Rob Scott - A Critique of Permaculture

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My guest for this episode is Rob Scott, a permaculture practitioner who started and directed the Urbana Permaculture Project. He now teaches Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership at the University of Illinois. We spend our time in this interview discussing his 2010 article, “A Critical Review of Permaculture in the United States,” and offer a critique of permaculture, and permaculture education in the U.S., as they exist now, as well as what we can do to improve our permaculture practices in the landscape and education. If you enjoy this interview with Rob, please support the Permaculture Podcast so that I can keep things going. Become a one time or ongoing contributor by going to: thepermaculturepodcast.com/support to find out how. I consider this conversation as a start on what we can do to make permaculture more accessible and acceptable. What I would like is to begin a new project where we start documenting our permaculture successes and failures. I’d like you to write down what you’ve done, what’s worked, what hasn’t, and share it with me. Once some of these come in, with your permission, I’ll setup a section of the website where we can share and discuss the results and work on building our understanding of permaculture in the current era. Another piece of this is that I recently interviewed Elizabeth Farnsworth who works at the New England Wild Flower Society, who I mentioned in my coverage of the Native Plants Conference I attended a few weeks ago. She and I talked about the role of citizen scientists. In that discussion she reminded me that by being curious and asking “Why?” we are, each and everyone of us, scientists. So let’s collect data, and sometime in the not too distant future I’ll release that interview with Elizabeth to serve as further inspiration on that project. Finally, on the idea of education, it can occur whether we are formally trained in teaching, or not. Just as I set out “The Plan” a few months ago detailing my ideas for teaching young adults and adult in a holistic way, Jen Mendez at Permie Kids is actively working on developing ideas for childhood education and permaculture through a series of topical webinars she’s calling the “Edge Alliance.” I’d like you to take a look and get involved if you are a parent of school age children, or an educator of the same. Resources Rob Scott A Critical Review of Permaculture in the United States A Review of Suitable Companion Crops for Black Walnut (PDF) Edge Alliance Do you Have a Critique of Permaculture? Let me know: E-mail: The Permaculture Podcast Facebook: Facebook.com/ThePermaculturePodcast Twitter: @permaculturecst The Permaculture Podcast with Scott Mann The Permaculture Podcast (Episode: RobScott)

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