Presenters
Clea Chandmal
Clea Chandmal
- Conference, Convergence, Pre-IPC PDC
Cleas expertise lies in Regenerative Systems with an academic background in Genetics, Ecology, Evolution, Plant Breeding, and Plant Molecular Physiology from the University of Cambridge, UK, as well as certifications in Permaculture from Bill Mollison; Geoff Lawton, Greg Knibbs, and Andrew Millison. With over 30 years of experience at her ‘food forest’ farm in the Western Ghats, India, she has led the development of the ‘Forest Floor Way TM’ and ‘The Forest WayTM.’ These innovative approaches repair soils, handle grey and black water and also establish productive, biodiverse food systems, applicable across various soil and climate types, from arid to waterlogged soils. Clea’s methods have repeatedly shown to yield fast results without elaborate irrigation or fertilizer use, specially catrering to low-income farmer groups.
As a Permaculture design facilitator, her expertise covers soil regeneration, waste management, landscape hydration, food forests, sustainable agriculture, and addressing climate, food, nutrition, water, and income security for both large and small-scale Indian farmers. Beyond agriculture, Clea focuses on mitigating human nutritional deficiencies in tribal communities through soil health and biodiverse kitchen gardening. Currently, her efforts concentrate on the ‘Forest Way TM’ for tree-based farming, to alleviate animal-human conflict, particularly in Central Indian and Western Ghats tribal communities. Clea’s overarching mission is to merge human systems positively with the Earth and its diverse species.
Andrew Millison
Andrew Millison
- Conference, Convergence
Andrew Millison is a permaculture teacher and practitioner, media maker, and gardener. He is a Senior Instructor II in the Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University (OSU) where he founded OSU Permaculture Design in 2009.
Collaborating with experts at OSU, Andrew developed an online permaculture education program with niche offerings that has evolved into a worldwide program that has served thousands of students throughout the planet. Prior to teaching at Oregon State University, Andrew taught at Prescott College in Prescott, Arizona.
Andrew is a documentary videographer who travels the world documenting epic permaculture projects in places such as India, Egypt, Mexico, Cuba, and throughout the US.
Some highlights on his Youtube channel, Andrew Millison, are his series, “India’s Water Revolution”, featuring some of the most impactful large scale permaculture projects on the planet, as well as his mini-documentary he made in collaboration with Oregon State University Productions about Mexico City’s chinampas.
Read more about Andrew Millison.
Robyn Francis
Robyn Francis
- Conference, Convergence, Pre-IPC PDC
Robyn Francis , shares a wealth of 40 years experience in international permaculture education and design, having taught 150 PDC’s and over 100 specialist advanced courses and seminars throughout Australia, NZ, Indonesia, Cuba, India, Taiwan, China, USA, France, Iceland and Germany since 1983. Robyn founded Permaculture College Australia to operate the educational programs at Djanbung Gardens with a dynamic team of qualified and experienced trainers and practitioners.
Jude Hobbs
Jude Hobbs
- Convergence, Pre-IPC PDC, Pre-IPC PTT
Jude Hobbs is an internationally recognized permaculturist with over 38 years’ experience in the design and teaching fields. Jude lives in the Cascadia Bioregion and teaches via her business Cascadia Permaculture. As an educator she conveys her passion for permaculture by providing curricula developed to encompass diverse learning styles with teaching techniques that are accessible, inspiring, fun and information rich.
Her courses offer a safe place for learning, the strategies to understand whole systems design/teaching and the confidence to get out there to do awesome work via a tool kit for action.
Through her business, Agro-Ecology Northwest, Jude specializes in designing environmentally sound solutions by optimizing resource conservation, biodiversity, soil and watershed enhancement and income diversification on large and small-scale acreage.
She is the co-author of the OSU Publication; A Guide to Hedgerows: Plantings that Enhance Biodiversity, Sustainability and Functionality em8721
Jude is a co-founder of the Permaculture Institute of North America (PINA) and actively supports the next generation of permaculturists through continuing education and professional development.
Jude’s intention is to empower people to creatively change their everyday patterns so as to care for the earth and each other.
She co-tends Wilson Creek Gardens, a 7-acre home place and demonstration site located in Cottage Grove, Oregon U.S.A.
Satish Kumar
Satish Kumar
- Conference
A world-renown author and international speaker, Satish founded The Resurgence Trust, an educational charity that seeks to inform and inspire a just future for all. He was the Editor of the charity’s change-making magazine, Resurgence & Ecologist, for over 40 years. The Guardian described this magazine as the ‘spiritual and ecological flagship of the environmental movement’.
Satish has been the guiding spirit behind several other internationally respected ecological and educational ventures. He co-founded Schumacher College which he continues to serve as a Visiting Fellow.
Satish’s autobiography, ‘No Destination’ sold over 50,000 copies, inspiring change around the world. Through his writing, teaching and international talks, Satish passionately shares visions of the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.
In 2014, he was appointed an Oxfam UK Ambassador and is also a member of the Advisory Council of the Gross National Happiness Centre of Bhutan.
Satish received the Jamnalal Bajaj International Award for promoting Gandhian values outside of India.
Satish continues to teach, run workshops, and write about reverential ecology, holistic education and voluntary simplicity and is a much sought-after international speaker and author.
Rosemary Morrow
Rosemary Morrow
- Conference, Convergence
Rosemary Morrow trained in agricultural science at Sydney University, rural sociology at the Sorbonne in Paris, development at Reading UK and horticulture at TAFE but, after spending time in Africa, she realized there needed to be a better alternative to conventional agricultural practices. She found this in the ethics and integrated applied science of permaculture, and has been teaching permaculture ever since. She is the author of numerous publications including Permaculture Teaching Matters, The Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture, which has been translated into many languages, and The Earth User’s Guide to Teaching Permaculture. In 2022, Rosemary published her new book ‘The Earth Restorer’s Guide to Permaculture.’
For almost 40 years Rosemary has worked extensively with farmers and villagers in Africa, Central and South East Asia and Eastern Europe. Rosemary has especially dedicated much of her efforts to refugees the people of war-torn nations such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Uganda, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Kurdistan and East Timor, and to communities experiencing the serious effects of climate change like the Solomon Islands, and the effects of the GFC, like Spain, Greece and Portugal.
David Holmgren
David Holmgren
- Conference
David Holmgren is best known as the co-originator of permaculture. In 1978, he and Bill Mollison published Permaculture One, starting the global permaculture movement.
Since then, David has developed three properties, consulted and supervised on urban and rural projects, written eight more books, and presented lectures, workshops and courses in Australia and around the world. His writings over those three decades span a diversity of subjects and issues, whilst always illuminating aspects of permaculture thinking and living.
At home at Melliodora in Hepburn, Central Victoria, Dja Dja Wurrung County, David is the gardener, silviculturist and builder. Within the permaculture movement, David is respected for his commitment to presenting permaculture ideas through practical projects, and showing by personal example that a sustainable lifestyle is a realistic, attractive and powerful alternative to dependent consumerism.
As well as immersion in the practical side of permaculture, David is passionate about the philosophical and conceptual foundations for sustainability, which is the focus of his Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability (2002/2017). This book has been a significant influence on permaculture thinking and the development of Transition Initiatives around the world. His Future Scenarios work has seen him recognised as a significant thinker about the ‘Energy Descent’ future. RetroSuburbia: the downshifter’s guide to a resilient future (2018) is his 592-page manual showing how Australians can downshift and retrofit their homes, gardens and selves for resilience into an uncertain future.
David and his partner Su started Melliodora Publishing to promote both his titles and those of other authors writing on related themes.
Morag Gamble
Morag Gamble
- Conference, Convergence, Pre-IPC PDC
Morag Gamble is the founder of the Permaculture Education Institute with students on 6 continents, and has led programs in 22 countries. She is the Executive Director of Ethos Foundation, a small charity helping provide free permaculture education in East Africa, and co-founder of Permayouth.
Morag Gamble is an acclaimed teacher, presenter, author, blogger, filmmaker, designer and educator. In all of her work, Morag explores how we can live more peacefully and simply so that we may thrive together on this beautiful blue planet.
She sees the direct social and ecological impact of industrial farming on marginalised farming communities around the world — in Indonesia, India and East Africa.
Her YouTube channel, Our Permaculture Life, and Our Permaculture Life blog have both been accessed around 10 million times. She invites fascinating guests to her podcast, Sense-Making in a Changing World, each week.
And she’s a regular contributor to Pip Magazine, penned chapters for Permaculture Pioneers and Reclaiming the Urban Commons, and wrote Brisbane City Council’s Urban Agriculture Report.
Read more about Morag Gamble.
Sneha Koppula
Sneha Koppula
- Convergence
Sneha Koppula is a Permaculture practitioner, Facilitator, Food and Nutrition professional, a Nature educator, committed to working with and for communities. She has been closely working with the women farmers, supporting climate resilient regenerative agricultural systems and women farmer producer organizations in Telangana. Sneha is actively involved in co-teaching Permaculture Design Courses and facilitating short-term courses at Aranya Agricultural Alternatives for the last 3 years with Narsanna & Padma Koppula. She is dedicated to educating and creating awareness among people of all ages on various aspects of natural life, including trees,soil, insects, birds, fungi, and more. Academically, she holds a Master’s degree in Human Nutritional Sciences from the University of Wisconsin and a Bachelor’s in Food and Nutrition from PJTSAU, Telangana. She feels there’s an immediate need to bridge her academic background in nutrition with soil health to create awareness at the grassroots level.
Bert Peeters
Bert Peeters
- Convergence
Bert has been in the Philippines for more than 33 years. He started permaculture in 2000 with a course in Findhorn, Scotland and with Geoff Lawton in Australia. Later he added a teaching course in Hilo, Hawaii. In 2000 Bert co-founded Cabiokid foundation, then registered the Philippines Permaculture Association (PPA) and more recently created the Brilliant Practices Permaculture Inc. as a consultancy agency. Most work went into setting up a development site through Cabiokid foundation. To see is to believe so they focused on what a permaculture site could look like in the middle of the plains of central Luzon on the island of Luzon. Through PPA, they build a network of practitioners and have been organizing national permaculture convergences since 2015. Their work is on publications, teaching and creating accreditation for good permaculture sites all over the country. Bert and his permaculture colleagues developed a learning and research center within the Cabiokid land development to allow people to come and study all about permaculture. Personally he is teaching, designing and growing stuff in the best of his capacities. A lot of what he does is still focused on advocacy as they promote the permaculture paradigm to cooperatives, farmers and government officials.
Govinda Sharma
Govinda Sharma
- Convergence
Mr. Govinda Sharma is the founder of HASERA Agriculture Research and Training center, a pioneer Permaculture Institution of Nepal; practitioner of Permaculture since 1992; facilitator of 61 international PDCs and 1000+ short courses; member of International Permaculture Convergence Council (IPCC); author of 10+ books related to Permaculture. Our whole family is fully enjoying Permaculture life in our small one acre farm. He will be sharing ‘Soft system methodology in Promoting Permaculture for Integrated community Development : A successful example from Patalekhet, Nepal’.
Peter Morehead
Peter Morehead
- Pre-IPC PDC
Taiwan
Peter co-founded Earth Passengers Permaculture Design with his wife Chiang Hui-i. Since high school, he has been highly interested in learning how to live a more environmentally responsible lifestyle. While survival skills were a primary focus in his teens, Peter realized that environmental problems had become so severe and complicated that only communities working together could effect change. In 1996, Peter launched a webpage on permaculture in university and helped establish a CSA system at Maplewood Gardens in Wisconsin. After living in Taiwan for several years trying to sneak environmental education into children’s English lessons, in 1999 Peter decided to take a Permaculture Design Certificate Course in Australia at Tyalgum Farm established by Bill Mollison. Upon return to Taiwan, Peter and Hui-i found a shack in the mountains above Taipei City where they began getting more hands-on practice. During this time, Peter began introducing the concepts of permaculture in Taiwan, starting with a community college course in 2002 and island-wide solar cooking workshops in 2003. Peter became the first certified permaculture teacher in Taiwan after taking an Advanced Permaculture Design Course in Teaching in 2006.
Peter has more than 24 years’ experience in permaculture design with a solid foundation in both theory and practice. He regards his career as soil regeneration, restoring ecological diversity, feeding people and inspiring others to live more resilient lifestyles. In addition to teaching courses in urban communities, villages, and schools all over Taiwan, Peter also provides professional permaculture design services. Apart from growing vegetables, fruit and animals, and running an internship program, other work includes the ongoing implementation of Earth Passengers Permaculture Learning Center design, various designs for corporate farms and homesteads, design and implementation of rainwater harvesting systems, ecological education site design, rooftop utilization designs, and renovation of traditional architecture using natural building materials.
Peter is frequently invited by government and private organizations as a keynote speaker on ecological design, has served on the jury of the Taipei Design Awards and the Taiwan International Sustainable Design Competition. Other projects include an urban space community design course, green campus design, and courses for the Partnerships for Community Development (PCD) in Hong Kong. Peter is often invited to teach and consult throughout China, including urban and rural areas of Shenzhen, Xiamen, Chengdu, Chongqing, Fuzhou, Guilin, Beijing, Guizhou, Zhengzhou, Huizhou and Yunnan.
Areas of expertise:
whole systems design, soil regeneration, natural building, passive solar design, appropriate technology, ecological agriculture, rainwater harvesting.
- Bachelors Degree, Master of Science in Chinese Language and Environmental Studies at University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1996
- Apprenticeship at Maplewood Gardens Organic Farm and CSA in Elderon, Wisconsin, 1997
- Permaculture Design Certificate Course with Geoff Lawton at Tagari Farm, Australia, 1999
- Advanced Permaculture Design Course in Teaching with Tom Ward and Jude Hobbs, USA, 2006
- Diploma Award in Applied Permaculture with focus on appropriate technology, permaculture education, and community development (Permaculture College Australia, 2012)
- Community Facilitation course with Permaculture College Australia, 2012
- Ecovillage and Transition Community Design with Permaculture College Australia, 2016
Avinash Pol
Avinash Pol
- Conference
India
Dr. Avinash Pol is a dentist by degree and a ‘Water Doctor’ by heart. For a decade, he practiced as a successful dentist in the Satara district of Maharashtra and was moved by the stories of many of his patients, who were struggling with drought, poverty and lack of knowledge on government schemes and benefits. In the late 90s, he began his journey in rural social transformation and it has been 25 years since he has been tirelessly working to improve the lives and futures of rural populations of Maharashtra. He has personally enabled almost a 100 villages to tackle drought and inspired hundreds of young people to offer shramadaan, or voluntary manual labour, to build structures to conserve water. Since 2016, he has been working as the ‘Pramukh Marddarshak’ or Chief Advisor to Paani Foundation. From 2016-2019, the organisation trained over 6,000 villages in Maharashtra to fight drought. This movement led to the creation of over 550 billion litres of water storage capacity in Maharashtra. Currently, Paani Foundation works with almost 40,000 farmers on water conservation, management and sustainable agriculture practices.
Christopher Nesbitt
Christopher Nesbitt
- Convergence
Beliz
Christopher took his PDC in 1991 and started trying to replicate the arboreal architecture of primary habitat later that year. Some parts of their farm have similar functions of nutrient cycling and sub canopy species with market value.
Chirstopher offered their first PDC fifteen years later in 2006 with Toby Hemenway and Penny Livingston. have co-taught 15 PDCs. From 1997-2004 he worked in the cacao industry with indigenous farmers and have visited around 600 cacao farms in Belize, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic. He is passionate about agroforestry.
The farm he manages is called Maya Mountain Research Farm. It is a 35 year old experiment in degraded land repair. Much of the work has been informed by a rigorous application of the permaculture principles.
Christopher and his team are focused on the intersection between agriculture and ecology, that sweet point where food, fuel, fiber, fodder, marketable and medicinal crops can be produced in systems that replicate ecosystem services of soil and soil moisture retention, habitat creation and carbon sequestration. Some of theri farm is covered in towering trees we planted, 35 metres tall, while other parts are being established presently.
Trish Allen
Trish Allen
- Convergence
New Zealand
Trish Allen holds a Diploma in Permaculture. She is also a registered permaculture teacher with Bill Mollison’s Permaculture Institute and also with Permaculture in New Zealand. Trish was formerly an IPCC Councillor for 8 years.
She has over 30 years’ experience as a permaculture practitioner including establishing the award-winning Rainbow Valley Farm in Matakana with her late husband Joe Polaischer. The farm demonstrated permaculture in action and inspired thousands. Trish has now moved on and established a village-scale model of permaculture and shares her knowledge by teaching permaculture-related courses and workshops. She has established a community garden in her village and set up a weekly greenswap where locals share the surplus from their gardens. She is also founder of Mahurangi Wastebusters which aims to divert waste from landfill and promotes a circular economy.
Trish would like to share her journey of building community resilience. Starting with establishing a permaculture farm (Rainbow Valley Farm) with her late husband in the north of New Zealand over 30 years ago, turning rubbish land into a permaculture paradise, becoming a permaculture teaching centre, and setting up a village farmers market where we sold our farm produce.
After her husband passed away she moved to the village where she established a community garden and set up a weekly greenswap where locals come together to share the surplus from their gardens. Trish also founded a non-profit organisation called Mahurangi Wastebusters which now runs two community recycling centres, diverts waste from landfill, recovers resources, promotes a circular economy and creates jobs. The organization now has 8 paid staff.
