Grey Cliffs Permaculture

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Grey Cliffs Permaculture was established by Adrian Whitehead and Bryony Edwards to provide permaculture based research, education, training, and social change focused on temperate Australia.

Bryony

bryony attaching chicken wire to star pickets.

Bryony Edwards holds a Bachelor of Applied Science (Psychology) from Curtin University, and a Masters of Arts (Ecologically Sustainable Development) from Murdoch University. Bryony completed her PDC in 1995 in WA, has run a commercial organic market garden in Perth, worked in a Permaculture nursery, and spent two years studying on Biodynamics farms in the UK.

Adrian

Adrian Whitehead with Baby Lucian in a baby backpack

Adrian holds a Bachelor of Science from Melbourne University, majoring in Botany, and a Graduate Diploma of Environmental Management from Deakin University. Adrian first studied permaculture in 1995 and completed a Permaculture Design Course (PDC) with Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawson in Melbourne in 2009. In 2010 he completed Geoff Lawson's Earthworks course at the Channon PRI. Adrian has spent much of his life campaigning and working on forest and climate change issues, prior to and since working for the Victorian Government on sustainable housing policy.

What is Permaculture

Permaculture is about growing food (some people tend to forget this), using a system of permanent and sustainable agriculture based around perennial plants, ecological principles, energy efficiency and systems thinking. It was developed by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s, who brought together a range of new ideas and thinking, traditional sustainable agricultural practices, and combined them in a new and innovative way.

Its' practice is based in three core ethical principles.

  1. Care for the earth
  2. Care for people
  3. Sustainable population and limited consumption

A fourth principle, called "fair share" or "distribution of surplus" is introduced in the book An Introduction to Permaculture, however we prefer to use the term "equity" and its associated concepts to describe this fourth principle.

When these principles are combined with good design and some practical experience it is possible to develop highly productive, organically based, cultivated ecologies that help the environment, feed and care for the people who use them, use energy and materials efficiently and wisely.

Many of the ideas and concepts put forward in permaculture have now been adopted as part of main stream organic agriculture and sustainable design.

Today permaculture has grown beyond its agricultural roots and is used as a way of thinking that offers solutions and approaches to tackling the broad issues of sustainability and social justice on a global scale.

Friends of Grey Cliffs Permaculture

Thanks to all the wonderful people who have helped out by putting in the hours setting up the Otways property.

Phoung Le
Moz Mozmoz
Jon Turner
Jeremy Whitehead
Marty Fitzsimmons
Steven McKinnon
Lisa Edwards
David and Audrey Whitehead
Paul Cuttler
Philip Sutton
Bryan Isacs

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