Category Profile

Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. When it came to thinking outside the box during the enforced restrictions associated with the global pandemic, Arthur Ashe’s words rang loud and true. The result was some great and positive outcomes born out of some otherwise bleak times.

When the enormity of the global pandemic started to become clear this time last year, many people’s lives changed overnight. Forced to reevaluate how we interacted with the world and the people in it, the resulting restrictions and lockdowns represented a stark shift in everyday circumstances for so many. But as the following examples prove, humans can be remarkably resilient and adaptive when presented with adversity.

A much-loved permaculture illustrator and educator, Brenna Quinlan’s drawings guide communities away from consumerism and towards living a life brimming with meaning, beauty and community connectedness.

Brenna lives at the idyllic Melliodora property established by the co-originator of permaculture David Holmgren and his partner Su Dennett, where she practises, educates and illustrates permaculture. Her articulate watercolour paintings have been used in numerous books including Holmgren’s newest Retrosuburbia, as well as Milkwood: Real Skills for Down-to-Earth living and Farming Democracy: Radically Transforming the Food System from the Ground Up, and in just three short years has cultivated an Instagram following of more than 25,000.

Mara Ripani is living the dream. Not just the fantasy of anyone who is bored with the daily grind of city living, but her own dream – to live her life cooking, growing, sharing and connecting over food.

Mara and her husband Ralf, an environmental engineer, live on 15 acres outside of Daylesford in Blampied with their daughters, 15 year old Ahlia and Artemisia, eight. Their farm is known as Orto, which is the Italian word for vegetable garden. Orto is where Mara’s days are spent cooking, growing, preserving, teaching workshops, hosting volunteer farm stay and bed and breakfast guests, and much more.

Conversation has been a powerful tool for bringing about change in the life of Nicky Harris. A conversation with a neighbour was how she discovered permaculture. Conversations, workshops and TAFE courses have all been part of Nicky’s journey to learning an incredible range of skills. Conversation is where she finds joy when talking to customers who buy the nutritious and delectable treats she sells from her market van. For Nicky, conversation is both the journey and the destination.

Nicky and her partner, Chris Aitken, live in a mudbrick home on a 20-acre property in Brogo on the NSW Far South Coast, with a large vegetable garden and fruit trees. They sell handmade healthy ‘treats’, fermented and pickled vegetables such as kimchi and a range of flavoured and medicinal kombucha drinks, both bottled and on tap. Nicky and Chris bought and renovated a food van and use it as their commercial kitchen and to travel around the Bega Valley, selling their ethical products at farmers markets, events and festivals.

Deano Goodbrew has been selling kombucha for over ten years. While his Brunswick-based business The Good Brew Company ship their products Australia-wide, Deano regularly jumps on his bike to deliver to the inner-north in the most environmentally friendly way possible. When he’s not zooming around town, Deano and his bike can also be spotted at sustainability events across Melbourne.

What is your business?

I have been running a bike-based brew business called The Good Brew Company since 2007. We are now incorporated and brew predominantly medicinal soft drinks like kombucha.

In his career Charlie Mgee has performed to a crowd of 10,000 ‘doof heads’, to five-year-olds in a kindergarten class, to Vandana Shiva at a Seed Freedom conference. His music has even been played at a UN official ceremony. How did he end up playing songs to such diverse audiences?

Charlie first leapt to fame in the permaculture world with the release of the album Permaculture: A Rhymers Manual. It was made with his band Formidable Vegetable Sound System, which currently consists of musicians Mal Web and Kylie Morrigan and also features a range of musicians from around the world.

This was an album of songs based around the permaculture principles. Sounds nerdy? You might think so, but it is a stomping good album with ‘radish beats’ and a very funky sound.

David Holmgren is a thinker. David not only questions the status quo, but redesigns it and creates an alternative. In the 70s, faced with a world that he questioned, he came up with the permaculture concept, along with his mentor Bill Mollison.

Bill immediately took the concept and travelled the world, teaching it to thousands of people worldwide, making himself and permaculture a household name. David however felt that the permaculture design principles needed testing. He turned his focus to building his skills, and testing and implementing the principles they’d created.

The result is David’s home, Melliodora, an inspiring and beautiful working example of permaculture on 1 hectare of intensively farmed land. There you’ll find a passive solar mud-brick home and office, a team of willing workers and a well-integrated selection of trees, animals, vegetables, fungi and bees. Along with his partner Su Dennett [who was profiled in Pip issue 5] and their son Oliver, David has developed Melliodora into one of Australia’s best-known permaculture demonstration sites, hosting tours and workshops for hundreds of people every year. Although it’s affected by frost and at risk of bushfires, Melliodora is at the core of David’s determination to demonstrate that permaculture works, even in tough conditions.