The 13th International Permaculture Convergence opened with the sound of drums and various Bathukamma offerings. After the dedications of the IPC India 2017 to Bill Mollison and Dr. Venkat, David Holmgren opened the event through a Skype call giving the following address:

“Greetings to all those gathered for this 13th International Permaculture Conference and Convergence, held for the first time in India. Some of you are old friends and colleagues, many are permaculture designers, teachers, activists and practitioners from around world.

Most of all my greetings and welcome are to those of you attending this gathering of the permaculture global community, who come from kindred fields and networks. Permaculture has always been informed by many traditions and inspirations. It remains an open source network inviting contributions from all those whose life and work reflect the permaculture ethics of earth care, people care and fair share.

In particular, I would like to pay my respects to Dr Vandana Shiva, whose ideas and work have been a great inspiration for my own journey with permaculture.

As the surviving co-originator of Permaculture I would also like to acknowledge the passing of Bill Mollison last year. There is much I could say about Bill Mollison. All I need to say now, is that without his genius, drive and tenacity through the decades this gathering would not be happening.

I am speaking to you from my home, Melliodora, a modest (by rich country standards) one hectare small farm and home in central Victoria, Australia where I have lived and worked with my partner Su Dennett for more than thirty years. After a lifetime of minimal use of long distance air travel to further the permaculture agenda, in 2013 I wrote an essay Why I haven’t been flying (much). As is my want, I avoided absolutes in stating my reasons for staying at home and taking advantage of the technological alternatives to travel.

There is a further reason why I am not with you in person. We are in the final sprint to a December print deadline for “Retrosuburbia: the downshifters guide to a resilient future”, a 590 page manual and manifesto powered by permaculture. More than just a book, Retrosuburbia is an integrated strategy to bring permaculture back to the heartlands of Australian suburbia, where it first took root in the late 1970’s and early 80’s. Retrosuburbia is unashamedly local rather than global but I am convinced that if we can achieve a critical mass in the suburbs of Australia, then the patterns of success will be replicated wherever the global middle class live in detached housing around the world.

This project reflects my lifelong focus on how to get the billion or so (perhaps now two billion) middle class people to find the prosperous way down to living within ecological limits. The greatest power of permaculture may be in assisting the billions of people, still connected to land and cultures of place to create abundance where they are. But that great task will never succeed while the global extractive economy run by the elites, continues.

Without the consuming and debt-bound global middle class that extractive system has no future. Creating self reliant communities everywhere may be an almost universal permaculture strategy but the techniques to do so are very varied depending on the culture and context. I trust that this conference and following convergence with include a wide range of examples of people, places and projects where those self-reliant communities are growing in the shadow of failing globalised systems.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the great effort made by a limited team of dedicated local organisers and their global supporters to plan and run this event. I trust that those attending will pitch in where needed and be tolerant of the glitches that come when events of this scale are done on shoestring budgets that are the norm in the world of permaculture.

There is no doubt that I will get personal reports on your presentations, discussions and actions to further the depth and spread of permaculture in India and around the world. So make the best of the collegiate connections that this event offers to those present and take inspiration and energy back to your own home places, wherever they may be.

David Holmgren
Permaculture Co-originator
Melliodora, 16 Fourteenth St, Hepburn, Victoria. 3461