HMI is excited to have the creative and entertaining Permaculture guru Brock Dolman present at our Cultivating Community: Land, Food, Health conference at Paicines, California on Oct 14-16, 2016.
Brock is a co-founder of the Sowing Circle, LLC Intentional Community & Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (www.oaec.org), where he directs the Permaculture Program, Wildlands Program and the WATER Institute in Sonoma County, California.
He is a wildlife biologist, Permaculture designer and watershed ecologist. Brock has worked as a Permaculture educator/consultant internationally in Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador, U.S. Virgin Islands, Spain, Brazil, China, Canada, Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba and Haiti & and widely in the U.S.A, and has co-facilitated over 80 Permaculture Design Certificate Courses since 1995. He has been featured in the award winning films: The 11th Hour by Leonardo DiCaprio; The Call of Life by Species Alliance; and Permaculture: A Quiet Revolution by Vanessa Shultz; Russian River: All Rivers. In October 2012 he gave a City 2.0 TEDx talk. He was a cofounder of the Sonoma/Marin Coastal Prairie working group, which created the website: California’s Coastal Prairies. He is a Board member of Sonoma Mountain Institute that works with cattle based animal impact for regenerative rangeland practices on a number of properties in Sonoma County. In 1992 he completed his BA in Agro-Ecology & Conservation Biology, graduating with honors from the University of California Santa Cruz with the Biology Department and Environmental Studies Department.
“Big Picture on Water: Engaging Imagination and Creativity”
In this talk Brock will offer a series of slide images and interpretation about Planet Water, watersheds, human development patterns and restoration ideas that support regenerative ecological integrity and social resiliency. Water is the ‘element of life’ and the conservation of ecosystems swimming, crawling, flying and walking with biodiversity is absolutely dependent upon hydrologically intact watersheds. Historic and modern land uses all occur within someone’s watershed somewhere. All land use modifications directly influence the hydrologic condition of the uplands and the stream network to which they drain. It is critical that we adapt the ways in which we log, farm, ranch and develop housing. Rainwater harvesting starts with
! It’s about people and relationships between themselves and the land in their shared
. Effective and participatory community-based organizing, education, demonstration and trust building are key to pro-active participation in the retrofitting watersheds for people and all of life. All landowner/managers, agencies and citizens, from Ridgeline to River-mouth need to be engaged in effective strategies that retrofit for resiliency if we are to succeed with this reverential rehydration revolution.
“Designing with Nature: Permaculture”
In a second talk Brock will talk about Permaculture as a design process – based in observation and systems thinking – that enables people to create ecologically sustainable and socially just human settlements based in natural patterns and processes. Brock will talk about how the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center applies permaculture as a community-based endeavor which supports people in crafting their own regenerative living systems beneficial to themselves and the particular ecological and cultural systems in which they are nested. As a public education, demonstrating and training center OAEC applies its Permaculture practice within a framework we called Resilient Community Design, which strives to support durable community resilience – the ability of whole communities to thrive in place over time with dignity, justice, and ecological sanity. Fundamentally we lead with the design challenge of how best can human settlements emulate ecology? We believe that natural systems provide the fundamental template to base intergenerational permanent-cultures on based on design ethics of
while honoring our birth-responsibilities as much, if not more than our perceived birth-rights.
will offer thought-provoking presentations and breakout sessions on various consumer and producer interests. Local food security, land health, strengthening our communities and nourishing our bodies all included! We have something for everyone, so come learn from the experts!
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