Permaculture Design Certificate Course (adapted from the curriculum developed by the Permaculture Research Institute & Zaytuna Farm (Australia), Based on Bill Mollison's text "Permaculture: A Designers' Manual" (Tagari Publications)

Introduction

• Introductions by participants.
• Brief background and course expectations.
• Course administration, timetable and schedule.
• Using the Design Manual as a text-book for the course & other available references.
• Definition of Permaculture, why do we need such a design system?
• History and philosophy of Permaculture as a taught and applied design system.
• The Ethics and The Principles.
• Permaculture in landscape, society and community context.
• The evidence of why we need to act, key global challenges.
• The Bill of Human Rights.
• Principle summary.
• References.

Concepts, Themes & Methods of Design

• Tradition, culture and belief systems.
• Life principles and natural laws stated.
• The methods of design, resources, yields, cycles, food webs, growth.
• Vegetarianism and dietary ‘isms.
• Complexity, connections, order and chaos, permitted and forced functions.
• Inter-active diversity, stability, fertility, sustainable productivity and profitability, time and yield.
• Functional design development.
• Analysis, observation and deductions from nature.
• Sector planning.
• Slope, Key Points, orientation, aspect & data overlay.
• Zones and their placement.
• Designing in zones 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.
• Random assembly of element lists and subsets cross-referenced.
• Flow diagrams, options and decisions, incremental design and guilds.
• Succession, evolution, establishment and maintenance.
• Principle summary and summary of design methods.
• The Cultivated ecology, practical procedures of property design.
• References.

Pattern Understanding

• The humid, temperate, cold, arid, continental climates plus variations.
• Global weather patterns, the engines of the atmosphere.
• Humid, arid and minor landscape profiles and orthographic effects.
• Latitude and altitude.
• Precipitation, radiation and wind.
• References.
• Designers checklist.

Trees & Their Energy Transactions

• Definition of forest and the biomass of a tree.
• Temperature, wind, total precipitation, snow and meltwater effect.
• Root, mineral and rain interactions.
• Implications for design.
• The many types of forest.
• Establishing forest.
• Maintaining extending and enhancing forest.
• Establishing a nursery seed collection and in-ground plant stock.
• References.
• Summary.

Water

• Chemical & structural properties of water
• Regional interventions and the water cycle.
• Water harvesting earthworks for conservation and storage.
• Rainwater harvesting, biological water cleaning systems, irrigation and gravity designs.
• Water reduction in sewage systems.
• Water in design.
• Designers checklist.
• References.

Soils

• Soils direct link to health.
• Traditional methods of investigating soils.
• The pH, organic matter content and primary nutrients.
• Soil pores and crumb structure importance.
• Soil structure and its relationship to life elements, water and base rocks.
• Legumes as nitrogen fixers and the phosphate accumulating plants.
• Plants and biological elements as deficiency indicators and mineral accumulators.
• Difficult soils. - Composting as an easily understood art form of humus creation.
• Seed pelleting, soil erosion and rehabilitation.
• Establishing a worm farm.
• Soils in house foundations.
• Designing for catastrophe, fire, flood, drought, earthquake, landslip and tsunami.
• Designers checklist
• References.

Earthworks & Earth Resources

• Earthwork design concept planning.
• Planting after earthworks.
• Types of earthworks, earth constructions and earth resources.
• Understanding the surveying of basic levels and slope measurement.
• Using a farmer's level, dumpy level, A-frame and water levels.
• Technique of building a dam, swales, earth banks, terraces, roads and drains.
• Using the right machine for the job.
• References.

Humid Cool To Cold Climates

• Characteristics of a humid cool climate, soils, landform and water conservation.
• Settlement and house design, the home garden, berry fruits, glasshouse growing.
• Orchards, farm forestry, free-range forage systems, the lawn.
• Grasslands, rangelands, cold climates, wildfire.
• Designers checklist.

The Humid Tropics

• Climate types, tropical soils and earth-shaping.
• House design and home garden.
• Integrated land management, Elements of a village complex in the tropics.
• Evolving a polyculture, themes on a palm dominant polyculture.
• Pioneering, animal tractor systems and grassland and rangeland management.
• Humid tropical coast stabilization and shelterbelts.
• Low islands and coral cay strategies.
• Designers checklist.
• References.

Dryland Strategies

• Precipitation, temperature, soils.
• Landscape features in deserts, harvesting water in arid lands.
• The desert house, the desert garden, garden irrigation systems.
• Desert settlement and broad strategies.
• Plant themes for drylands, desertification and the salting of soils.
• Cold montane deserts.
• Designers checklist.
• References.

Aquaculture

• The case for aquaculture.
• History and cultural variations.
• Implementing an aquaculture design, species selection and yield.
• Aquaculture as part of design and food supply.
• Aquaculture plant and animal species.
• Farming invertebrates for fish food.
• Appropriate techniques, channel, canal and chinampa.
• Polyculture traditional and new.
• Designers checklist.
• References.

The Strategies Of An Alternative Global Nation

• The invisible structures.
• Alternative global nation. Right livelihood.
• Setting up a local Permaculture group and working network.
• Community gardens, establishing city farms, urban strategies and land access.
• LETS (Local Exchange Trading Systems or Schemes), alternative money, bioregional organization, village development, ethical investment.
• Working in different cultures with sensitivity, effective aid.
• References and resources.