Grant diplomas

    •    Preserve the integrity and quality of the Permaculture Design Course

    •    Facilitate networking among permaculturists

PINA is a continental-scale organization focused on building a coalition of permaculture designers, teachers, builders, activists and organizations all across North America.  PDC graduates in North America are estimated at 50,000 people and PINA is an effort to connect us all across the continent in our new lives after the PDC in whatever professions we have evolved into.  Not all PDC graduates wind up in land care, design or teaching professions. Many PDC graduates find themselves in other professional domains like community-focused projects, non-profit work, finance, construction, public education, political advocacy and so much more.  You can read all about PINA’s goals and strategies at https://pina.in/about_pina/

PINA is trying to recognize symbols and representatives of quality work in the different domains of permaculture work.  Pursuant to this effort, PINA offers further educational opportunities with their permaculture diploma program to help certify those who desire a professional credential in a permaculture specialty like design, construction, education and community organizing.   (Read about it here https://pina.in/diplomas/)

Permaculture has a lot to offer the dominant society of North America in terms of design-based solutions to many seemingly intractable problems like ecosystem degradation and climate change.  With our legion numbering somewhere around 50,000 people continent-wide, PINA is trying to organize a membership of individuals and collectives into something that can exert greater force on the important decisions being made in our society.  With this membership of individuals, businesses and regional hubs; PINA has an intention to leverage its size and status as a “professional umbrella organization” to gain access to funding aimed at solving the climate crisis. One goal of this funding is to help with facilitating the construction of “on the ground” projects.  PINA has so far held design contests two years in a row with cash prizes going toward the implementation of the contest winners’ projects.   

Climate crisis monies seem to be flowing from many philanthropic organizations and PINA thinks of this coalition not as an end in an of itself, but rather as a strategy for amplifying the voice of the permaculture community and promoting/demonstrating the next iteration of solutions at a scale commensurate with the challenges we face as a society and species.  Part of the value in affiliating our regional network with a continental one revolves around establishing the credibility of land management strategies associated with permaculture and elevating these strategies on a continental stage with case studies and funding. We know we have been busy at work making resilient ecosystems that produce yields for our human needs while increasing ecosystem health.  We know we have been doing this all across our region with very little funding, and it’s time to make our vision and solutions known to a larger audience.  

PAN, as a regional network-stewarding organization, has existed since 2005 and we have much to offer younger regional hubs through the vehicle of PINA (http://northeastpermaculture.org/p-i-n-e-history/).  We can help younger organizations by sharing our patterns of success, and it is helpful to have an umbrella group like PINA to focus and facilitate those flows of information from where they are abundant to where they are scarce all throughout the continent.  

PAN and PINA will co-host a caucus at this summer’s 2020 Northeast Permaculture Convergence (http://northeastpermaculture.org/buy-convergence-tickets/) July 24-26 to talk about our collective work and the value of building regional and continental coalitions.  PINA will host a North American Leadership Summit in Loveland, CO August 20-23, 2020. We look forward to seeing you there!

-Jesse Labbe-Watson, Midcoast Permaculture Design.  Former board member, PAN.