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Sustainable World Radio: Friday 9am- 10am PST , Jan 25 IPC9 International Permaculture Conference Africa Interview with Mugove Walter Nyika KCSB 91.9 FM in Santa Barbara, California and streaming live on www.kcsb.org. , Also found on www.sustainableworldradio.com, or www.radio4all.net later in the week

Join Jill Cloutier of Sustainable World Radio and Wes Roe of the IPC9 International Suppport Group on Friday, January 25 , from 9-10am PST for an interview with Mugove Walter Nyika , Director of the 9 th International Permaculture Conference www.ipc9.org and Convergence and Regional Co-ordinator of Regional Schools and Colleges Permaculture (ReSCOPE) Programme in Malawi .

The theme of IPC9 will be "Designing Solutions for a Sustainable Future" and IPC9 will take place in Africa July 2009 in South Africa, Zimbabe and Malawi .

Designed as an international forum for permaculturists to gather and share their experiences, since the early 1980s IPCs have been held in Australia, New Zealand, USA, Nepal, Scandinavia, and Croatia. IPC8 events were last year held in Brazil, between mid May and early June, and attended by close to 600 delegates from across the world. It was there that the decision to have IPC in Africa for the first time was made.

According to the IPC8 official report, each IPC consists of four separate events: a permaculture conference open to the general public; a convergence for practising permaculturalists; a design course and a site tour. The three IPC9 hosting countries will divide up these events amongst themselves, with each of them expected to do their own fund-raising for most of the events to be held in their respective territories.

The proposed theme for IPC 9 is "Designing solutions for a sustainable future". Subthemes are: "Permaculture as a Regional Planning Tool for Sustainable Livelihoods and Earth Care, Food Security and Sovereignty through Organic Production and Marketing, Education, Green Economics and Lifestyles, Health and Nutrition, HIV/AIDS, Housing and Sustainable Cities, and Disaster Management."

The IPC 9 events will be held in July of 2009, but dates have not yet been announced. Malawi will host the 9th International Permaculture Convergence, South Africa will host the 9th International Permaculture Conference to be held in Johannesburg, and Zimbabwe will host the 9th International Permaculture Design Course to be held at the Fambidzanai Permaculture Centre in Harare.

NOTES ON IPC9 CONCEPT IN AFRICA 2009

THE 9^TH INTERNATIONAL PERMACULTURE CONFERENCE & CONVERGENCE (IPC9)

1. Global Context:

Humanity's future is at risk unless urgent action is taken. Over the past 20 years, almost every index of the planet's health has worsened, whilst personal wealth in the richest countries has grown by a third, with unprecedented economic gains for developed nations, which, for many people, have masked the growing crisis.
In the last 2 decades the financial wealth of the planet has soared by around a third. Yet, at the same time much of the 'natural' capital upon which so much of human well-being and economic activity depends water, land, the air and atmosphere, biodiversity and marine resources have continued their seemingly inexorable decline.
The systematic destruction of the Earth's natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged and the bill we hand on to our children may prove impossible to pay. Permaculture design and planning offers an accelerated effort to reform the way we collectively do business on planet Earth,

UNEP's Global Environment Outlook (GEO-4) October 2007

2. Background

The 9th International Permaculture Conference (IPC) will be hosted in Africa, with the conference planned to take place in South Africa and the Convergence in Malawi in July 2009. The conference has been hosted every two years since 1996. Past host sites have been Australia, USA, New Zealand, Scandinavia, Nepal, Croatia and Brazil.
IPC 9 comes at a critical time for Africa’s development where existing paradigms are being challenged and there is an ever increasing demand on the planet’s resources. Permaculture provides a practical and common sense approach to identifying and maximizing our available natural and social capital, to empower an African renaissance.
Permaculture (PC) is an holistic land design science that is being used as a tool for promoting sustainable living by a growing number of people worldwide. The global PC community organises a biennial conference and convergence to share experiences, network and fast track development solutions. The International Permaculture Conference (IPCa) is the public interface of this gathering while the International Permaculture Convergence (IPCb) is a closed meeting for the PC enthusiasts.

The African continent has never before hosted these international events despite the impressive work that has been done since Bill Mollison, the founder of PC, trained a group of Africans in Botswana in 1987 and later in South Africa in 1991. Attempts for Africa to host the conference in the 1990’s did not succeed and therefore there are high expectations for the 9^th International Permaculture Conference and Convergence (IPC 9) to be hosted for the first time by Africa in 2009.

The decision to grant Africa the right to host IPC 9 was deliberated and decided at IPC 8 in Brazil in 2007 and Africa was the popular choice. A large international committee formed to assist Africans to prepare for IPC 9.

The conference will provide International, African and Regional speakers focusing on providing practical tools and steps for evolving the existing status quo where 80 percent of the worlds population live in poverty to a people centred development approach focused on restoring the earth, creating productive eco-systems that generate wealth and create self sufficient regional economies.

3. Aims:

· To host a conference for International, African and Regional business, government and civil society leaders to promote Permaculture as a tool for regional development planning.

·        To mainstream Permaculture principles in broader society, to encourage, dialogue, policy development and informed/sustainable social investment.
·       To host an EXPO open to all to showcase projects, models of best practice, appropriate and alternative technologies, and
·       To showcase development people centred development strategies, regional demonstrations of low cost holistic approaches to economic development, incorporating indigenous cultural knowledge, integrating ideas and practice relating to land use, shelter, energy conservation and use, diet and health, waste management, recycling and the implementation of co-operative principles

4. Rationale:

Africa has been a recipient of economic, political and cultural domination by foreign entities for centuries. These external forces have served to weaken the capacity of African communities to be self reliant, confident and to define their own paths to development, as well as in some instances leading to alienation from the land. In spite of this sustained foreign onslaught and exploitation, Africa remains rich in cultural and biological diversity.

Permaculture opens new horizons for African communities to use their inherent natural and social wealth for sustainable development. Africans who have been exposed to Permaculture are confident that the situation of hopelessness that has so far characterised the African story can be turned around to one of hope, self determination, sustainable and regional economic development, as well as to reclaim our connection to this continent which is indeed the birth place of our species.

The same scenario could be said of the other parts of the developing world and as members of the only ecosystem that we have, IPC 9 will be a good opportunity for the international community to come together and strategise for a sustainable future for humans on the planet.

5. Theme
Designing solutions for a sustainable future :

At the close of the 8^th International Permaculture Convergence in Pirenoplolis, Brazil. a participant remarked that ‘…in the west, Permaculture is a hobby while in Brazil and the rest of Latin America, Permaculture is political…’ In Africa, Permaculture is about sustaining life and livelihoods. Permaculture addresses needs not wants. It is about finding solutions to everyday problems. For many it is about being able to put food on the table and provide for the needs of the family and move out of a vicious cycle of poverty and malnutrition. It is often a question of survival in a world that is determined to make Africans follow a development path that is based on foreign value systems, irrelevant processes and external high energy dependent inputs.

The Permaculture movement itself is faced with the challenge of gearing up its scope and scale of operations to regional levels, where areas are planned by watersheds, and economies of scale utilised to maximise available natural and human resources in a structured well planned approach to creating healthy balanced communities.

Read Complete IPC9 Concept Note and other documents on website www.ipcon.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=172&Itemid=133

Sustainable World Radio: Friday mornings at 9:00 am PST on KCSB 91.9 FM in Santa Barbara, California and streaming live on www.kcsb.org. . Also posted later on www.ipc9.org , Also found on www.sustainableworldradio.com, or www.radio4all.net later in the week