Permaculture Cooperation:

Climate Change & Peak Debt

Transition to Permaculture through
Cooperation
“Permaculture is more than
a gardening system”
Bill Mollison
 3 Ethics

• Earth Care
• Fair Share
• People Care
“perennial polyculture vs
annual monoculture”
 Context
State of the local & global
 Global Change

“Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure”

 US Environment Concerns: Gallup

http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/Americans-Global-Warming-Concerns-
Continue-Drop.aspx
 Upper Hunter Valley Environment

http://www.hvrf.com.au/pages/design/links/uploaded/UpperHunterEn
vironmentalAttitudesPaper2008-09v2_000.pdf
 Corporate Climate Coup
• David F Noble, historian of science
• Corporate Denial Campaign: Greenhouse
Mafia
• Corporate Climate Traders: Carbon Finance
• Climate Justice Movement: Klimaforum, Via
Campesina, Permaculture networks, Transition
Network etc
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-corporate-climate-coup-by-david-f-noble
http://permaculture.tv/?s=corporate+climate+coup
 System: Planet Earth
• Neo-liberal globalisation
• Multinational Corporations
• Industrial Mass-Consumerism
• Financial “Markets”, “Free Trade” “Free
Markets”
• World Trade Organisation, International
Monetary Fund
• World Bank (Carbon Finance)
• United Nations (Security Council, UNESCO,
IPCC, IAKTD etc)
 Anthropocene

http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/anthropocene.htm
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Anthropogenic_biomes
 Geoengineering
• We are doing it now
• But badly
• Lots of BIG Science/Big Tech/BIG Business
schemes i.e. mirrors in space, algae in ocean,
artificial or GMO trees
• The best means to take C02 out of the air is
not technical means, but trees (and soil)
• Industrial Biochar Consortium
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020477130457418152
2575503150.html
Human Welfare and Ecological
Footprints
 Limits to Growth
• Peak Population
• Peak Oil
• Peak Coal
• Peak Soil
• Peak Water
• Peak Moment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth
Environmental Refugees

http://www.agassessment.org/
Wilderness? 10% more than 48 hrs

Travel time to major cities: A global map of Accessibility.

 Conservation Refugees

“indigenous tribal peoples, like endangered species, are being driven to

extinction. Their languages are swiftly dying and we're losing a huge
resource in their invaluable knowledge derived from millennia in their
respective homelands. Environmentalists, determined to preserve
biological systems and entities, should now be equally driven to
preserve aboriginal cultures.”
Conservation Refugees
Peak Debt
Debt-based economies
 What is Peak Debt?
• Hubbert Peak in debt
• Economies from individuals, households,
national economies
• Point where the ability to repay to
interest/fees etc beyond the income of the
debtor

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/peak-debt.asp
 Plutonomy
• Ajay Kapur, 2006, global strategist Citigroup,
defined six factors create and maintain
plutonomy:
1. business-friendly government and tax policies
2. increasingly complex financial systems
3. control of the rule of law
4. globalization
5. technology changes
6. patent protection
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2007/01/08/plutonomics/
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Plutonomy
 Tax Havens
• Too many tax havens
• Used by corporations & individuals to avoid
paying any tax
• International elite profit from the global local,
but never pay back except in philantro-
capitalism
• Fund drugs, crime, slavery, war, profiteering,
specualation
• Mainstream and accessible
 Shadow Banking
• “the whole alphabet soup of levered up non-
bank investment conduits, vehicles, and
structures.”
• June 2008 speech, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy
Geithner, then President and CEO of the NY Federal
Reserve Bank, described the growing importance of
the shadow banking system.. lending through the
shadow banking system slightly exceeded lending via
the traditional banking system based on outstanding
balances.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banking_system
 Only the Super Rich Can Save Us
• Ralph Nader “novel”
• At best calling-out the
plutocrats to share
some load
• At worst a sell-out
fantasy

http://onlythesuperrich.org/
 Financialisation
• Financialisation vs. Investment
• % of finance in real production has declined
• % of finance in speculation has increased
• Financialisation of household mortgages
• Financialisation of atmosphere under carbon
trading (ETS etc)
• Financialisation of ecosystems
 Capitalism vs. Corporatocracy
• Free markets for the poor, socialism for the
rich
• “George Bush started as a social conservative
and ended as a conservative socialist”
• Ronald Reagan create the biggest government
in US history, that continues

http://busharchive.froomkin.com/BL2008101701408_pf.htm
 War and other Luxuries
• Luxury economy, fashionable consumption
• Created wants vs. real needs
• War is the ultimate luxury item
 Disaster Capitalism
• Naomi Klein author “No Logo”, “Shock
Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”
• Iraq, AfPak, New Orleans, Russia
• Complex of military, private security and
logistics contractors
• More private military (mercenaries) in AfPak %
than in Iraq under Bush
• Foreign Aid
• Now Haiti
 Futures
What could we expect ?
 Revenge of Gaia
• Environmental War Economy
• Miitarization of climate change, Disaster
Capitalism, Green Zones
• Mega-cities, wilderness, “countryside”
• Sudden, violent climate change & megadeath,
mass-extinction with probable world war
(resource wars, environmental refugees)
• Gaia Bible and a New Eden
• James Lovelock “Revenge of Gaia”
 McGaia
• Carbon farming (“soft” organics)
• Genetically modified organisms + “organics”
• Second Green Revolution
• Corporate industrial perennial polyculture
• Corporations, Employees and Consumers vs.
cooperative farmer & industrial ecology
• Social, genetic and geo-engineering
• Push advertising
McGaia
http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2007/RAND_OP179.pdf
Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food
 Re-Generative Gaia
Coevolution NOT Competition / Commons &
Cooperative based
• Democratic Carbon
• Planetary permaforestry
• Global energy convergance
– Global North Energy Descent
– Global South Energy Ascent
• 10 000 Trees: Strategy for Climate Change
• Small Organic Farmers Cooling the Planet
• Ag Assessment, IAKTD
Permaculture
State of the movement
 Permaculture ?
• “permanent agriculture”
• “permanent culture”
• Utopian ideal
• Open global design
system
• Sustainability framework Mollison, Holmgren, Cran (APC9)
• Social movement
• International network
• Accredited Permaculture
Training (AUS)
• FarmReady (AUS)
 Permaculture Movement
• Klimaforum09 Copenhagen
• IPC9 Africa
• APC10 Cairns
• 4000 sites (Ethan Roland)
• 500 institutes (Tony
Andersen)
• Transition Movement
• Education via schools,
technical colleges,
universities (global)
• Subsidies for farmers (AUS)

Bill Mollison “Senior Australian of the Year 2010 – National Finalist”

 System Change Not Climate
Change
• Klimaforum09 slogan
• “we don’t work for climate change, we work
for systems change”
• Klimaforum Declaration delivered by El
Salvadorian (former Australian immigre) Juan
 Planetary Permaculture
• Democratic Industrial Ecology
• Nested Common Pool Resources
• Democratic Work & Communities
• Planetary Permaforestry (global ecological
agriculture)
• Perennial Polyculture
• Social, peer-peer, cooperative, coeveolution
• Open manufacturing & food
 Transition
• The Rocky Road to Real Transition
• Combination of Resilience & Resistance
Strategies
• New Sustainability Paradigm
• Democratic, Participation in Ongoing
Planetary Design
Permaculture: 3 Ethics & 12 Principles
 3 Ethics

•Earth Care
•Fair Share
•People Care
 Holmgren’s 12 Design Principles
1. Observe and interact
2. Catch and store energy
3. Obtain a yield
4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback
5. Use and value renewable resources and services
6. Produce no waste
7. Design from patterns to details
8. Integrate rather than segregate
9. Use small and slow solutions
10. Use and value diversity
11. Use edges and value the marginal
12. Creatively use and respond to change
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture#Holmgren.27s_12_design_principles
Permaculture Flower

http://permacultureprinciples.com/flower.php
Home Gardens
School Gardens
Community Gardens
Sustainable Homes, Armidale
Transition Towns, Armidale
Village Homes, Davis

http://www.villagehomesdavis.org/
LA Botanic:Permaculture/Organics
Permaculture Guilds & Groups

http://www.permaculture-sf.org/
http://www.18thandrhodeisland.org/
Accredited Permaculture Training

http://permaculture.com.au/online/
Seed Savers Networks
Farmers Markets
Mandela Foods worker-coop, Oakland
 Free Permaculture
Riverside Church, Manhattan
Street Culture
 Prince Charles Permaculture Patron
• “What is so deeply
impressive is the
practical way in which
the Institute
demonstrates how
genuine sustainability
can be achieved by
applying the principles
it has developed.”
• HRH Prince Charles
 Permablitz
• started April 2006 as
collaboration between
permaculture students
and a South American
community group in the
South-Eastern suburbs of
Melbourne, Australia.
• 40 permablitzes
• international reputation
successful tool fast-
tracking suburbs towards
sustainability
PermaBlitz
 Urban Food
• Wall Street Journal
• Gates Foundation
• Detroit
• US Social Forum
 Broad-Acre Permaculture
• Darren Doherty
• Fellow travellers
• Natural Sequence
Farming of Peter
Andrews
• Allan Yeomans of
Keyline
• Agroecology
• Sustainable Agriculture
• Ecological Agriculture
Carbon Farming
Keyline and Carbon Farming

Fusion Farms, VIC

 Commonwealth Policy
• Liberal-National Policy
• Labor Party Policy
• Carbon Sequestration
Payments to Farmers
for Soil and Plant
(Ecology)
 Regenerative Agriculture
• Joe Salatin
• Darren Doherty
• others
• AUS/NZ
• FarmReady
• Milkwood, Felix etc

http://www.regenag.com
 Organic Farming
• International Federation of Organic Agriculture
Movements “relies on ecological processes
rather than the use of inputs.”
• Oceania, with some 12.1 million hectares, has
more than one third of the land being farmed
organically, most of which is in Australia

Vital Signs: Organic Agriculture

 Organic vs GMO Farming
• More than three
times as much
land is devoted to
genetically
modified crops
than organics
• Less than 1
percent of the
world’s
agricultural land
is now managed
organically.3
http://www.agassessment.org/
Vitalsigns WorldWatch: Organic Agriculture
 Related
Movements
Concurrent movements
 Natural Sequence Farming

• Peter Andrews
• Australian Story (most popular ever)
• Of Droughts and Flooding Rains
• Right As Rain
Major-General Jeffery & Peter Andrews
“Major-General Jeffery hopes
that within a decade a third
of Australia's farmers - and
eventually all - will have
stopped using artificial
fertilisers, dramatically
boosted vegetation species, Image: Carbon Coalition
substantially reduced or
ceased irrigation and
adopted a more holistic,
natural approach to farm
management.” 2009, Sydney Morning Herald
 Natural Sequence Farming Principles
• Natural sequences can be harnessed
• A farming system founded on working with
nature
• Maximum natural outcomes with minimum
financial and manufactured inputs
• NSF can be applied to Grazing
• NSF can be applied to Agriculture
• Sustainable Landscape Outcomes under Natural
Sequence Farming
http://www.nsfarming.com/Principles/principles2.html
World HQ Transition Movement

http://permaculture.tv/photos-of-totnes-of-transition-towns-totnes-fame/
 Transition Towns Totnes
• Transition Towns
movement has evolved
into Transition
Movement
• Transition Initiatives
exist in rural
areas, villages,
towns and cities.

http://permaculture.tv/photos-of-totnes-of-transition-towns-totnes-fame/
(Not) transition (grumpy) pilgrim

http://permaculture.tv/photos-of-totnes-of-transition-towns-totnes-fame/
 Schumacher College

http://permaculture.tv/photos-of-totnes-of-transition-towns-totnes-fame/
 Transition Culture
• “Transition is determinedly inclusive
and non-blaming, arguing that a
successful transition through peak oil
and climate change will by necessity be
about a bringing together of individuals
and organisations, rather than a
continued fracturing and antagonising.”

Transition Culture response to Trapese

 The Rocky Road to a Real Transition
• “One of the aspects of their
critique of Transition is that
it shies away from directly
confronting what they see
as being the enemy. Their
starting point can be
summed up in the sentence
“it is fundamentally
important to identify and
name the cenemies in the
battle to make a real
Transition””
• Transition Culture response
to Trapese
 Next Generaration Permaculture
Institutions, Sectors, Systems & Industries

• Urban & Rural Food

• Town Planning (TTT?)
• Cities (TTT?)
• Organisations ?
• Manufacturing ?
• Government ?
• Politics ?
• Trade ?
• Education ?
• Barter?
http://www.symbiosis.dk/industrial-symbiosis.aspx
 Copenhagen, Denmark

Klimaforum09, the Peoples Summit

Climate Circus Copenhagen
Sustainability Market
Climate social circuit
Permakultur Denmark stall
 Cuban permaculture

http://permaculture.tv/cuba-permaculture-power-roberto-perez-climate-change-before-peak-oil/
 Narsana, Indian permaculture pioneer

http://permaculture.tv/india-permaculture-pioneer-narsanna-koppula-of-aranya/
 Walter, IPC9 Organiser

http://permaculture.tv/africa-permaculture-report-klimaforum09/
Padma, India water permaculture
pioneer

http://permaculture.tv/indian-permaculture-report-klimaforum09/
Brazilian permaculture
41% Copenhagen commuters cycle
 Klimaforum09

• “does not just work for climate

change, it works for systems
change”
• a forum where activists start working with
grassroots
• network for activists/grassroots
• practical actions meet radical actions
Permaforestry
 “10 000 Trees” Planetary
Permaculture Strategy

A Practical Strategy for Climate Change

Tony Andersen, 10 000 Trees
Planetary Permaculture “10 000 Trees”
Strategy
 Permaculture
 Climate change
 Carbon sink in ecology: trees, mostly soil
 More 10,000 TREES / person / lifetime
 Less 1 TON CO2 / person / year
 Failing U.N. Climate Conference process
 Parallel activist/grassroots conference
Klimaforum
 International permaculture network
 2 Aspects of 10 000 Trees
 Planetary
Permaforestry
 10 000 Trees per
person
 Global re-afforestation
project
 Perennial polyculture
 Agroecology
 Food sovereignty
 Ecological agriculture
 Global Energy Descent
 1 ton C02 quota per
person per year
 100 Euro Carbon tax
after 1st ton
 100 Euro tax pays for
planetary
permaforestry
 Permaforestry
 carbon tax spent on perennial polyculture
(permaculture) style forestry programs
 perennial polyculture and soil become carbon
sinks
 local permaculture groups implement 10 000
trees program, expanding existing permaculture
institutes from a few hundred into the 10s of
thousands
 if 5000-7000 trees can be planted per person in
the next 25 years we can stablise extreme
climate change
 Soil & Tree Carbon Sinks
 best means to take C02 (GHG) from the
atmosphere is not technical means, it is trees
 Most carbon is sequestered (trapped) in soil,
partly in trees
 Cooperation
more powerful than competition
 Informal Cooperation
• Movements
• Informal economy
• Community economics
• Household sector
• Gift economy
• Barter economy
• Clubs
• Associations
• Special Events
• Church
 Formal Cooperation
• Incorporated • Consumer Cooperatives
Cooperatives • Producer Cooperatives
• Mutual Societies • Housing Cooperatives
• Building Societies • Rural Cooperatives
• Incorporated • Worker Cooperatives
Associations • Marketing Cooperatives
• Industrial & Provident • Social Cooperatives
Societies
• School Cooperatives
• Hybrid Cooperatives
 Cooperation
• Mutualism is an interaction
between two or more
species, where both
species derive a mutual
benefit
• Similar interactions within
a species are known as co-
operation
• mutualism has historically
received less attention
than other interactions
such as predation
Wikipedia: Biological_interaction
 Lynn Margulis
• Theory of symbiotic
relationships driving evolution
• “ believes that proponents of
the standard theory "wallow
in their zoological, capitalistic,
competitive, cost-benefit
interpretation of Darwin”
• Cooperation is greater than
competition - coevolution
• Gaia Theory colloboration
with James Lovelock
• Endosymbiosis / Symbiogensis
http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/margulis/
 Elinor Ostrom
• Nobel Prize for
Economics 2009
for "her analysis
of economic
governance,
especially the
commons“

Nobel Prize lecture

Photo: Arizona State University
 Nobel for Ostrom on Commons
• “by showing how common resources—
forests, fisheries, oil fieldsor grazing lands, can be
managed successfully by the people who use them,
rather than by governments or private companies”.
Ostrom’s work in this regard,
challenged conventional wisdom, showing that
common resources can be successfully managed
without government regulation or privatization ”

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Ostrom

 Commons

Old Commons New Commons

• Fisheries • Internet
• Forests • Knowledge
• Atmosphere • Wikipedia
• Grazing lands
http://www.indiana.edu/~iascp/
 Donella Mathews
•Limits to Growth 1972
•12 Leverage Points to
Intervene in a System
•Systems Thinking: A
Primer
•Sustainability Institute
•Global Village Report
(if the world was 100
people)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donella_Meadows
 12 Leverage Points (12-9)
• 12. Constants, parameters, numbers (such as
subsidies, taxes, standards)
• 11. The size of buffers and other stabilizing
stocks, relative to their flows
• 10. Structure of material stocks and flows
(such as transport network, population age
structures)
• 9. Length of delays, relative to the rate of
system changes
 12 Leverage Points (8-5)
• 8. Strength of negative feedback loops,
relative to the effect they are trying to correct
against
• 7. Gain around driving positive feedback loops
• 6. Structure of information flow (who does
and does not have access to what kinds of
information)
• 5. Rules of the system (such as incentives,
punishment, constraints)
 12 Leverage Points (4-1)
• 4. Power to add, change, evolve, or self-
organize system structure
• 3. Goal of the system
• 2. Mindset or paradigm that the system — its
goals, structure, rules, delays, parameters —
arises out of
• 1. Power to transcend paradigms
Peer to Peer Foundation

http://p2pfoundation.net/The_Foundation_for_P2P_Alternatives
Homebrew Industrial Revolution

http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com/
 Riversimple

http://www.riversimple.com
 Open Source Ecology
• Open Source
Ecology use
permaculture
and digital
fabrication together to
"evolve to freedom."
http://www.openfarmtech.org/index.php/Main_Page

http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/
 OpenFarm Tech

http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=LifeTrac
Farmer to Farmer Movement

Juan N. Rojas, Presidente, Instituto de Permacultura de El Salvador

 Global Sustainability Corps

http://globalsustainabilitycorps.org/
Permaculture America Latina
 Social Movements
• Permaculture Movement
• Carbon Farming
• Organic Gardening & Farming Movement
• Keyline & Natural Sequence Farming
• Environmental Movement
• Transition Movement
• Climate (Global) Justice Movement
• Social Justice Movement
• Cooperative Movement
• Indigenous & Peasant Movements
• Open-source & Free Culture Movement
Cooperatives
Why not the default?
 Cooperatives vs. Corporations
Corporations
• Dominant human institution
• Any industry
• Tyrannical
• Wage Slave
• Manager Surveillance
• Agency Problems
• Legal amplification
• State subsidies
Cooperatives
• Damaged human institution
• Any Industry
• Democratic
• Member-owner
• Worker-Management
• Capitalisation Problems
• Legal deprecation
• State dis-incentives
International Cooperative Alliance

http://www.ica.coop/coop/statistics.html
Statement of Cooperative Identity
1. Voluntary and Open Membership
2. Democratic Member Control
3. Member Economic Participation
4. Autonomy and Independence
5. Education, Training and Information
6. Co-operation among Co-operatives
7. Concern for Community

http://www.ica.coop/coop/principles.html
 The Co-operative Group UK
• UK consumer cooperative
• Hybrid consumer society
• Direct descendent of
Rochdale Pioneers
• 4.5 million members
• 123 000 employees
• food, travel, banking,
insurance, pharmacy,
funeral, legal services,
investments, online shop,
electrical and beds
(trains?)
 Totnes Pound

http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org/totnespound/home/howitworks
Mondragon
Mondragon or Arrasate in Basque
 Mondragon Cooperative
• Mondragon Cooperative largest worker-
cooperative in world
• 120 worker-cooperatives
• 100 000 plus worker-owners
• Global enterprise
• Started by Catholic priest
• Global corporation making consumer goods
COOPERATIVES WITHIN
MONDRAGON

•INDUSTRIAL 87
•CREDIT 1
•CONSUMER 1
•AGRICULTURAL 4
•EDUCATION 8
•RESEARCH 13
•SERVICES 6

•TOTAL 120 cooperatives

MIKEL LEZAMIZ www.mondragon.coop
 MONDRAGON CO-OPERATIVES
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

SALES 9.638M 10406M 11.859M 13.390 M 16 300 M

euros
euro

INTERNATIONAL 2.555M 2.699M 54% 57% 58%

SALES BY
INDUSTRIES

INVESTMENT 836M 784M 1.081M 1.243 M 2 800 M euro

euros

PERSONNEL 68.625 70.884 78.455 83.601 100 000

NET PROFITS 411M 502M 545M 677 M 792 M euro

euros

MIKEL LEZAMIZ www.mondragon.coop

 Mondragon Cooperative
GENERAL
SUPREME BOARD
ASSEMBLY
ACCOUNTING WATCHDOG
AUDITORS COMMITEE

GOVERNING
RUNNING BOARD COUNCIL

SOCIAL COUNCIL ADVISING BOARD

GENERAL
EXECUTIVE BOARD
MANAGER

MANAGEMENT
COUNCIL

DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT

MANAGER MANAGER MANAGER MANAGER MANAGER
A B C D E

MIKEL LEZAMIZ www.mondragon.coop

 Structure in MONDRAGON
CONGRESS
Permanent Council

GENERAL COUNCIL

INDUSTRIAL GROUP
Automotive
FINANCIAL GROUP

Components
Construction
Industrial Equipment
Domestic Appliances
Engineering and Capital Goods
Machine-Tools

Training and Research Centres

MIKEL LEZAMIZ www.mondragon.coop
 Mondragon Framework

COOP COOP
COOP COOP
COOP

COOP COOP

RESEARCH AND
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT (R&D)

EDUCATIONAL
FINANCIAL

MIKEL LEZAMIZ www.mondragon.coop

Mondragon Coop Tour
Arrasate
Arrasate
 Caja Laboral

Caja Laboral’s profit after tax for 2009 came to

56.5 million euros, which is 43.8% down on
the figure posted in 2008.
Fagor
Mondragon Grafitti
Grafitti artists, Mondragon
Basque Independence
Save the Nature
 Emilia-Romagna

http://www.cooperativegrocer.coop/articles/index.php?id=623
Worker Coop Credit Union Brent Emerson
Proposal Mike Leung
Worker Cooperative
Employment

Entrepreneurial Startup/Expand
Activities Worker Coops

Loans
Credit
Union
Deposits Deposits

Grassroots Support for Established Worker

Worker Cooperatives Cooperatives
 Permaculture Credit Union

• The Permaculture Credit Union pools the financial

resources of people who believe in the ethics of
Permaculture - care of the earth, care of people,
and reinvestment of surplus for the betterment of
both. We apply those resources to earth-friendly
and socially responsible loans and investments.
http://www.pcuonline.org/
 Radical Routes
• Radical Routes is a
network of radical co-ops
whose members are
committed to working for
positive social change.
The network is made up
mainly of housing co-ops
of various sizes (none
with more than 16
members), a few workers
co-ops and a couple of
social centres.
http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/
 Rootstock
• Rootstock is the ethical investment arm
of Radical Routes. By investing your
money in Rootstock you can financially
support the setting up of grassroots co-
operative projects, enabling people to
take control of their own housing, work
and social life.
http://www.rootstock.org.uk/
Green Worker Cooperatives
• GREEN WORKER
COOPERATIVES is a
South Bronx-based
organization dedicated
to incubating worker-
owned and
environmentally
friendly cooperatives in
the South Bronx.
http://greenworker.coop/
 New Economics Cooperatives
• Former head of New Economics Foundation now
head of Cooperative Group
• Interested in new economy cooperatives such as
open-source software communities
• Co-op Fortnight
• Transition Movement links
 UK Cooperatives
• Tories Policy to • UK Labour Party to
allow/facilitate public make “mutualism” a key
service agencies to to election staretgy,
“privatise” and become platform etc
worker-cooperatives or
employee-owned
agencies within a
service network
Suggestions
What can be done?
 Community Development
Cooperatives
• “Set up the many simple cooperatives
enabling all the unemployed, homeless,
bored, retired, people to get into the
community gardens etc. that would enable
them to start producing many of the basic
things they need. Can we set up co-ops to run
a bakery, bike repair shop, home help service,
insulating operation, clothes making and
repairing operation…. ” Dr Ted Trainer
http://pacific-edge.info/the-trainer-papers-1/
 New Commons Design Principles
Ostrom identifies eight “design principles” of stable local common
pool resource management [4]

1. Clearly defined boundaries

2. Local rules for giving and taking of commons
3. Collective decision-making process
4. Effective monitoring accountable to users
5. Scale of sanctions for violating resource community rules
6. Conflict resolution cheap and easy to access
7. Self-determination of community recognized by higher-level
authorities;
8. organization in the form of multiple layers of nested
enterprises, with small local commons at the base level.

Source: Wikipedia
 Democratic Carbon
• What would happen if
we made the entire
Carbon Cycle
democratic? Not
political, but
democratic. Not just the
science, but the
industry too, the
business of energy (oil,
gas) and agriculture
(food and fibre) ?
http://gaiapermaculture.com/projects/climatewar/blog/2009/11/30/democratic
-carbon-carbon-dictatorship-the-climate-circus/
 Permaculture Credit Unions
• Why not a PCU in
every town ?
• If farmers get carbon
credits why not
households?
• Can local credit unions
establish special funds http://www.rootstock.org.uk/
? http://www.malenycu.com.au/
http://www.pcuonline.org/

http://www.australianethical.com.au/
 Rural Broad Acre Permaculture Coop

• A broad-acre and rural permaculture cooperative

• Technical, financial, legal assistance for members
• Pool resources for Keyline, Earthworks, perennial
polyculture
http://www.permacultureusa.org/2009/12/03/sustainable-land-management-
course/
 Rights of Nature
• Ecosystems have rights
• People have rights as
part of ecosystems
• Ecuadors Constitution
• Bolivia holding climate
summit in April to
declare a Universal
Declaration of Natural
Rights
http://www.celdf.org/Ordinances/RightsofNatureOrdinance/tabid/133/Default.aspx
“Suits brought to enforce
those rights shall be
filed in the name of the
natural communities or
ecosystem whose rights
have been violated.”
World People's Conference on Climate Change
and the Rights of Mother Earth
 Cooperative Development
• Cooperative reform and resurgence in UK (Tories
& Labor), Australia (NSW leading)

• Change: Cooperatives have to adapt or die.

• Challenge: The modern global economy is hard.
• Capital: To grow and compete, co-ops
need funds, and laws financing innovations.
• Clusters: Clustering cooperative development
increases synergy, solidarity and reciprocity

Derived http://www.cooperativegrocer.coop/articles/index.php?id=623
 Industrial Symbiosis

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Kalundborg,_Denmark
 Climate Change: 12 Leverages
• 12. Constants: Carbon Tax,
Carbon Price
• 11. Buffers: Carbon
Sequestration
• 10. Structures: Carbon Sink (10k
Trees)
• 9. Delays: Energy Descent Global
North
• 8. Negative Feedback: Climate
Movement, Environmental
Protection Agencies, Natures
Rights Litigation
• 7. Positive feedback: Carbon
Farming, Permaforestry
• 6. Information flow: Democratic
government, science & media,
independent internet
• 5. System Rules: Emissions
Standards, Pollution Laws,
Polluter Pays, Rights of Nature
• 4. Power Change: Direct &
Radical Democracy
• 3. Goal: Climate Justice (10k
Trees)
• 2. Mindset or paradigm:
Planetary Permaculture
• 1. Power to transcend paradigms:
Great Transition
 Peak Debt: 12 Leverage Points
• 12. Constants: Corporate
Tax, Tobin Tax
• 11. Buffers: Capital
Reserves
• 10. Structures: Social
Finance
• 9. Delays: Less
Consumption, Slow Money
• 8. Negative Feedback: Tobin
Tax, Financial Regulation
• 7. Positive feedback: Credit
Unions, Mutuals
• 6. Information flow: Total
Cost Ownership of Debt
• 5. System Rules: Usury
Laws, Regulations
• 4. Power Change: Close Tax
Havens, Shutdown Shadow
Banking
• 3. Goal: Democratic Finance
• 2. Mindset or paradigm:
Hierarchy of Needs
• 1. Power to transcend
paradigms: Human and
Ecological Growth
Planet Permaculture: 12 Leverages
• 12. Constants: Permaculture
Index
• 11. Buffers: Permaculture Free
Zones
• 10. Structures: Permaculture
Commons
• 8. Negative Feedback: Popular
Inquiries, Citizen Juries
• 9. Delays: Long termism
• 8. Negative feedback:
Permaculture planning laws &
regulations
• 7. Positive feedback: Democratic
Permaculture Networks
• 6. Information flow: Media
Ecology
• 5. System Rules: Permaculture
Law
• 4. Power Change: Direct &
Radical Democracy
• 3. Goal: Planet Permaculture
• 2. Mindset or paradigm:
Regenerative Gaia
• 1. Power to transcend paradigms:
Transition to Permaculture via
Cooperation
 Events
What can be done?
Coop Fortnight, UK

http://www.thereisanalternative.coop/
 APC10 - Australasian Permaculture
Convergence
• Cairns, September 2010

• Practical pathways to
stepping up permaculture
learning in local
communities around
Australasia.

• We'll learn what's working

effectively and why.

http://apc10.org/
Fair Share Festival, Newcastle
TBD, Coming soon
possibly
 Permaculture Cooperative
Transition to Permaculture via Cooperation

Products
• Permaculture.TV – videos
• News.Permaculture.Coop - news
• PermacultureGroups – groups

Planned
• Permacultura.coop – Spanish &Portugese
 Contacts

• Nicholas Roberts & Kirstie Stramler

• Permaculture Cooperative
• permaculturecoop@gmail.com
• News.permaculture.coop
• PermacultureGroups.org
• www.Permaculture.TV