He co-organized the 2012 Carbon Farming Course - carbonfarmingcourse.com - in Chestnut Ridge, NY. Connor is also completing an M.S. in Natural Resources and Ecological Planning at the University of Vermont and writing a manual on agroforestry systems for the northeast US. This is the first part of a two part series. Part one focuses on an introduction carbon farming, some numbers on the potential quantities of carbon that can be stored, and the role of trees and perennial plants. The follow up interview with Connor, planned for October, 2012, will pick up on some details from this episode and then delve fully into the use of soil for carbon farming. After listening to this episode you have questions for Connor to answer in the second half of this series, call the voicemail line: or send me an email: The Permaculture Podcast.

Resources
Connor Stedman
Carbon Farming Course Silvopasture (USDA National Agroforestry Center)
Alley Cropping (USDA National Agroforestry Center)
Keyline Design
Stone Barns Center home of the Young Farmers Conference.
Eric Toensmeier
Dr. Kat Anderson author of Tending the Wild
Haber-Bosch Process (Wiki)

His experiences and connection in the permaculture community. However, however, this time around it is not his travels that we speak about. Rather, after an introduction and discussion of his background, which includes taking his PDC with Bill Mollison, we spend the bulk of our time together talking about opportunities and models for making permaculture profitable by moving beyond the backyards and byways to broadscale agriculture, financed by community and slow money investment.

Resources
Quail Springs
Warren Brush
Wilderness Youth Project
Sustainable Vocations
Owen Dell
"Sustainable Landscaping for Dummies"
Art Ludwig and Oasis Design
Woody Tasch
Slow Money
Joel Salatin and Polyface Farm

We begin with her background and weave through her story of working in Zuccotti Park with the Occupy movement, including the establishment of a gray-water system to handle waste, and into larger systems systems implementing and experiencing change that involves the people part of the process. We close things down with a discussion of permablitzes: rapid fire building of permaculture systems in a day, that blends a variety of people and levels of experience into a work crew that learns hands-on. Through the conversation, Lisa provides numerous examples of technologies, systems, and worldwide movements making a more just and equitable world. Lisa's current projects include Mobile Design Lab and Permaculture For Ecological And Social Transformation, or FEAST. The Permaculture Feast is a weekend permaculture design course being offered in Northampton, MA from September to December, 2012. If you would like to meet Lisa and learn more about Permaculture, this F.E.A.S.T. is a fine way to do so. Find out more about her and these projects at mobiledesignlab.org and permaculturefeast.org

Resources
Mobile Design Lab
Mobile Design Lab Facebook Page
Permaculture F.E.A.S.T.
The Occupy Greywater Video from One Pack Productions
Energy Bikes
The Energy Bike Story
Participatory Budgeting
Social Ecology
U.S. Worker Coops

Their work is unbiased, peer-reviewed, and readily available to the public without charge. After talking with Dr. Doug Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home, I took his suggestion to contact Dr. Sweeney and his team to discuss the proper width of, and species for, riparian corridors along streams and rivers. As someone whose home borders a stream, and a permaculture practitioner who seeks to care for the earth for myself and future generations of all life, I wanted to know the state of the current research for how to best handle protecting this waterway and to share that information with others so they might do the same for their own. Within our conversation you will hear about Dr. Sweeney's background, which speaks specifically to this question, and the work he's done to confirm this. We also discuss his basic rules for establishing a riparian corridor and the importance of maintaining fresh water. The Stroud Water Reseach Center provides numerous free resources for anyone interested in the issues of freshwater. Though they are located in Pennsylvania, they do work all over the world. I recommend you go and read the material available. You find yourself more knowledgeable and able to design a better world.

Resources:
Stroud Water Research Center
Dr. Bernard Sweeney

That book brought Scott to my attention. My wife picked it up from the library and thought it would prove interesting with the urban work I was involved in. Like Rachel Kaplan's book, Urban Homesteading, flipping through the pages of Toolbox for Sustainable City Living, I said to myself, “This is a permaculture book”. Reading a bit further along, my suspicions proved correct: Toolbox for Sustainable City Living came out of Stacy and Scott's work in transforming a portion of Austin Texas, building working systems in an Urban environement. Though the book lead me to look up Scott as a guest for the show, his current work is why I asked him on. Scott and Stacy offer a course called R.U.S.T.: Regenerative Urban Sustainability Training. Take the important parts of Permaculture adapted for city living, strip away the extraneous bits, and package it up into something taught in a weekend. A new model for transmitting permaculture to those people who need it most, without the time or financial requirements of a full PDC. Check out the interview where we discuss Scott' background, the framework of the R.U.S.T., and our considerations for moving sustainable design forward. If you like what you hear and want to take a class contact Scott and Stacy and you can go visit them at The Radix Center in Albany New York, or make arrangement for them to come to you. Regardless of the path you choose, their methods will empower you and your community.

Resources:
The Radix Center R.U.S.T.: Regenerative Urban Sustainability Training
ReCode Oregon
Food Desert Locator (USDA ERS)
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Fields (Wiki)
Right-To-Farm Laws Fact Sheet (PDF)

Together they offer classes on permaculture, natural building, homesteading, edible forest gardens, earthworks, and many other topics of interest for anyone seeking a lifestyle that consumes less energy and lives closer to the earth. They also offer professional design and build services for permaculture and edible forest gardens, eco-education, base mapping, natural building, and soil fertility management. I was first introduced to Cliff through one of my PDC instructors, Ben Weiss. After my PDC, I looked for a permaculture teacher training and saw that Cliff and Jennifer planned to host a class taught by Jude Hobbs and Andrew Millison through Spiral Ridge Permaculture. Though it didn't work out to attend that session, the time that Cliff and Jennifer took to answer my questions and keep me informed left a positive impression on me. I sought him out as a guest when relaunching the show in mid-2012. Fortunately, he involved in a great deal of hands on projects both teaching and working on natural building, a topic of interest to me. My original plan for this interview focused on the various forms of natural building, such as cordwood, cob, post and beam, and so on, with a corresponding discussion of the techniques involved. However, while we spoke it became clear that, like every situation in permaculture, the applications of natural building are unique to the building site and needs of the inhabitants. As a result our conversation turned into to a general one, looking instead for the ways to gain a knowledge of building with natural materials and touching on some of the legal pitfalls and other complications of doing so. Disclaimer: Before you rush out and start building, please call your local government or administrative body and find out the legalilty of natural building in your area including building codes and any necessary permits. I don't want you or anyone else to run into legal trouble because of code or other violations. If you have questions, don't be afraid to consult a lawyer familiar with construction practices. These professionals who deal with the law. If you find that the law isn't to your liking or need, you can also work with your government to change it. Sometimes all it takes is one person making the right phone call to make all the difference. We mention several times in this episode that good natural building starts with a good design. Take your time, work through your needs, and draft your thoughts until they become clear. You'll thank yourself for it in the long run. As Cliff says, the little details bite you in the end.

Resources
Spiral Ridge Permaculture Cliff and Jennifer Davis's Website.
The Last Straw The International Quarterly Journal of Straw Bale and Natural Building
Building with Cob: A Step-by-Step Guide (Amazon.com)
Natural Building Network
Other Natural Walls
ReCode Oregon
Timber Framers Guild

Web Resources on Natural Building Techniques
Cob
Cob (Wiki)
Building a Cob House
Cordwood Masonry
Cordwood Construction (Wiki)
Cordwood Masonry
F.A.Q. About Cordwood Masonry
Earthbags
Earthbag Construction (Wiki)
Earthbag Building Index Promotes and shares information on Earthbag building.
How Earthbag Homes Work A How Stuff Works article
Lime Plaster
My Recipe for Lime Putty and Lime Plaster
How to Make Lime Building Plaster (E-how)
Post and Beam or Timber Framing
Timber Framing (Wiki)
A House With No Nails: Building a Timber-Frame Home
Raising a 12x16 Timber Frame
Round Pole Pole Houses Round Timber Introduction (PDF) From the Great Britain Forestry Commission.
Slip Fill
Light Straw-Clay
Light and Limey Clay Wood Chip Slip
Clay Infill Systems
Stone Masonry
Stonemasonry (Wiki)
Prehistoric Construction Techniques A resource full of pictures showing low-tech stonemasonry technologies from throughout history and around the world.
The Different Techniques Used in Stone Masonry
Strawbale
Staw-bale Construction (Wiki)
Straw Bale House Construction
Thatching
The Thatcher's Craft A 10 part pdf download from the Herefordshire College of Technology of The Thatcher's Craft, a complete book on Thatching.

My guest is Jeff Lowenfels, co-author, along with Wayne Lewis, of Teaming With Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web, which recently released a revised edition. He was recommended as a guest by Dr. Doug Tallamy of Bringing Nature Home. Located in Alaska, Jeff writes a weekly gardening column for the Anchorage Daily News, without missing a single week in more than 30 years. This makes him, according to the Garden Writers Association, the longest running garden columnist in the United States. His work is important because whether you are a gardener, farmer, attorney, or Permaculturist, who works with the earth, you need to have an understanding of the soil food web and the inter-actions and inter-relationships of the life in the soil. Building soil builds life. We spend our time together discussing the importance of supporting this system, continually marveled at it's productivity and efficiency, starting with the smallest members: the bacteria, archaea, and fungi. We need to support this system. Organic processes: mulching, composting, and compost teas, are the way to go. If you would like to learn more about the soil, I highly recommend Jeff's book, Teaming With Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web. It is now a part of my standard permaculture library.

If you have questions or comments that arise from this episode, contact me: The Permaculture Podcast

Resources:

Teaming With Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web

Mycorrhizal Applications

Dr. Elaine Ingham

Rodale Institute

Paul Stamets Articles and Studies on Compos<br />t Tea Tea for Trees Enhancing Phyto-nutrient Content, Yield, and Quality of Vegetables with Compost Tea in the Tropics

Promoting Plant Growth with Compost Teas (PDF)

The Grass is Greener at Harvard

The Myth of Compost Tea The Myth of Compost Tea Revisited

The Myth of Compost Tea III The Myth of Compost Tea IV

Kelly explains, from place as a Waldorf teacher, how she operates the Mother Earth School program while guiding children throughout the year in an outdoor environment. She also shares a rough telling, which turns out beautifully, of a story she is working on, and also discusses the Advanced Permaculture Teacher Training in Teaching Children and Youth Permaculture, which she teaches alongside her partner Matt Bibeau and Patty Parks-Wasserman. During our conversation I kept thinking of Richard Louv, his book Last Child in the Woods, and the idea of Nature Deficit Disorder. That lead to further research on my part while editing this show. If you are interested in learning more about ways to present a similar program, look into the ideas of a Forest Kindergarten, Forest School, or Outdoor School. These are current models that are being practiced similar to Kelly's that can give you an idea of how to get started with an outdoor children's permaculture school. If you or someone you know wants to start their own program to bring a dynamic outdoor experience to young children, Kelly is willing to help. You can contact her at: motherearthschool [at] gmail [dot] com or by visiting the Mother Earth School link below.

Resources
Mother Earth School
Advanced Teacher Training in Youth and Child Permaculture Education
Marisha Auerbach
Re-Code Oregon
Tryon Life Community Farm
Wilderness Awareness School

Crowdfunding via the internet, most well known due to the site Kickstarter, allows a community of people to come together and support various efforts through donations, which can be as little as a dollar. Projects that might not secure a loan through traditional financing still raises needed funds to proceed. Crowdfunding forms the core of our conversation, which focuses on an in-depth understanding of We The Trees, including the funding method, payment processors, project submission and approval, and how you can help raise awareness of this new venture. We begin, however, with an introduction to Christian, including how he found Permaculture, the creation of the Panya Project, and the collaborative effort that went into forming Terra Genesis International.

Resources
We The Trees
The Panya Project
Terra Genesis International
Lost Valley
Soil Food Web (Dr. Elain Ingham)

With a background in plant and soil sciences, Mary has spent the last several years working with conservation organizations in South America, Latin America, and Mexico to work on mitigating the impacts of climate change on local populations by aiding communities to gain access to funds and help return wealth to their home region. My desire to speak with Mary arose from my conversation with Rico Zook on practicing permaculture internationally. Her experiences are very different from someone who would teach around the world and lend a different perspective. We discuss that and how to get involved, however, a large part of our conversation is about climate change and the need to build human relationships through communication. Mary's travels allowed her to see firsthand the disruptions occurring because of climate change. In a world where we control our environment with a push of a button and choose what to eat based on what's at the supermarket, or local restaurant, these problems are not self-evident, but they are coming. To understand that, and make the changes to solve these problems, we need to care for the people involved and communicate clearly from their own perspective and their experiences to bridge the gap between ourselves as individuals and build relationships with communities. However, our conversation is not without hope. The roots of Permaculture are bifurcated between the indigenous knowledge of the past, and the growing understanding afforded by science brought into a synergistic holistic system that values the world, people, and all life. Permaculture provides ways to find and implement solutions for the changing world. Thankfully, there are governments and organizations that are beginning to see that we have a way.

How do I get involved with International Permaculture?

• Become Knowledgable: Read and Research
• Match your skills to the organizational needs
• Volunteer
• Learn additional languages.

Resources
Watershed Resource Consultants
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degredation (REDD)
Terra Genesis International
Wildlife Conservation Society
Winrock International