Designing a regenerative culture depends on a harmonious relationship between nature and people, in which observation and thoughtful interaction provide the knowledge and inspiration necessary to being a resilient community. In this program we take the time to listen to the birds, follow the stories of the animals through their tracks and sign, use our hands to grow our food, learn about and practice the art of peacemaking in our interactions throughout and much, much more. Through the collaboration of theGetting Nature Connected program and the 4 Seasons Permaculture Design course, our intention is to provide participants with tools and experience to begin living in a mutually enhancing relationship with the Earth.

This two-part series is presented in Santa Cruz and takes place one weekend a month.
Each weekend includes:

Friday evening and Saturday: Getting Nature Connected, with Jon Young and staff
Sunday: Four Seasons Permaculture Design Certification course, with Lydia Neilsen and the RDI staff

You can register for one or both parts of the series. To register for Getting Nature Connected click here, or go towww.jonyoung.org. Register for the Four Seasons Permaculture Design course below.

Youth programs are available throughout the weekend! Click here for the First Child in the Woods program.

Using the guidelines of the ‘The Transition Handbook’ we are taking on the challenge of reinventing the city of Santa Cruz in the transition from oil dependency to local resiliency. We recommend reading this book. You can learn more about this international movement at the Transition Culture website. Here’s a review to learn more.

The Transition Handbook From oil dependency to local resilience. Reviewed by Graham Strouts of Zone5.org

?The concept of energy descent, and of the Transition approach, is a simple one: that the future with less oil could be preferable to the present, but only if sufficient creativity and imagination are applied early enough in the design of this transition.? -Rob Hopkins, The Transition Handbook

The publication of the much anticipated Transition Handbook marks the latest landmark in what has become the fastest growing environmental movement since CND in the 1960s: the phenomenon that is sweeping the UK, the Transition Towns movement.

The book is clearly written and entertainingly illustrated- including some original line drawings by the author. Primarily it is a handbook for inspiring and guiding communities into a new sustainable future with less dependency on fossil fuels. Comparisms with the recent early-industrial past- food production and allotments during Britain?s ?wartime mobilisation? in the 1940s for example- make fascinating reading and give some kind of pointers for how large-scale change could happen again- if we only had the collective will and sense of urgency to achieve it.

What makes it unique is that this is not merely aspirational, but also documents the meteoric rise of the transition movement. Its advice and exercises have been hewn on the workbench of real local communities making the first steps of a radical transformation that the whole of the developed world will have to confront over the coming years.

Placed through the book are 12 Tools for Transition describing in detail different workshop activities that can be used to help develop a process and facilitate discussions, including Open Space and World Caf; the web-of-life game is described, but has become the web of resilience- a game whereby participants stand in a circle and pass a string back and forth between them representing links between different elements of a woodland or a community:

it is becoming clear that the cheap oil required to sustain our oil-dependent lifestyles is not going to be with us indefinitely, we find ourselves looking around at the severed strands of web and starting to wonder which strands might reconnect to which others. The Transition approach is one of re-weaving this web, and remaking the connections which will be needed by a resilient post-oil economy. Every new harmonious relationship we forge is a step back to sanity.
It all started at the end of the summer of 2004 when Rob was teaching permaculture in Kinsale, the course he had set up three years earlier- a 2-year Practical Sustainability course, one of the only courses of its kind anywhere in the world. Davie Philip of Cultivate had just shown me The End of Suburbia and I gave a copy to Rob just before the start of term. He immediately arranged to show it to the students along with a talk by Colin Campbell, and presented with them what must still be the greatest challenge to have faced permaculture students on that course: to write an Energy Descent Action Plan for the town of Kinsale.
This daunting task was undertaken with considerable enthusiasm and the document they produced has been hugely influential in framing the tasks ahead for those seeking effective responses to peak oil and Climate change.

Dave gave a very interesting talk explaining the reasons why he calls invasion biology a pseudoscience.

What is invasion bioloogy? It is the attempt to address through science the ecology, influence, and impact of introduced species.

Another Kind of Genocide book review by Toby Hemenway.

Click here for a book review by David Holmgren.

Here I am with David Theodoropoulos and Larry Santoyo at the Cabrillo College Horticulture Center with the Monterey Bay in the background for our Permaculture Design Course.

Here’s the cover of Dave’s book with a excerpt from a book review. Click here to order the book.

“In this provocative work, Mr. Theodoropoulos uses a combination of detailed bibliographic research, precise language, and skillful polemics to analyze invasion biology as a pseudoscience… it is an organic work of great analytical force and bibliographic intensity…. The credibility of the book’s arguments is based in fundamental evolutionary ecology…. Critics may dispute some of his analyses or judgments, but their own credibility would need to be measured against Mr. Theodoropoulos’s analytical rigor, clarity of expression, and transparency of agenda…. Mr. Theodoropoulos’ ideas are, in this book, ecologically coherent, precisely conceived, and effectively articulated.” –Dr. D.L. Scarnecchia, Washington State University. Book Review, Rangelands 26(2), April 2004.

Go to the green roofs directory by clicking here.

Built as an embodiment of Natures gifts, the Feldmans home, in the Santa Lucia Preserve (a 20,000-acre private preserve in Carmel, California), was designed as an example of sustainable Mediterranean Modernism. The house was designed to integrate itself back into the land through sensitive design including low water use, solar power and habitat enhancement. There are actually three small buildings that are built into the hillside where the hill seamlessly continues onto the green roofs of each one. Rana Creek ensured that an ecological design approach enhanced the project with a sustainable landscape and green roofs that consist mostly of locally adapted, indigenous plant materials already found thriving onsite prior to building. Their oversight of design and implementation focused on stabilizing all disturbed soils by planting grasses and forb mixes approved for the Santa Lucia Preserve, controlling non-native species, and simply allowing natural regeneration of the local plant assemblages. Adaptive management techniques proved to be the most valuable strategy, as the roof that was being taken care of by weeding, pruning and irrigation was less successful than the roofs left unattended, due to lack of access.

There are 4250 square feet of green roof installed at a cost of $21 per square foot. The 6 depth of growing medium is composed primarily of sand, lava rock and amendments which allow for both moisture retention and drainage. The growing media included mycelial inoculants and supporting mushrooms that appear in the cool wet winters. The roofs were installed with irrigation to support the initial establishment of the plants and for minimal summer maintenance. The waterproofing membrane is American Hydrotech MM6125 followed by a Hydroflex30 Protection Course and Root Stop WSF40. The Drainage system is Floradrain FD40 underneath the growing medium layer and to gravel with perforated pipe and surface drains at the roofs edges. The perennial plant species selected for the roof like Sand Sedge, Pt. Joe Fescue, Yarrow and Wild Strawberry are typical of the Oak Woodland understory and representative of the Monterey Peninsula region flora. A host of annual wildflowers were over seeded in the fall and by springtime tidy tips, lupine, poppies, and goldfields surprised the owners with a colorful spring bloom. These annuals continue to sprout and flower each spring.

The green roof design for the Feldmans Hill House emphasizes low water use, sustainable landscape techniques and use of native plant materials. The green roofs are designed to provide usable landscape, filter and store rainwater, attenuate sound, increase thermal insulation and provide site sensitive beauty for the Feldmans home. The Feldmans benefit by reducing their energy consumption up to 30% during the summer months from the insulation of the green roofs. With a growing media depth of 6 the sound is reduced by approximately 43 decibels. The sounds from the humans and their activities within the buildings are also being buffered to protect the wildlife, given the sensitive nature of the habitat in the Preserve.

The Feldman Residence is a superlative example of a green roofs potential to limit environmental disturbance and integrate architecture with ecology – the 33 species of native plants used have made for a successful recovery after the disturbance caused by building on the site. The ecology of the site will continue to become more complex and resemble the natural analogs that were emulated in the design!

Larry Santoyo will be joining local Santa Cruz Permaculture teachers including Ken Foster, Lydia Neilsen, Bruce Beernink and Brian Barth and Heather Flores for a Permaculture Design Course begining February 16th and 17th, 2008. The third weekend of each month:
February – July 2008 Tuition : $90.00 per day* $175.00 per weekend

Please go to EarthFlow Design Works to register or for more information.