Permaculture magazine / Permanent Publications co-founder and editor, Maddy Harland, has worked tirelessly to promote permaculture and take it mainstream. Morag Gamble, founder of the Permaculture Education Institute says, “Maddy is one of the leading female voices in the world of permaculture.” Maddy has supported and encouraged women writers to become respected authors in what has been a male dominated movement.
“When I first arrived on the UK permaculture scene in 1990, there were no women permaculture teachers and internationally very few women authors. I wanted women to find their voices in the magazine, as permaculture design teachers, as thought leaders in the movement, and as respected book authors.”
“Women often juggle our careers with having children (as I have) and are time poor, so writing books or teaching is very challenging. Economically, even in the 21st century, women are paid less than men and often retire with 2/3rds of the pension men receive. So it remains vital that we still consciously celebrate and promote all women and their work. Our voices are different, complimentary, creative… The world is less diverse without us. Permaculture needs to be far more inclusive, and that includes non-binary genders.” Maddy Harland
Left to right: Robyn Francis, Rosemary Morrow, Maddy Harland, Starhawk
Here is an introduction and celebration of some of the women permaculture writers closest to us here at Permaculture magazine / Permanent Publications.
Lobby Macnamara published the first permaculture design book dedicated to people care – not just Earth Care, People & Permaculture. This was followed by 7 Ways to Think Differently, and more recently, the pioneering Cultural Emergence, which offers a set of design tools for transforming personal and collective cultures. Looby teaches a range of courses at her 20 acre smallholding, Applewood Permaculture Centre, as well as further a field. Looby is part of the Mother Nature Network and has recently published the Cultural Emergence Empowerment Deck, a beautifully illustrated and enjoyable way to use and learn the cultural emergence tools.
Excitingly, over the past few years, we have also seen the emergence of a vibrant younger generation of permaculture activists, across all continents – inspired by the impact of Greta Thunberg. Many are being brought together by the work of Permayouth (www.permayouth.org), a group of 11-18-year-olds headed up by 14-year-old Maia Raymond, who are passionate about positive solutions. They host free monthly online festivals where they share their experiences and learn together. Maia is interviewing some of the young people involved in the Permayouth network, and will be sharing their impressive community action in the pages of Permaculture magazine.
For the past 25 years, Morag Gamble has led permaculture initiatives in over 22 countries – she is quite simply one of the most revered women in the permaculture world and her systems thinking and attention to detail are truly inspirational. She is the founder of the Permaculture Education Institute (https://permacultureeducationinstitute.org) and works with the Ethos Foundation, which funds a women’s self help group in west Africa to run free permaculture education. Her ongoing work with Permayouth is likewise having positive impacts with young people in refugee camps across Africa. She pushes us to move beyond sustainability and into the vital arena of regeneration. Morag is passionate about local food systems and works with city farmers, school farmers, community gardeners and educators. Follow her on her YouTube channel and blog Our Permaculture Life (www.youtube.com/c/moraggambleourpermaculturelife).
We have worked with Liz Zorab on her bestselling book Grounded: A Gardener’s Journey to Abundance & Self-Sufficiency. Liz went from being bed bound due to illness to now being self-sufficient as well as feeding 20 other local families in just a few short years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvkN4BvLjyc. Her book has been reprinted twice in its first year of publication! Liz launched her second title, The Seasoned Gardener, and in 2022 won the Garden Media Guild’s ‘Vlog of the Year’.
Forest garden designer and permaculture grower, Pippa Chapman joined our authors in 2022, and we published her first title, The Plant Lover’s Backyard Forest Garden. Pippa’s passion is bringing forest gardens of all scales to gardens and community spaces, and in 2023 she won five stars and the Top Border Prize at Harrogate Spring Flower Show, for her 3.2m x 1.6m micro food forest border. Its impressive mix of beauty, edible perennials, nitrogen-fixers and pollinator plants showcased the value of multilayered designs.
Worldwide we see the positive impacts of permaculture, be it via early American adopters like Starhawk (www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1_Ouxg-u_A&t) or more recent additions from Pandora Thomas who launched the Black Permaculture Network (www.pandorathomas.com/black-permaculture-network).
Others are inspirational within whole communities – Sarah Pugh of Shift Bristol, who sadly passed in 2022, significantly impacted her city. She founded Transition Bristol and cofounded the ‘Practical Sustainability Course’ a year-long course that gives the opportunity for teaching hands-on skills, group development and investment in the local community. Shift Bristol has invested hundreds of thousands of pounds in sustainability educators and hundreds of thousands of hours of students time planting, sowing, weeding, building, digging, and retrofitting on community projects.
We also seek to ‘edge’ permaculture and ensure it reaches ever wider audiences. The work of no dig gardener Stephanie Hafferty whose two books No Dig Organic Home & Garden and The Creative Kitchen have helped bring a more mainstream audience to permaculture. Likewise, at a time when COVID and its collective pause is giving us time to evaluate our lives, Vera Greutink’s Edible Paradise offers those inspirational, practical steps to enable us to make the changes we need to.
Another ‘edge’ to permaculture is earth medicine and natural healing. Glennie Kindred has been sharing her earth wisdom with us for years, through her books Letting in the Wild Edges, Sacred Earth Celebrations (now in its fifth reprint) and Walking with Trees. All three explore Mother Nature’s energy, the seasonal changes and the importance of connecting to the natural world, for our health and the planet’s. Anne Stobart, a medical herbalist, created a medicinal forest garden in 2004 and is a founding member of the Medicinal Forest Garden Trust. She is the author of The Medicinal Forest Garden and Trees and Shrubs that Heal, where she shares how we can all grow, harvest and use a range of medicinal plants in our gardens, allotments and community projects.
Manda Scott, novelist and present of Accidental Gods podcast has been writing a series for Permaculture magazine over the last year, exploring Thrutopia, pathways and solutions to take us ‘to a flourishing future we’d be proud to leave to the generations that come after us’. Manda’s podcast speaks with a wide range of people, from all different backgrounds, offering us all ideas and insights for ‘another world is possible’. Our very own Maddy Harland featured on episode 193 about Spiritual Activism. Listen HERE.
It is vital to acknowledge that we stand on the shoulders of our ancestors from many indigenous farmers all over the world who don’t even call their approach permaculture, but from whom permaculture was learnt. We respectfully honour the lives of women throughout the ages. The permaculture world itself is indebted to the work of pioneering women from Australia who have helped educate, design and grow systems not just in their homeland but across Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Many of these (such as Robin Clayfield) have written for Permaculture magazine while others have become Permanent Publication authors. Rosemary Morrow is a guiding light whose two classic titles Earth User’s Guide To Permaculture and Earth User’s Guide To Teaching Permaculture have helped so many in the southern hemisphere.
Education remains a central part of what permaculture offers and books like Carolyn Nuttall and Janet Millington’s Outdoor Classrooms is a title which helps us reconnect with nature. If you want to begin your own journey then check out Jasmine Dale’s Permaculture Design Companion it will help you plan your path, starting today!
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Vandana Shiva – Reclaiming the World We Want
Decolonising Permaculture with Principle Zero | Rosemary Morrow in Conversation with Sarah Queblatin
Future Care: putting the needs of the next generations first / Maddy Harland / Permaculture Magazine
The Seasoned Gardener
by Liz Zorab
People and Permaculture
by Lobby Macnamara
Cultural Emergence
by Lobby Macnamara
No Dig Organic Home & Garden
by Stephanie Hafferty
The Creative Kitchen
by Stephanie Hafferty
The Permaculture Magazine team have been publishing books and magazines since 1992.
Their YouTube channel www.youtube.com/PermacultureMagazine shares a range of videos from no dig organic gardening and food forests, to regenerative farming and keeping bees.
