Jervoise Station: an extensive family taking control of their destiny in an extensive landscape. Most people’s application of Permaculture is to urban and smaller rural holdings. Imagine you have a really big holding, with tens of thousands of hectares in outback Queensland, Australia, how then would you apply Permaculture Design…
Off the Contour #13 – ‘The Dalpura Forestry System’
Dalpura Farm – Visionary & Integrated Forestry Systems Back in the early-mid 1990’s our primary means of marketing was attending the various alternative farming field days and fairs across south-eastern Australia. These days by virtue of the foundation of those efforts we are fortunate that we don’t need to go…
Off the Contour #12 – ‘Challenge of capability, community & caring: Axioms & a grandson’s journey towards a permanent culture’
This is a speech Darren J. Doherty given to the ‘2º Encuentro Internacional Amigos de los Árboles – ‘Más Árboles ante el Cambio Climático’ – Institución Cultural El Brocense, Cáceres, Extremadura, España (www.masaboles.org)’ 4, 5 & 6 June, 2010 I wanted to introduce to you to the guiding principles of…
Off the Contour #11 – Ecological Design Principles
ECOLOGICAL DESIGN PRINCIPLES BEYOND PERMACULTURE By definition Permaculture is an inclusive design system that involves the integration of a whole host of disciplines in the pursuit of its follower’s objectives. The current sets of Permaculture design principles have been composed as a result of retrospectivity (Holmgren’s) or by incremental discussion,…
Off the Contour #10 – A Modern Approach to Keyline Design for your Property Part I
A Modern Approach to Keyline Design for your property Part I (First Published in Town & Country Farmer Magazine in 1996) by Darren J. Doherty In the Autumn edition of Town and Country Farmer we gave you an introduction to the history and basics behind Keyline Design. In this Winter…
Off the Contour #9 – Eco Friendly Farm Forestry
Eco Friendly Farm Forestry (this article was first published in Earth Garden Magazine in 2000) Eco Friendly Plantations…. Is that an oxymoron? To many that have observed the recent rise in investor driven “farm forestry” plantations one can only agree that this would certainly be the case. Mention the words…
Off the Contour #8 – Keyline Design Mark IV
KEYLINE DESIGN Mark IV ‘Soil, Water & Carbon for Every Farm’ Building Soils, Harvesting Rainwater, Storing Carbon Abe Collins[i] & Darren J. Doherty[ii] Note: some of the pictures in this article did not come through in the migration from Google Documents to Blogger. To see these please go to this link while…
Off the Contour #7 – Earth Dam Design
Published in 2000 by Permaculture Activist (USA) The cheapest way of storing large volumes of water is in a water storage dam or pond. The potential functionality and aesthetics of a dam is brought through good design, thorough planning and investigation and appropriate construction techniques. This article hopes to address these…
Off the Contour #6 – ‘A Case Study in Permaculture Design Business Development’
A Case Study in Permaculture Design Business Development By Darren J. Doherty, Regrarians Ltd, Published by EcoHabitar Magazine, Spain, 2007 Back in 2000 Bill Mollison asked me to produce a book that sequentially outlined the process of developing a Permaculture Design Project that he would publish with Tagari Publications. To…
‘Off the Contour’ #5 – An Inaugural RegenAG Year to Remember
G’day, We have come to the end of what has been a tremendously successful year with the inaugural RegenAG Workshop Series coming to a close in Mudgee recently. It is with great pride and gratitude that I write this knowing of all the great information and knowledge that all of…