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Some of the lovely experts delivering courses through Learn Permaculture...

Aranya

Completing his Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design in 2003, Aranya started teaching the following year. He discovered this made his heart sing, so he made it his main focus. Since 2004 he has taught over 90 two-week design courses, something he has no intention of stopping. He feels that it's a privilege to have the opportunity to teach "something that can make a real difference in all our lives".

Aranya is also excited about new ways in which permaculture thinking can help us, developing new courses on using its principles to help us design for optimising our health and creating ethical livelihoods.

In the spring of 2012 Permanent Publications published his first book 'Permaculture Design - a Step-by-Step Guide', which evolved from a set of design course worksheets. He also writes occasionally for magazines and from time to time shares interesting items on his blog. Aranya is currently writing a second book, about a subject he’s especially fascinated by, the application of systems thinking and patterns in permaculture design.

Klaudia van Gool

Klaudia has had an interest in growing things as long as she can remember and has incorporated Permaculture ideas for the last thirty, since accidentally picking up Bill Mollison's book in the library.

In 2006 she completed the Sustainable Land Use and Permaculture Design Certificate at Ragmans Lane Farm with Patrick Whitefield, followed by her Diploma in Permaculture Design in January 2009. Klaudia has a degree in Environmental Science from University of Plymouth and has worked for many years as an Environmental consultant in environmental management for businesses.

She has been increasingly drawn to the People Care ethic of permaculture, using the design process for personal and social designs and bringing a strong yet soft focus and many tools to the people care aspects on courses. She has taught 41 PDCs to date and is involved with local regenerative agriculture design and climate resilience action.

Heavily inspired by the 8 shields model developed by Jon Young she also works with regenerative cultural elements such as deep nature connection, ceremony and rites of passage with fire and is studying herbal medicine.

Pat Bowcock

Pat grew up in the Gloucestershire countryside, with a beautiful garden, an orchard, open fields, streams & ponds around her. Over the last twenty years she has been saddened to see whole woodlands cut down and not replaced, old hedgerows taken out to create fields for large machinery. It reflected the lack of respect and consideration we show to each other and the planet we are so much a part of and dependent upon.

This inspired her to look for a piece of land to live in harmony with which she found in the form of a pony paddock in June 1999. Her aim was to create a haven for plants, wildlife, trees and people. Pat realized that she couldn't change the world alone, but she could take responsibility for what she ate, where she slept, her waste, and how she interacted with others. A central element of her intention was people care, planet care and fair share.

Pat set about creating the systems she would need to put these principles into action. She was supported and encouraged by her family and the many people who came to help make Ourganics what it is today. Ourganics Evolving Systems has become her portfolio of design work which in July 2006 earned her the Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design.

Caroline Aitken

Pat grew up in the Gloucestershire countryside, with a beautiful garden, an orchard, open fields, streams & ponds around her. Over the last twenty years she has been saddened to see whole woodlands cut down and not replaced, old hedgerows taken out to create fields for large machinery. It reflected the lack of respect and consideration we show to each other and the planet we are so much a part of and dependent upon.

This inspired her to look for a piece of land to live in harmony with which she found in the form of a pony paddock in June 1999. Her aim was to create a haven for plants, wildlife, trees and people. Pat realized that she couldn't change the world alone, but she could take responsibility for what she ate, where she slept, her waste, and how she interacted with others. A central element of her intention was people care, planet care and fair share.

Pat set about creating the systems she would need to put these principles into action. She was supported and encouraged by her family and the many people who came to help make Ourganics what it is today. Ourganics Evolving Systems has become her portfolio of design work which in July 2006 earned her the Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design.

Chris Evans

Completing his Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design in 2003, Aranya started teaching the following year. He discovered this made his heart sing, so he made it his main focus. Since 2004 he has taught over 90 two-week design courses, something he has no intention of stopping. He feels that it's a privilege to have the opportunity to teach "something that can make a real difference in all our lives".

Aranya is also excited about new ways in which permaculture thinking can help us, developing new courses on using its principles to help us design for optimising our health and creating ethical livelihoods.

In the spring of 2012 Permanent Publications published his first book 'Permaculture Design - a Step-by-Step Guide', which evolved from a set of design course worksheets. He also writes occasionally for magazines and from time to time shares interesting items on his blog. Aranya is currently writing a second book, about a subject he’s especially fascinated by, the application of systems thinking and patterns in permaculture design.

Looby Macnamara

Looby was first inspired by permaculture when eating a flower salad from a 6 foot square patio garden bursting with vitality in the middle of an urban jungle. She went on to do her permaculture course in Brighton, but it was not only the content of the course, but how it was taught that led her on the path to teaching permaculture. Her path since has been life changing and has affirmed the belief that we can all take positive action to benefit ourselves, our communities and our planet. She is interested in how we can use Permaculture principles, ethics and design in all aspects of life, and as part of her Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design she included several non land-based designs.

Her book 'People and Permaculture' was the first book to directly explore the application of permaculture design and principles to our lives and relationships. She teaches a diversity of permaculture courses, including introductory, full design, advanced design, teacher training and peoplecare courses. In 2016 she moved to Applewood Permaculture Centre, a 20 acre smallholding in North Herefordshire with her family and partner Chris Evans. She is also a senior diploma tutor and experienced in people based designs.

Looby has been developing the Cultural Emergence toolkit for positive cultural evolution for individuals and communities. The understanding of both systems and patterns is a fundamental part of the effectiveness of this toolkit.

Hannah Thorogood

Hannah is a permaculture farmer, designer and teacher. She has set up and runs her own 18 acre permaculture demonstration farm in Lincolnshire, The Inkpot. She has taken the farm from a depleted, compacted, toxic arable field into the diverse, abundant farm it is today demonstrating permaculture, regenerative agriculture and producing nationally award winning farm.

Hannah is a senior tutor with the permaculture diploma system and was one of the lead designers in creating the current system and she co-designed and leads the tutor training within that system. She has also been teaching permaculture design courses since 2002 and has been teaching permaculture teaching courses since 2007. She has a reputation for creating a very accepting and fun learning environment, putting people from all backgrounds at ease to enjoy their learning together.

Hannah has a BSc in Environmental Studies from Manchester University & an MSc Organic Farming from Scottish Agricultural College. She also loves to knit and crochet using her own Inkpot wool.

Martin Crawford

Martin Crawford started his working life a computer programmer but his passion for organic gardening quickly led to a change in career. Martin has had broad and varied horticultural / agricultural experience over the last 30 years - he has worked for the Yarner Trust in North Devon teaching small-scale organic agriculture; grown food for a small hotel on the Isle of Iona; restored the walled gardens of a manor house in mid-Devon; and run his own organic market garden and tree nursery in South Devon. His experience led him to the concept of forest gardening as a sustainable system that can flourish in our changing climate conditions and it was this that led to the founding of the Agroforestry Research Trust in 1992, where he has been systematically researching plant interactions, unusual crops, etc over the past 25+ years.

He currently manages a 2 acre Forest Garden in Dartington which he planted over 20 years ago, he runs a commercial tree nursery specialising in unusual trees and shrubs and has an 8-acre trial site, researching fruit and nut trees. He also teaches courses on Forest Gardening and Growing Nut Crops, writes books and edits a quarterly journal, Agroforestry News. He is a director of ‘Gaia’, a Trust formed by James Lovelock to further his work. He lives in Dartington with his wife and 2 children.

Visit Martin's website for more details of his work.