Permaculture

is a successful practical approach to designing sustainable environments.

Permaculture draws together the skills and knowledge of many ecologically sound disciplines and enables us to establish productive environments which provide for our essential needs:

Food, Energy, Shelter, Social and financial structures.

 

Put into practice, permaculture empowers the individual to be resourceful and self-reliant, and to become a conscious part of the solution to the many problems which face us, both locally and globally.

Putting the ideals of sustainable development into practice on the small and local scale is what Green Adventure's work is all about.

 

This Means...


Transforming the noble words of international conferences into practical deeds isn't necessarily glamorous work.

Raising the standard of life for ourselves, by creating strong small-scale localised economies (i.e. sustainable economies) can be very mundane work indeed:

 

 
  • choosing to shop local whenever possible;
  • making friends with your neighbours & helping each other out (whether by the LETS scheme or other social networks);
  • eating healthy, unprocessed organically-grown food whenever possible;
  • growing some of your own food;
  • choosing low-packaging goods;
  • decreasing consumption of nonessentials;
  • walking, cycling or using public transport instead of cars whenever possible;
  • separating our waste for recycling;
  • looking after a tree;
  • shopping at jumble sales and second-hand shops before buying new;
  • looking after your health and that or our neighbourhoods...
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

  

These, in practice have been Green Adventure's contribution to the efforts towards creating a sustainable lifestyle for all, most of which are still running 10 years later, in 2004:

  • Many formerly disused green spaces with now growing food, eg. Camberwell Green Community Orchard and in the hands of local people
  • A community-run organic veg 'Box Scheme', Green Ventures, supplying 80-100 families in South London, the only one in London (the UK?) which delivers by bicicle and on estates.
  • Brockwell Park Community Greenhouses, one acre of formerly disused land now in the hands of the local community and growing organic food... plus a lot of friendships
  • Green Adventure Youth Action (GAYA) .. many little youth projects eg. taking young people out of the city or to find out about sustainability issues in fun ways
  • Some recycling projects were done on the way...
  • But mostly, hundreds of volunteers and users who were inspired to make thousands of little changes in their lives... lots of little steps towards a saner planet...
 

This window on a south london estate (lots of veggies and flowers growing in recycled fruit boxes) inspired a few neighbours to follow suit and soon the estate was greener... and some people knew each other better... these people got together and, inspired and wanting more space to grow... asked Southwark to let them use the land which then grew into our first Community Orchard