Inspiration

permablitz

Permablitzing Our Way to Community

By Mark Juedeman, Shawn McFarland

Transition Houston had its origins in a permaculture class offered by the Permaculture Guild of Houston and Urban Harvest in 2007-2008. Mark Juedeman, a member of the class, had discovered the Transition movement online. He was so excited when Rob Hopkins’ The Transition Handbook was published that he bought a number of copies and gave them away to others he thought might be interested. Shawn McFarland, a teacher in the class, also purchased a copy and was likewise smitten. Mark’s design project for his Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) was to organize Transition Houston. The first organizational meeting was held in March of 2008, and Transition Houston became an official Transition Initiative in September 2009. Several action groups formed early on, with one of the most successful being the Permablitz group. Marybeth Seligmann, another member of the permaculture class, took on organizing permablitzes as her PDC project, mentored by Shawn. Permablitzes grabbed the...

  • April 19, 2021
agroforestry in valley

Letter From The Farm: Realism And Planning For Utopia

By Chiara Garini, ARC2020

Ed. note: This article first appeared on ARC2020.eu. ARC2020 is a platform for agri-food and rural actors working towards better food, farming, and rural policies for Europe. This is part of a series of Letters from the Farm. Read more letters from Chiara's farm here. **** We are back on Chiara Garini’s forest farm at the foot of the Italian Alps. Three years in, her mushroom farm and forest garden is at a crossroads: should she expand or diversify? In any case Chiara is determined to bring utopia into her business plan, and tells us about an exciting new development on the farm… Temperatures today are again close to zero. But the snow in the last days has finally started to melt after weeks pretty much spent in an unusual peace, with lots of snow and inevitably limited social interactions. Leaving aside the moments of loneliness and concerns due to the...

  • March 12, 2021
3320958
organic cattle

Finding meaning in the hard work of farming and growing: What will drive the next generation?

By Alicia Miller, Sustainable Food Trust

We need a movement, a movement with meaning, that tells the next generation that being a farmer, that being grower, can be great and immensely fulfilling even as it is hard as rocks, but also that the meaning it offers is embedded in the land, in nature and the very heart of the earth and that we are there to care for it.

  • June 18, 2021
Restored prairie ecosystem

Call for a holistic fundable metric for ecosystem restoration

By Pieter van der Gaag, Ecosystem Restoration Camps

A holistic approach to ecosystem restoration requires us to go “beyond the tree”: we are concerned about the full ecosystem, and also about social impacts and livelihood creation inside healthy, functioning ecosystems.

  • June 17, 2021
Molding in a circle of beech wood

Tasting Independence in Beaufortain

By Philippe Barret, ARC2020

Philippe Barret tells the story of Beaufortain, a community in the French Alps that has been coming together to practice rural sustainability since the 17th century.

  • June 16, 2021
forest kindergarten

Teaching Environmental Teachers

By Kim Fortun, Great Transition Initiative

Most of my students do not go on to become professional educators. But all, I hope, do see themselves as stewards of our educational systems, understood as powerfully entwined with environmental systems, underpinning all hopes of inclusive, sustainable prosperity.

  • June 16, 2021

Keeping the Smoke Hole Open: Excerpt

By Martin Shaw, Resilience.org

The mess out there is because of a mess in here. Inner and outer talk to each other. That’s the truth of things. Let’s get to work.

  • June 16, 2021
×Close