If you have the time and the bandwidth there are many great commentary films that help bring the world of permaculture alive for you, here are some of my favourites, not necessarily listed within the on-line PDC.
Nothing is more important to life on Earth than soil, it is time to understand and respect it much better.
A simple short example of making a trench bed/raised bed with a school group in Losotho.
Geoff Lawton is a leading global permaculture teacher, and this is his home farm where he has been working for nearly 20 years.
Sepp Holzer’s son Josef walks us through his family farm called the Krameterhof. Fish ponds, productive terraces, fruit trees and grazing animals characterize the lush landscape in one of Europe’s oldest and most well established permaculture farms.
Deanne describes here the do’s and don’ts for starting up a permaculture project in a subtropical region. Speaking from her experience with successes and failures, the rules for the permaculture project are different but rewarding. Deanne demonstrates the permaculture beds and how they work.
Fascinating history of the naturalist and pioneer Viktor Schauberger, a great observer of nature. This one gets a bit technical, but really worth a watch to realise the power and potential of the observations of nature made by this remarkable pioneer. This video will change almost everything you think you know about water.
Today the Austrian forester Viktor Schauberger is considered to be a pioneer of modern water research and the holistic observation of Nature. As early as the first half of the 20th century he gave urgent warnings of the consequences of uncontrolled exploitation of the environment. As a way out he proposed a radical rethink and the development of totally new concepts of energy production, in harmony with Nature. Schauberger formulated his “C & C principle”: first one has to comprehend Nature, and then one should copy it. The applications of his ideas and his inventions include devices for refined drinking water, spiral pipes for carrying water with reduced friction, environmentally-friendly river regulation, as well as power generation from water and air using the principle of contraction and inward vortexing.
Part 1 (you will see links to the others) of one of the most insightful books I have ever read. Forgive the national Geo cheesy presentation style, the content of this it too important to overlook.
This series Diamond grapples with some of the greatest questions of humanity, why did the West evolve these technologies and why did the diseases of the south not cause epidemics, where as smallpox and influenza decimated first nation populations around the world, notably in the Americas.
Message to the World from the Cogi first nation people of Columbia, a truly extraordinary insight into traditional culture and a stark message for humanity. I first watched this on a permaculture design course in 1996, it shifted my perspective on just about everything, this is a very very interesting and special documentary.
Once you have watched From the Heart of the World, then this video will open your eyes still further. This extraordinary video opens a whole new world of advanced civilizations we hardly are even aware of and the stunning discovery of Terra Preta, were these people some the greatest farmers ever? We have in our hands here one of the key components in our fight against climate collapse and for food security.
Albert is the author of Biochar Solution and Fire, two game changing books about biochar and the soil biology that it connects to. He uses a powered shredder, but otherwise he makes excellent biochar using only a pit in the ground and sticks, in this case bamboo that he has grown locally.
Hope in a Changing Climate optimistically reframes the debate on global warming. Illustrating that large, decimated eco-systems can be restored, the BBC World documentary reveals success stories from Ethiopia, Rwanda and China which prove that bringing large areas back from environmental ruin is possible, and key to stabilising the earth’s climate, eradicating poverty and making sustainable agriculture a reality.
“Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert,” begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And terrifyingly, it’s happening to about two-thirds of the world’s grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos. Savory has devoted his life to stopping it. He now believes — and his work so far shows — that a surprising factor can protect grasslands and even reclaim degraded land that was once desert.
Rethinking permaculture for Africa with Eston Mgala, Malawi.
How do Mycorrhizal Fungi help your plants to grow? This video will tell you everything you need to know about this remarkable symbiotic relationship.
Please watch the video all the way through as the mental, emotional and psychological support comes after the ‘bad news’ is presented and discussed. The presentation, to 300 people in Bristol, UK, was his first recorded lecture on the Deep Adaptation. Using a more informal format than a University lecture, the Professor of Sustainability Leadership at the University of Cumbria, invites the audience to explore forms of action additional to cutting and drawing down carbon from the atmosphere – actions associated with personal and collective preparedness for the coming disruption. Accompanying him was Toni Spencer, a facilitator who works on Deep Adaptation and Transition. After Jem’s talk, Toni led the audience in a reflective process to explore feelings and ideas emerging. She also offered some poems and reflections during the process. Members of the Climate Psychology Alliance spoke from the floor, explaining their new initiative to provide therapeutic support to people working on or affected by this agenda. The event was organized by the local Constituency Labour Party and Momentum group, but made open to anyone with any political interest or none. To engage on this topic see http://www.deepadaptation.info
The cult documentary maker explores the falsity of modern life in his own inimitable style. Though he’s spent the best part of four decades making television, Curtis’s signature blend of hypnotic archive footage, authoritative voiceover and a seemingly inexhaustible appetite for bizarre historical tangents is better suited to the web, a place just as resistant to the narrative handholding of broadcast TV as he is. He argues that an army of technocrats, complacent radicals and Faustian internet entrepreneurs have conspired to create an unreal world; one whose familiar and often comforting details blind us to its total inauthenticity..