"Permaculture is a design approach to sustainable living modelled on natural living systems integrating human settlements and natural environments... It's about designing systems that meet all the needs of humans and the natural world - without compromising ecological health."
The Auckland Permaculture Workshop will kick off in February, offering a year-long course with monthly classes held on Saturdays and opportunities to attend one-off classes for those with busy.
Classes cover a huge variety of topics spanning philosophy and design to socio-cultural issues, tree crops, energy production and technology and soil sampling.
The course is run out of the Jasmax offices in Parnell, but there are plenty of off-site field trips showcasing integrated design sites including a trip to a commercial plot integrating forestry with persimmon, figs and bananas as well as trips to urban gardens.
The course is designed for people wanting practical design skills; skills which have valuable applications in areas as diverse as starting up a business to working with communities to build resilience to designing your own property, says Mackesy. "If people are wanting to learn how to live more sustainable and be able to apply ecological thinking to whatever they do, then that's basically what the course is about."
