Permaculture Network Japan - Records
In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s I was living in the town of Fujino-Machi (aka Wysteria Fields), Kanagawa-Ken in Japan. The village was my first true home, and I absolutely loved living there.
I was involved in many grass roots initiatives, and since I worked for a Japanese company that did overseas development I had a keen interest in sustainable development (SD) initiatives. As I was doing research for a seminar I was to give to agricultural consulting firm managers, I discovered permaculture, a wholistic SD design system developed by Bill Mollison.
The firm I was working for also thought this was something worth pursuing and paid for half my expenses to go to Hawaii in 1992 for a 10 day Permaculture Design workshop taught by Lea Harrisson and Max Lindegger. I received my Permaculture Consultant’s Design Certificate at that fantactic workshop in the most amazing setting - Wood Valley Tibetan Buddhist Temple that grew organic coffee on its grounds. The Temple, grounds and retreat centre were coordinated by a wild Jamaican American, Randy, with long dread locks who claims he was the person who taught Latin American women to crochet all those rainbow coloured hats we see everywhere in markets today.
Japan already had Masanobu Fukuoaka, the author of the One Straw Revolution and the expert in a farming system where you let nature do the work. In other words, a system of farming that is not labour intensive but results in high yields of organic produce grown in a biologically diverse setting. Permaculture is but an extension of what Fukuoka San was well known for, and also, included many of the elements of traditional organic Japanese farming practices that had been largely forgotten and/or replaced by chemically intensive production farming.
Upon my return, I immediately founded a Japan Permaculture Network and was invited to speak all over the country. People were very receptive to the ideas and wanted to join. It was almost as if I was just providing a little nudge to wake up what was just below the surface of people’s consciousness at the time. The environmental movement in Japan was growing and becoming very popular even in the main stream.
Like wildfire, permaculture was being widely discussed and people wanted to learn more. Keinichi Nakamura was a Fujino public official who loved his town and wanted it to be famous for being an art village and for being innovatively green. Reiko his wife ran the local agricultural product store. Both are from well respected Fujino-Machi families who had lived there for generations. Ken immediately thought that Fujino was the ideal place for a Permaculture village. I had also developed a large network of friends and activists in Japan over the years, making the mobilization of interested people quite easy.
During that time the Introduction to Permaculture book was translated into Japanese by Dr. Tsuneo Taguchi, and I was listed as the main Japan Contact. I also sold hundreds of the books from my 10 mat apartment in the middle of the mountains. I would stack them up onto my son’s stroller and walk up the path to the post office and send them all over the place. A new directory of Green Initiaves was also published that included a page on the Permaculture Network I had founded. Other publications in newsletters and in a well known natural living magazine followed.
We got to work. I invited Lea Harrison to come and give a permaculture workshop in Fujino-Machi in 1994. My friend Shishino San helped me get the word out and I teamed up with Kiyokazu Shidara to translate material. But wouldn’t you know it! Weeks before Lea was to arrive, I had to leave Japan very suddenly and unexpectedly. Shidara San, Shishino San and the Nakamuras finished what I had started.
Bref, I gave away my complete network of contacts to my local friends (Scan, Shidara, Ken), with all the last few details regarding logistics, the full plan & finances and of course the dream, vision and inspiration. Lea Harrison came to Japan with out me and gave such an excellent workshop that she was re-invited to come back. Today my home town of Fujino, is also the home of the Permaculture Centre of Japan (PCCJ).
I share all this as it seems that records of how it all began got lost and forgotten, and as promised I went through my crawl space this afternoon and found what I had. Anya Light and Scan Shishino urged me to do this as they remember all the work I put into getting the ball rolling and they were worried that people were forgetting who sewed & watered & nurtured the first seeds!
The sketch of me above was done by a journalist for a nature magazine.
I like the innocense of it, and the fact that he drew me into a dream and vision that has come true. One which i have ironically not yet seen!
Thanks for stopping by Permaculture Reflections. I have a new business site just getting started: EcoEdge Design.
Sounds like you have a real history of permaculture in Japan. Sugoi! Do you know my friend Tomoko Sakano by any chance?
I shall be returning to Japan for several months from November. I would love to get together with you and exchange ideas. Drop me a line. I’d love to hear from you.
Comment by Douglas Barnes — September 7, 2006 @ 3:58 pm
Dear Friends,
We are hosting a Permaculture Design Course in rural East Africa this October. The course will be taught by Geoff and Nadia Lawton, two of the world’s foremost instructors. GRA is an all-volunteer US organization(www.globalresourcealliance.org).
See course description below and attached photo of the village where the hands on work will take place.
Global Resource Alliance, an all-volunteer US non-profit, will host a two-week Permaculture Design Certificate course in Tanzania, East Africa in October of this year. The course will be a great opportunity for people interested in learning permaculture and getting a taste of development work in a developing country without a long-term commitment.
This design certificate course will be presented by Geoff and Nadia Lawton, two of the world’s foremost permaculture instructors. It will be held at Afrilux Hotel, a safe, clean and simple establishment in Musoma, a quiet town located on the shores of Lake Victoria. A delicious breakfast and lunch will be served at the hotel for class participants. At least once each week, course participants will travel 45 minutes by boat to Kinesi Village to explore how permaculture principles can be applied to improve the quality of life in a poor, rural East African village.
Course cost:
US$ 950 If paid by the first of July. This includes: tuition, course materials, lodging (double occupancy) and meals (breakfast and lunch).
US$ 1,050 If paid after this date.
To register for the course, please email us at info@globalresourcealliance.org.
The course will take place from October 8th to 20th, 2007. After completion of the course, a short safari to nearby Serengeti National Park will be available to course participants for around $500 each.
Come participate in this exciting adventure. Learn permaculture from the best and visit one of Africa’s most enchanting countries!
For more information visit: www.globalresourcealliance.org
or: www. permaculture.org.au/
Comment by Lyn Hebenstreit — March 22, 2007 @ 2:41 am
FACE India
(Fellowship Association for Culture & Education)
2683 Sector- 7 A, Faridabad India-121004
website: www.faceindia.org
director@faceindia.org
faceindia@gmail.com
Phone: 91-9891421660, 9899285851
To
Dear organization
I am writing this mail to have a volunteer partnership/membership with view to receive students through International Exchange program or directly for Internship and volunteering in India
It gives me an immense pleasure to introduce FACE.
FACE( Fellowship Association for Culture & Education) is a volunteer unit of East West educational & Cultural Welfare Society registered under Indian Society Act 1860 with registration number 451.its head office is located in FARIDABAD, NCR National Capital Region, and New Delhi.
We organize our activities in NCR. NCR covers the areas of Delhi, Faridabad, Ballenger, Gorgon, Noida, Ghaziabad and adjoining towns and villages. Apart from these cities we do have
work camps in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttranchal, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Pondecherry (Auroville) in south of India and other states and cities of India.
We organize short term and long terms work camps with the help of. other like minded organizations, volunteers and institutions and host Indiafamilies
We receive volunteers in groups as well as individual from many countries we have project/work camps and a volunteer can choose and select any date and duration of work camp according to choice and interests, skill and educational qualification.
Our areas of volunteering are:
1.Education
2.Social Welfare
3.Medicine
4.Cultural Awareness
5.Health Care/Medicine
We perform our all projects themselves and with the help of other organizations in India and abroad..
Recently, we have launched “INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL PARTNERSHIP” it is a School/college Exchange project which enables the students to have knowledge, direct interaction with Indian schools educational systems and school curriculum in this program we will receive students of schools and colleges from abroad and will associate the students with the schools/College in National Capital Region, New Delhi and other parts of the country.
Hope to have strong cooperation from you.
If this mail does not belong to you or your department, kindly send it to the concern department or person.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thanking you
Sincerely yours
Manoj Kumar
Director
for FACE
Comment by manoj kumar — October 27, 2008 @ 12:32 am
I just added Japan Permaculture Center to the Planetary Permaculture Directory ( http://permacultureactivist.net/pcresources/PcResources2.htm )at the Permaculture Activist site. If you have contacts for permaculture people or websites in Japan, I’d like to expand the listings. Thanks, Keith Johnson
Comment by Keith — July 17, 2009 @ 2:45 pm
Hi there, I am very inspired by what you’ve done with the permaculture community in Japan. I am currently living in Japan for 1 year on a working-holiday Visa and during my time here I would absolutely love the opportunity to do a work exchange on a permaculture farm. However, I am having trouble finding a farm available to take a volunteer anytime from January-May 2010. Any recommendations would be very much appreciated!
Cheers!
Comment by Amber — October 2, 2009 @ 4:20 am
Amber;
At the very bottom of this page there is some contact information! Just scroll down.
http://www.pccj.net/
As i did a quick search i found this contact also - http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.com/2006/03/humble-beginnings.html
and a few other resources here - http://www.permacultureactivist.net/pcresources/PcResources2.htm#Japan
Let me know how it goes!
cheers
t
Comment by Administrator — October 13, 2009 @ 5:18 pm
Lovely!!!
SUGOI indeed… I am a qualified permaculturist: we’ve just recently moved with my wife and our son in a small house in Saitama-ken. Lot’s of house fixes and such, on top of taking care (permaculturarly) of our little garden.
We’re going to join some sort of CSA of natural farming nearby: we’ve been lucky enough to be introduced to this comunity of farmers that are following the Kawaguchi method (sort of developer of Fukuoka’s principles).
Anyhow I am still looking around for connections so I’ll “help myself” on the links you’ve been kindly sharing.
If there is some others that you’d like to recommend PLEASE feel free to do it.
On the other hand I am planning to make the best of the house and the garden, putting every effort to transform it in an ecological model house.
We already start from a no-water toilet, in a nice little blue painted wooden house. And it’s not bad at all!!!
Everybody is welcome to stop by for a chat and a cup of tea!!!
Otsukaresama, minnasan!!!
Gambarimashou
Comment by Miki — December 19, 2009 @ 2:34 pm
Hello all,
I’m an English permaculturalist and I’ve just moved to Japan. I now live in central Shimonoseki (Yamaguchi Prefecture). I dearly want to make contact with fellow permies in Japan, but I’ve only just started to learn Japanese!
I did my PDC in 1989 with Andy Langford and Graham Bell in Scotland. I was a trustee for the Permaculture Association (Britain) for twelve years and have been teaching with Graham Burnett, Nicole Freris and the rest of the Naturewise crew in London for the last ten years. Now I’m keen to get involved with teaching and designing here.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Cheers all!
Comment by Mark Warner — May 22, 2010 @ 10:08 pm