Major General Michael Jeffery, AC, AO(Mil), CVO, MC was born in Wiluna, Western Australia in 1937 and educated at Kent Street High School and the Royal Military College, Duntroon. He graduated into Infantry and served operationally in Malaya, Borneo, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam, where he was awarded the Military Cross and the South Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.

After command of all combat elements of the Army from platoon to division – including the Special Air Service Regiment – he retired in 1993 to assume the appointment of Governor of Western Australia, which he held for almost seven years. His major interests during this tenure were in youth affairs, education, environment and the family.

For his services to the State he was appointed a Companion in the Order of Australia, a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order and a Citizen of Western Australia.

On his retirement as Governor in 2000 he established in Perth, a not for profit strategic research institute – Future Directions International (FDI) – whose objective is to examine longer term issues facing Australia.

On 20 December 2000 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Technology by Curtin University.

On 11 August 2003 he was sworn in as the twenty-fourth Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, serving in that capacity until 5 September 2008.

Upon his retirement as Governor-General, he has accepted Chairmanship of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, FDI and Outcomes Australia, along with patronages of a number of other not-for-profit organisations.

Major General Jeffery is a Companion of the Order of Logohu (PNG), a Knight of St John, a Citizen of Western Australia, a Paul Harris Fellow and an honorary life member of the Returned and Services League.

He and his wife Marlena have four children and nine grandchildren. General Jeffery enjoys golf, cricket, fishing, reading and music.

Bill Mollison has influenced the lives of millions of people with the conception of Permaculture and has spread its strategies through education. He designed the 72-hour Permaculture Design Certificate course curriculum and wrote and published the course textbook Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual.

It all started at the age of nine when Bill grew his own crop of radishes and developed a love of gardening. But it wasn’t until the 1950s when he took a job with the CSIRO observing wildlife behaviour that he began to have serious concerns about the lethal effect humans were having on the environment. Bill studied environmental science and in 1972 a Eureka moment led to the development of Permaculture, creating stable productive systems that harmoniously work with nature, not against it.

Bill founded the Permaculture Institute in 1978 to further these goals. He self-published his books, articles and curricula, which entirely funded all Institute work. By personally planting the seeds of Permaculture in 120 countries Bill’s efforts have been recognised. He is a receiver of the Right Livelihood Award, Outstanding Australian Achiever Award, Vavilov Medal, Australian Ecology Icon of the Millennium, Steward of Sustainable Agriculture Award and more.

A passionate teacher, at 82 he still conducts courses and continues to spread his message across the globe. Permaculture has become accepted as a viable alternative to chemical-based agriculture which Bill sees as one of the greatest contributors to the destruction of our environment.
www.tagari.com

Geoff Lawton could be considered the fire starter in Far North Queensland. Kym and Georgie, after completing their design course at PRI, incorporated Permaculture Cairns in 2007. They were both inspired and mentored by PRI through the early years and established Freerange Permaculture offering PDC courses and training in Nth Qld. Permaculture Cairns now has over 250 members and is after only 3 years is hosting this Australasian event.

Daryl Hannah was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois and attend the University of Southern California (USC). Daryl made her film debut at age 15 in the Brian De Palma film The Fury setting a pattern of working with some of the most talented and accomplished actors and directors of our time. Daryl has since starred in over 50 feature films, working in both big studio pictures as well as independent artistic endeavours. Among some of her most memorable films, many have become classics such as Blade Runner, The Pope of Greenwich Village, Splash, Roxanne, Steel Magnolias, Wall Street, Grumpy Old Men 1 and 2, as well as the Kill Bill series Vol 1 and 2.

Daryl has worked with Woody Allen, Neil Jordan, Fred Schepisi, Oliver Stone, Robert Altman and John Sayles to name a few. Her first strong impression on audiences came when she was cast as the acrobatic android, Pris in Ridley Scott’s science fiction classic Blade Runner. Her role as a mermaid named Madison in Ron Howard’s Splash, established the willowy actress as one the definitive Hollywood icons of the 1980s.

Daryl is both a documentary and narrative filmmaker. As a film maker Daryl has won the Jury Award for Best Short from the Berlin International Film Festival for The Last Supper, which she directed, wrote, and produced and her first documentary Strip Notes was aired on both England’s channel 4 and HBO. Daryl Hannah is currently in the process of editing a documentary on Human Trafficking to help bring awareness to this atrocity.

Daryl Hannah has been passionate and committed to practicing a low impact lifestyle for over 20 years. From her small footprint, passive and active solar home complete with grey water systems and organic garden, to being an early adaptor of biofuels, Daryl Hannah has been actively spreading the good news of how well it all works and how good it all feels.

She has become one of the most influential sustainability advocates and activists in the nation today, reaching millions with her message and has inspired countless individuals to become more informed and pro-active about the natural world and the part we all play in protecting it.

She has produced, hosted and shot numerous green TV appearances including pieces for CNN International and Good Morning America. Hannah has become an outspoken advocate for ethical and environmentally sustainable lifestyles on news programs in both the progressive and the conservative media.

Daryl has been a greening consultant for events such as the Virgin Music Festival and the recipient of numerous Environmental and Humanitarian Awards including “Environmental Advocacy Award” from the California State Water Quality Control Board, “Influencer Of The Year Award” from The National Biodiesel Board,and the “Ongoing Commitment Award” from The Environmental Media Association.

Daryl sits on the boards of the Environmental Media Association, Eco America, the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance and the Action Sports Environmental Coalition. She co-founded the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance.

She’s written articles on sustainability for many magazines. Her numerous speaking engagements include keynote speeches at the UN Global Business Conference on the environment, the National Biodiesel Board Conference, Natural and Organic Products Expo, LOHAS and many others.

As a video blogging (vlogging) pioneer, Daryl created the sustainable living video blog, and website dhlovelife. www.dhlovelife.com deals with sustainable solutions and features weekly five-minute inspirational video blogs, daily news updates, alerts, community and access to goods and services. Dhlovelife.com has a large avid consistent group of viewers and unique visitors.

She’s invented several board games and toys, keeps bees, rescues stray animals, and loves music, hot springs, wild things and wilderness.

Charris Ford is a freelance Sustainability Advisor specializing in environmental project design and media campaigns. Charris works with organizations, individuals and community groups to help them realize their projects maximum environmental benefit.

In 2000, Charris founded Grassolean Solutions, a Colorado based company responsible for creating one of the first biodiesel production facilities in the USA, using recycled restaurant fry oil. Charris was the subject of the award-winning documentary French Fries to Go and he was instrumental in launching the first 100% biodiesel city bus in America.

Charris has a long background in organic farming, green building and alternative energy implementation. Charris took his first Permaculture Design Course at the age of 18 (circa 1988) and ever since has been working to advance appropriate technology, regenerative agricultural and environmental stewardship.

From 1989 to 1999, Charris ran his family's 200Acre Organic Farm in Tennessee, living the simple life, off-the-grid, with solar power and working closely with the nearby Amish community. He raised food crops, milk goats, workhorses and honeybees. Engaging in a range of agricultural and regenerative land management practices (including Permaculture, Biodynamic French Intensive, horse farming, selective timber harvesting with horses, etc).

Mark O'Connor is a poet and environmentalist. Out of his love for the environment, he has become an authority on the population debate. Like his friend Judith Wright, the founding Patron of Sustainable Population Australia, he has been for 20 years a consistent advocate in the media of low population growth. You’ve almost certainly heard him on Ockham’s Razor, Australia Talks, The National Interest, or Late Night Live.

Recently he co-authored a book that describes how most amenities, including gardens, are now at risk from the endless expansion of Australia’s population and the densification of its major cities Overloading Australia: How governments and media dither and deny on population, by Mark O'Connor and William Lines. The philanthropist Dick Smith recently sent copies of it to all Australian MPs and mayors, urging them to recognize the centrality of the population debate to most good causes.

As a poet he has published 16 books of verse, including books on tropical Queensland and the Top End, on the Australian Alps, the Barrier Reef, Blue Mountains, rainforests and the Pilbara. He is also the editor of Oxford University Press’s Two Centuries of Australian Poetry. He has won several national and international prizes and awards, and he has undertaken fellowships or literary residencies throughout the world including USA, Europe, Russia, China and India, as well as being the “Poet Laureate” of the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

As a play write, Planting the Dunk Botanic Gardens, about his tropical garden on Dunk Island, premiered at the Global Botanic Gardens Congress in China in 2007, and has since played at the Edinburgh and Adelaide Festivals. The images and part of the text from it are on permanent display in cyberspace at http://www.bigtoeproductions.com.au/

Today Mark gardens at the other end of Australia, in the heavy frosts and heavy clays of Canberra, where he carries out unusual experiments in grafting and specializes in growing plums, figs, Chinese dates, and named varieties of feijoas, loquats, and citrus. His website is http://www.australianpoet.com/about.html

Colin Seis and his son Nicholas own and run the 2000-acre property “Winona” which is situated North of Gulgong on the central slopes of NSW. Winona runs around four thousand, 18.5 - micron merino sheep, which includes a 58 year old Merino Stud and “Pasture crops” around 500 acres annually to oats, wheat and cereal rye.

From 1992 until present, Colin has been developing and fine- tuning “Pasture Cropping”, which is a technique of sowing cereal crops directly into native perennial pastures. It combines Grazing and cropping into a single land use method where each one benefits the other economically and environmentally. In 2005 Colin won the Central West Conservation Farmer of the year award and in 2007 won the inaugural “Carbon farmer of the year award in NSW. “Pasture Cropping” is becoming so popular that there is a ground swell of over 1500 farmers using the technique in Australia and is starting to be adopted in other countries in The Northern Hemisphere.

As well as managing “Winona” Colin has been running a farm consultancy business advising landholders on Pasture Cropping, Native grass management, Grazing Management and land management. During the last 15 years Colin has spoken at many Workshops and seminars around Australia and internationally on the practical aspects of “Pasture Cropping”, land management and Native grassland management.

Take a look. Visit: http://www.nokillcropping.com/

Eugenio Gras is a Mexican Integrated Agricultural System Designer, Developer and Educator. Eugenio graduated as an industrial engineer at the University ITESO in Guadalajara and has acquired formal qualifications and extensive experience Dairy Management & Processing (Dip. Germany) Geo-biology (Dip. Germany) and Permaculture (Diploma AU) with Bill Mollison in 1995. He has worked at Melliodora with David Holmgren, and with Max Lindeger at Crystal Waters.

Over the years Eugenio has been a Builder, Project Manager, Dairy Farmer & Processor, Forestry Manager, and Integrated Agricultural System Consultant and Educator.

Author of Cosecha de Agua y tierra (a book about Permaculture and Keyline Design). In 1990 he mounted one of the first organic cattle ranches in Mexico, founded the company Organic Yogurt. Since then he has designed and built various ecological houses, participated in reforestation programs, designed and developed sustainable projects.

Eugenio translated a series of lectures given by David Holmgren during his visit to Mexico in 2007 and has spoken at over 18 International Graduates Organic Agriculture and Permaculture (in Universities, National Centre for Agricultural Production, farmer groups and NGO's) and dozens of workshops and courses in Permaculture and Keyline Design.

Eugenio is a board member and founder of COAS, a group that works throughout Latin America and Europe specialising in training farmers in Integrated Agricultural Systems, Bio Fertiliser Systems, Localised Marketing & Distribution. Over 2009 Eugenio (through COAS) hosted Australian Darren Doherty to introduce Keyline Design systems to Mexican agriculture resulting in the Mexican Registered Cattle Association hosting various workshops and many farms being designed and developed using Keyline, Holistic Management and COAS Bio Fertiliser technologies.




Paul Taylor has been an organic farmer and has extensive experience with returning non-productive soils back into profitable systems for more than 30 years. Paul is a former SFI advisor and the director of Trust Nature Pty Ltd. An energetic, easy to understand speaker with a wealth of practical, hands on knowledge.

Petra Schneider is one of the founders of IDEP, an Indonesian NGO that specializes in design, development and delivery of sustainable community development and disaster management capacity building programs. Petra was the Executive Director of the organization from when it was founded in 1999 to 2010 and now acts as the organization’s Development Advisor.

She is a facilitator and consultant to development NGOs across the region including AusAid’s Bali Recovery Fund, UNESCO Disaster Preparedness Education Toolkit and the Peace Brigades International. She developed the GreenHands Recovery Program for Aceh, Indonesia 2005 - 2008 which is now staffed by Acehnese managers and trainers who were capacity built to deliver sustainable community recovery training using Permaculture for community-based disaster recovery.

Amongst her many achievements Petra has been the Developer and Chief Trainer of Make Media that Works and Media for Peace Building National Workshops; and designer of the National UN Public Awareness Exhibition 2003.

Petra has authored books, designed and developed fully integrated curriculums, campaigns and educational kits including Permaculture Programmes, and the Learnscapes Primary School Education Program in Indonesia. These user-friendly community oriented tools are culturally appropriate, and designed with high impact graphics. Internet downloads of materials has exceed 5,000 copies per month.



Daryl Taylor together with his partner Lucy and 8-year old daughter Maggie, lost their house and businesses in the Victorian bushfire tragedy.

Daryl, a Permaculture trainer, has a great depth of experience in community development, capacity building, and public health planning toward community resilience and sustainability built over 20 year career. Daryl is a Registered Div 1 Nurse working in acute trauma, emergency and community mental health. He was the State Manager of the ANF - SIG Nursing The Environment (NTE); Director of and Consultant for CPR – Community Participatory Research; and the Health Futures Program Coordinator. He was a Board Director of leading futures NGO Imagine the Future and a Public Policy Advisor to Community Aid Abroad (now Oxfam International).

Daryl's work also included appointments as the Community Development Officer for the Shire of Nillumbik; Municipal Public Health Planning Team Leader for the City of Whittlesea; and Community Capacity Building Projects Worker for the Shire of Yarra Ranges.

Daryl is the Founding Director and Principal Consultant for Integralevolution, and currently fully engaged in the post-February 7th Black Saturday Firestorm recovery and rebuilding process in his home community, Kinglake, in the Kinglake Ranges.

Janet Millington wear's two permi-hats. She is an educationalist, author and researcher with 22 years primary school teaching and a Masters of Education.

Janet founded The Eumundi Bamboo Forest as an educational facility for learning in sustainability and the arts which has been delivering workshops and courses from Certificate to Diploma level for 15 years. She has designed many school gardens working with teachers across the regions to provide engaging and authentic learning experiences for children of all ages.

Janet co-authored Outdoor Classrooms used by over 1000 schools, and enjoys supporting teachers and parents to teach the entire curriculum from the school garden. Janet is now planning supplementary materials to support teachers when following the Outdoor Classroom Initiative.

Janet presented at the 5th World Environment Education Congress in Montreal describing Australian innovation in environmental and sustainability education as unique and profound.

Carolyn Nuttall is a co-author of Outdoor Classrooms, a book for schools to help children learn to live sustainably. She has had a long association with this issue beginning in 1992 when the children of Seville Road State School in Brisbane made a food forest in their schoolyard. Carolyn published A Children's Food Forest in 1996 and followed this with the Food Forest Resource Sheets a few years later. Her motivation as a primary school teacher is to open the doors for children to learn important lessons of resourcefulness in their daily lessons. Permaculture is the design model that has underpinned her work.

Janet Millington and Sonya Wallace introduced the concept of Energy Descent Action Planning to Australia in 2007 and have been the primary drivers of the Sunshine Coast Energy Action Centre (now Transition Sunshine Coast) since August 2007. Working with the UK pioneer of the Transition Network Rob Hopkins, the Post Carbon Institute in the US and networks of committed sustainability experts and community members across the region, Janet and Sonya were successful in achieving Transition Initiative status for the Sunshine Coast in September 2007. The Sunshine Coast was Australia’s first Transition Initiative and the first outside the UK and Ireland.

Janet and Sonya have presented the first Energy Descent Action Plan to an Australian council and support many TT initiatives across Australia. They are both working in their own homes and communities on very different successful transition initiatives and teach other Australian groups how to be relevant and effective in their own situations.

Janet presented on Transition Towns at APC9. Since then Sonya and Janet have delivered presentations to groups large and small, here and in Canada, as part of their passion for sustainable development and standing within the local community, drawing together local knowledge and inspiration to make the Transition Town vision a reality for many communities.


Darren J. Doherty has extensive experience across the world in Permaculture project design, development & management. A career-long focus on the profitable retrofit of broad acre agricultural landscapes has seen Darren acclaimed as a pioneer in this important & often overlooked field.

He is a registered Teacher of The Permaculture Institute (AU), Certified Whole Farm Planner (University of Melbourne), Approved Keyline™ Designer, Accredited Permaculture Trainer (APT ™) & Certified Workplace Training & Assessment. Darren has been involved in design & development of over 1300, mostly broad acre projects across 5 continents in 36 countries, ranging from 1 million hectare cattle stations in Australia's Kimberly to 110,000 acre Estancia's in Patagonia, EcoVillage developments in Tasmania to Public: Private R&D Agroforestry & Education projects in Viet Nam, Family Farms across the world, with a range of private, corporate, government & non-profit clients.

More recently Darren has been the originator of Keyline Design, Carbon Farming, Carbon Economy & Regenerative Agriculture courses across Europe, North America & Oceania. Darren also holds positions outside of Australia Felix Permaculture and is a Patron of Fundacion + Arboles (España), Project Manager of Carbon Culcha (Australia) & Vice President of New Soil Security Inc. (USA) and originator of the Regenerative Agriculture Group. This wide experience has created an international reputation of achievement plus an enviable & expansive network that integrates many disciplines.

Gerry Gillespie is the founder of the City to Soil project designed to engage the urban community in returning their source-separated organic wastes to the food chain as high quality compost. It enables the community to be part of the solution to environmental degradation and will ultimately allow direct participation by individuals and farmers in the voluntary carbon market.

The aim of the City to Soil project is to demonstrate that falling levels of organic materials in agricultural soils could be addressed in part by engaging the rural and urban communities together in a trial, which sought to increase soil health by returning quality composted product to agriculture.

Increased soil health brings benefits to the farmer by increasing yield and income and to the broader community by ensuring agricultural sustainability for future generations. The project aimed to minimize alterations to existing systems in collection, processing and on-farm application. Using very simple bar-code technology and rear loading vehicles, a householder credit system was devised, which reduced contamination by 40%. This in turn, lead to a cleaner, quality composted product with more direct application for the farmer, without the worry of contamination.




Dr Christine King B.Agr.Sci.; PGDipRD, A&M; PhD; B.Sc. (Psych); is currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland, specialising in participatory and community-based research, development and extension focused on building resilient agri food systems, resilient people-environment systems, and resilient rural communities. She was one of the key people in the development of the ‘Building Resilience in Rural Communities’ tool kit and has worked on ACIAR / AusAID projects in Cambodia, India and The Pacific Islands. In these projects, her primary role has been to facilitate participatory research processes that involve scientists (agronomists, economists, social scientists) and farming families and villages (including women and children) to solve agricultural, resource management and livelihood issues. Christine has also worked as an Innovation and Development specialist for the Queensland Department of Primary Industries, where she was responsible for initiating, leading, facilitating and evaluating major RD&E capability and capacity building projects for Queensland’s agricultural industries throughout the State.

With the University of Queensland, Christine has two primary research areas – one in participatory and community-based research and development and one in alternative agri-food systems that promote community and ecological resilience. She has a number of PhD students working with communities on more sustainable approaches to agriculture, including organics, bio dynamics, Permaculture and CSA’s, as well as more inclusive engagement processes for marginalised groups.

Christine is keen to share her experiences of:
• Using Nature as a metaphor for guiding action
• Different models of resilience and how they relate to Permaculture
• Building resilient communities (and the ‘Building Resilience in Rural Communities’ toolkit)
• Links between horticultural therapy and Permaculture

Alanna Moore has been described by a neighbour as being capable of 'making a dead stick grow'. For the past 22 years author Alanna Moore has been a keen permaculture practitioner and promoter.

Alanna Moore is a Permaculture farmer, teacher and an environmental journalist, a writer for Australasian Poultry, Permaculture International Journal, Green Connections, Earth Garden, Acres Australia and Acres USA. She is the author of seven books including the best selling rural book Backyard Poultry - Naturally and her latest book, Sensitive Permaculture. Alanna has studied acupuncture, naturopathy and spiritual healing modalities, as well as Permaculture, organic farming, bush tucker and bush regeneration, and now specialises in Earth-spirit centred permaculture design.

Alanna is a serial permaculture gardener and has lately been promoting and teaching permaculture in central Victoria (dry temperate) and Ireland (wet temperate). (Her husband is Irish eco-architect Peter Cowman.) She has three permaculture diplomas – in implementation, media and education. The last time she gave a presentation about permaculture and geomancy at a Permaculture Convergence was at the APC held in Nimbin in 1997, and she also presented at the International Conference in Perth in 1996.

Alanna has been dividing her time between Australia and Ireland, both places where knowledge of geomancy - the Earth's subtle, energetic dimensions - has survived relatively well, in understated undercurrents at the least. Like other animist societies, the Irish believed that fairy beings help to care for their crops and livestock and that the 'Good People' must always be thanked, and their homes and pathways respected.

Alanna was co-founder of the Dowsers Society of NSW in 1984 (in Sydney) and she has presented at British Society of Dowsers’ conferences in 2006 and 2010, plus the International Dowsing Conference held in Manchester in 2003. She is now in demand for teaching in Asia too, where she introduces permaculture concepts to students of geomancy. There, the Chinese version of her ‘Stone Age Farming’ book is enjoying ever greater popularity.

Dr Ross Mars, B.App.Sc (Chem), Dip. Ed., B.Appp.Sc (Biol, Hons), PhD (Env. Sc.) is one of Australia's principal Permaculture designers and consultants, and author of four books on the subject. He has also produced two videos on related subjects, dealing with energy efficient housing design and renewable energy systems for power generation. Besides his extensive academic qualifications, Ross has also obtained a Diploma of Permaculture Design from the Permaculture Institute and was the first person in WA to be awarded the accredited Permaculture training Diploma in Permaculture.

Ross is one of the most authoritative Permaculture teachers today, having delivered over fifty Permaculture courses during the last seventeen years. Ross is one of the pioneers for introducing Permaculture into the school curriculum, as well as being involved in setting up Permaculture-designed gardens in about twenty schools, both primary and secondary, private and state (public) schools. Ross was a high school science teacher for thirty years.

Since the mid nineties Ross has focussed on wastewater treatment and reuse, and he has presented papers at a number of international conferences on wastewater treatment, both in Australia and overseas, and has had several papers published in scientific journals. Ross has developed a number of grey water reuse strategies and technologies, and a range of approved products, and has installed these in homes and commercial premises throughout WA.

Besides designing, building and installing grey water systems, rainwater tank systems, gardens and water-sensible irrigation systems, he is currently setting up a wholesale nursery, Red Planet Plants, in the hills east of Perth. He manages a retail shop in Mundaring where people can purchase water wise products and his systems, and obtain advice on water efficiency.

Ross has a strong interest in preparing people for transition as we move into a challenging and uncertain future, and he is teaching people how to grow food again and to live more sustainably.

To read more visit www.waterinstallations.com, www.greywaterreuse.com.au, and www.redplanetplants.com and www.cfpermaculture.com




Ian Lillington is a Permaculturalist Designer/teacher and author who has worked on climate change action projects and peak oil education. His approach to teaching Permaculture is with a strong focus on the ‘community’ side of PDCs – looking for the linkages between Permaculture and the transition movement, LETS, and food systems for example. Ian is the author of The Holistic Life – Sustainability through Permaculture which will be on sale at the APC10 store and is available through www.holmgren.com.au/

Eric Nicholson is an ecologist by training and is currently completing a PhD at the University of Adelaide. He is the Chairperson of a new not-for-profit association called Permaculture Education Zone (PEZ) and is Co-Chair of the Permaculture Association of South Australia. His main passion is educating people about how to live sustainably and become more engaged in their local communities and develop the skills and knowledge required to be resilient in the face of environmental, social and economic crises.





John Champagne has been active in many areas of Permaculture for 18 years following his PDC in Chiltern, with Vries & Hugh Gravestein. After spending a year as a volunteer with Permaculture Melbourne in 1993, he moved his growing family to the Bega Valley on the South Coast of NSW and established Brogo Permaculture Gardens on a virgin 11 acres.
With his wife Sharon, they raised their 5 children and set up a business offering education, consultancy and established their property as a demonstration site for temperate Permaculture to the public.
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John has been active at a community and bioregional level in areas such as – co-founding the South Coast Field Days from 1995 to 2003; LETS management; President of the Sapphire Coast Producers Association for 8 years; Mumbulla School playground facilitation; current Board member of the Community College and is a local seed saver member.

John was a founding member of BEND – Bega Eco Neighbourhood Developers in 2003 that successfully established a 21 block housing sub-division on Community Title in Bega. He facilitated the Project Co-ordination Team as well as the Design Team that incorporated permaculture principles into the overall framework.
In 2007 he founded SETT - South East Transition Towns and initiated many TT groups with presentations within the 5 neighbouring shires around the Bega Valley. He remains active in SETT, TT Bega and TT Brogo.




Clee Tonkin has been involved in Permaculture since doing her PDC at The Food Forest in early 2008 with Graham & Annemarie Brookman & David Holmgren. With 5 acres of ex-grazing land 10km north of Port Lincoln, South Australia, she was looking for ideas and tools for sustainable land use. She got all that and more as she took on the role of editing the Quarterly Journal of the Permaculture Association of South Australia. Clee attended the 9th International Permaculture Convergence (IPC9) in Lilongwe, Malawi in November 2009.





Robina McCurdy from Aotearoa/New Zealand, is founder/trustee of the Institute of Earthcare Education Aoteraoa (www.earthcare-education.org) and a co-founder/resident of 26 year old Tui Community, and a Trustee of its legal entity, Tui Spiritual & Educational Trust (www.tuitrust.org.nz). She is a passionate organic-biodynamic gardener, and currently financed by the District Health Board in her position as co-ordinator of Victory Community Gardens.

For the past 20 years, Robina has worked internationally and nationally as an community development facilitator and Permaculture educator/designer, including with a diversity of indigenous cultures. Throughout this time, she has evolved her own methodology and created accompanying resources for participatory decisionmaking and collective action - culminating in the facilitation manual 'Grounding Vision: Empowering Culture'. Robina has taught and applied these powerful techniques with households, neighborhoods, schools, farms, ecovillages and bioregions. She continues to discover their value in 'un-developed' and 'over-developed' and countries, with highly-educated to illiterate people, and to people of all races.

Essama Alain Didier left the University of Yaoundé in 1997 where he studied Earth Sciences. Finding permaculture connected him to a rural women organization in Cameroon called ASFERUCAM.

Didier travelled to Australia to complete his Permaculture Design Course at Crystal Water Permaculture Village with Morag Gamble and Evan Raymond.

He returned with a PDC but a strong desire to promote the concept within Cameroon. He set up some pilot projects - a simple zone one sustainable garden, to improve some households’ food supply and to meet their needs to eat healthy foods. Many households have benefited from the demonstration gardens established.

Didier has also implemented small-scale systems including organic food production, orchards, water catchment and storage, natural building and other projects and activities. He led some Permaculture counselling within Cameroon using the platforms of some youth and women groups and organizations involved in the rural and urban development. His strategy was so helpful that it brought a certain number of Cameroonian people to Permaculture and as well helped us to create l’association des Permaculteurs du Cameroun A.P.C.

Over the last year Didier has expanded his Permaculture practice to fisheries establishing natural fish farming project. The project Permaculture Fish Farming is located in his home village of Mvaamedzap, in the Southern Region of Cameroon.

Didier is motivated by the need for increased food security in the region and is building a vision of running a viable, visible, and successful Permaculture demonstration centre for Fish Farming and Permaculture education in the south region.

In December 2009 people, especially the youth, came from all corners of the village to help with the first fish harvest event and witness Permaculture in action.

"I can say that little by little, Permaculture is making steps in Cameroon, but much still needs to be done."

"I am preparing a 2nd Permaculture trip to Australia where I am invited as presenter at APC10 (Permaculture Convergence and Permaculture Festival) to go and share among other things about Strategies to engage community leaders and decision makers."

Contribute to our appeal to help get Didier to APC10.

Penny Pyett
BA (UNSW), Cert. Welfare Work (St George TAFE), Dip Hort (Ryde TAFE), PDC (Permaculture Institute).

Penny is a leading Permaculture educator, activist and community development worker for the Sydney bioregion. She has been a long time teacher of Permaculture and Horticulture for Tafe NSW as well as a trainer and facilitator for community groups, schools and organisations providing Permaculture Introductory and Design Certificate Courses (PDCs); Gardening for People with Disabilities; and more recently the new and very popular School and Community Garden Courses.

Since completing her PDC in 2002 with Bill Mollison, she has been involved with Permaculture Sydney North (PSN), the leading group of Permaculturalists in the Sydney bioregion, for the last ten years (president 2005-09). She is a co-founder of Permaculture Sydney (a bioregional collective representing regional Pc Groups) and is also involved with many local (LGA) Permaculture groups as PSN’s Local Group Coordinator.

Currently, she is implementing Permaculture at her home in suburban Sydney and developing a 22-acre rural property in the Macdonald Valley as a Permaculture education and demonstration site. Her business “Living Well” offers a full range of Permaculture services. She is a committed, loyal and passionate Permaculturalist.

Jane “Many Leaves” Lawrance was born in England, moved to New Zealand, now living sustainably in North Queensland, Australia. She attained a Diploma in Permaculture in the fields of Education, Site Design and Resource Development.

Jane is an heirloom seed saver and collector of tropical food plants and practitioner of sustainable life skills: composting, soap making, poultry (Transylvanian Naked Neck breed), alternative energy, grinding flour, woodstove cooking, coconut weaving and more.

She regularly contributes to Grass Roots magazine and has five years’ experience on local radio, sharing sustainable life skills with the morning show host. She has been a previous guest speaker at SSN (The Seed Savers’ Network, Byron Bay) conferences on tropical seed saving; is a regular guest speaker at Cairns Botanic Gardens and does talks with local groups to share knowledge of seed saving, growing, preparing and cooking tropical fruits and vegetables.

Morag Gamble lives and works from her owner-built sustainable home at Crystal Waters Permaculture Village - the United Nations world habitat award-winning settlement in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland - where she also leads the kids community garden project. Through her organisation, SEED International, Morag teaches permaculture design, and designs edible landscapes and sustainability centres in urban and regional contexts. Since the mid 1990’s this work has taken her to 20 countries.

Morag is a lecturer in food politics at Griffith University, is the founding President of Sustain QLD, and a Director of the Ethos Foundation. She is the co-founder of the Australian City Farms and Community Gardens Network and Northey Street City Farm, and. She is the Producer/Director of the documentary, Think Global Eat Local: a diet for a sustainable society, and has written a thesis for her Master of Sustainability Education titled Characteristics of Quality Permaculture Education. For the Brisbane City Council, she has produced a comprehensive Urban Agriculture Report and the Community Garden: Getting Started Guide.

Tanzi Smith BSc, BE Env (I), Grad Dip Int Dev., PDC Tanzi’s initial interest in permaculture was awakened during a long, dusty and bumpy bus ride in Cambodia about eight years ago. Soon after she completed a PDC with SEED International at Crystal Waters. Since then, she has drawn on her earlier training and experience as an environmental engineer and scientist to explore the ways in which ecological principles can be used to translate sustainability theory and to grass roots perspectives on sustainability into effective decision making and action. Her PhD research with villages in Vietnam has provided insights regarding how ecological principles can be used to foster a deeper appreciation of the connections between social and ecological systems.

Tanzi is a Wentworth Scholar for 2010 and a past recipient of the Sir Edward “Weary” Dunlop Fellowship. She was deeply involved in the community campaign which successfully protected the Mary River and Great Sandy Strait from the Queensland Government’s proposed Traveston Crossing dam. She remains active in several water and catchment oriented community groups. Prior to commencing her PhD, Tanzi worked in research, industry and consulting in the environmental management and international development sectors.

Tanzi spent her childhood on a farm in the lower Mary River catchment and returned to the catchment about three years ago. She and her partner are lucky enough to be long term caretakers of their friends’ permaculture-designed property in the Mary Valley in South East Queensland. Living in and maintaining a permaculture system has provided many lessons for her research and for life in general.