A Permaculture Design Course Taught by Bill Mollison

These videos are documents from two design courses taught by Bill Mollison at the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Glen Rose Texas in 1994 and 1995. They are a definitive selection from our original 16 part series. These tapes bear many viewings and will benefit anyone who wants to learn how to help regenerate the earth – from back yard to bio-region. Teachers of permaculture have found these tapes to be a valuable coaching tool – edited to one hour.

The Function of Design
This is an opening lecture. The principles of functional design for sustainability are unique to Permaculture design.

The Function of Design from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.

Fundamentals of Pattern
From a singular event all other events are set in motion in recognizable and predictable patterns. This pattern recognition is the core of design in Permaculture.

Fundamentals of Pattern from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.

Pattern Application

Pattern Application from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.

Home Gardening Part 1
Find out why it is so important to grow your own food and how to install the easiest, and highly productive, home food propagation systems; mulch garden, potato box, herb’s spiral, and more. You don’t need much space. These are basic Permacultural techniques.

Home Gardening Part 1 from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.

Home Gardening Part 2

Home Gardening Part 2 from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.

Trees 1
The tree is life – profound, magnificent, and mysterious. To learn what little we can know of trees is sufficient to leave one awestruck and reverent.

Trees 1 from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.

Trees 2
Why is a tree green? Where does a tree end or begin? Why have all human societies destroyed the tree? A Mollison rave.

Trees 2 from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.

Farmer’s Trees
These are very specific trees which are used around the world for their ability to improve soils. They are invaluable in range for livestock, as well as in fields under cultivation.

Farmers Trees 1 from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.

Forests And Woodlands
Methods to plant, sustain, and best utilize woodland and wood for fuel, forage, windbreak and construction.

Forests and Woodlands from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.

Pasture And Range Restoration
What is cultura promiscua? To maintain functional bio-diversity is a basic tenet of Permaculture. Severely degraded land can be easily restored to highly productive land by using good observation techniques, plants and animals in succession, and common sense.

Pasture and Range Restoration from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.

Soil Conditioning
… a continuation of #10. Two main techniques: the chisel-plow, and the wonders of worms and how to cultivate them. The patterns described in these two videos can be replicated in any type of Permaculture system, and scaled to any size.

Soil Conditioning from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.

Water
…a continuation of the Trees video. Potable water – where does it come from? How did it get there? What has become of it? What we can do to ensure that we will have safe water to drink, and to conserve as much of this precious material as possible.

Water from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.

Aquaculture
Once one has learned to harvest water, then the real fun begins with production of the myriad of foods and marketable commodities hosted by ponds and other water-rich environments.

Aquaculture from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.

Planting In Drylands
There are a multitude of ways to harvest, conserve, and utilize water. These strategies apply to coastal regions or islands with with zero precipitation, arid lands, as well as to areas with plentiful seasonal rainfall.

Planting in Drylands from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.

Drylands I
As desert is rapidly claiming vast areas of our planet, millions are on the verge of starvation. Yet, crops which occur naturally in arid land can provide all necessary nutrition for people and animals. The strategies discussed arise from years of observation in the deserts of Australia and from the peoples of Kalahari.

Drylands I from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.

Drylands II
.. continuation of Drylands 1. Never, never irrigate the desert. The devastation caused by irrigation of arid land is irreparable. But there are alternatives: methods to set up a drought proof system. This is serious Permaculture!

Drylands II from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.

Working at Ground Level
A documentary on the permaculture work done in Ecuador by the Rainforest Information Center, Centro de Investigatión de los Bosques Tropicales.

Working at Ground Level from NetworkEarth.org on Vimeo.