Masanobu Fukuoka

Masunobu Fukuoka (1913-2008) was a Japanese farmer and philosopher, who pioneered a school of farming referred to as ‘natural farming’ or ‘do-nothing farming.’ Fukuoka’s methodology entailed minimal human interference in the agricultural process, instead creating conditions in which natural processes, left to their own accord, maximise crop outputs. Fukuoka became highly prominent within the global sustainable farming movement, with his texts ‘The One-Straw Revolution’ and ‘The Road Back to Nature’ selling millions of copies in various languages. The major difference between today’s permaculture design and Masanobu’s philosophy of agriculture is Masanobu preaches doing nothing or little to nothing and letting nature do all or almost all the work, farming by subtraction meaning doing less to receive more. While permaculture we use human knowledge and understanding of nature to best design for a symbiotic relationship between plants, animals, humans, water, micro-organisms, etc. in order to do nothing or little to nothing. So the main difference is the design process and essentially they both get to the same place, a strong, healthy, diverse biological environment.

Geoff Lawton

Geoff Lawton is a world renowned Permaculture consultant, designer and teacher. He first took his Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) Course in 1983 with Bill Mollison the founder of Permaculture. Geoff has undertaken thousands of jobs teaching, consulting, designing, administering and implementing, in 6 continents and close to 50 countries around the world. Clients have included private individuals, groups, communities, governments, aid organizations, non-government organisations and multinational companies under the not-for-profit organisation. In 1996 Geoff was accredited with the Permaculture Community Services Award by the Permaculture movement for services in Australia and around the world. Geoff's official website is GeoffLawtonOnline.com

Dave Jackie

Dave Jacke, MA, has practiced ecological landscape and culture design around the world for more than 30 years. He has applied ecological principles to the design of holistic educational experiences for over two decades. His award-winning, two-volume book Edible Forest Gardens has become a classic in its field.

Toby Hemingway

Toby Hemenway is the author of Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, which was awarded the Nautilus Gold Medal in 2011, was named by the Washington Post as one of the ten best gardening books of 2010, and is the best-selling permaculture book in the world.

Toby passed away in late 2016 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Robert Hart

was the pioneer of forest gardening in the UK.

Hart began his forest garden project at Wenlock Edge on the Welsh borders in the early 1960s with the intention of providing a healthy and therapuetic environment for himself and his brother Lacon, who was born with severe learning disabilities. Although starting as a relatively conventional smallholder, Hart soon discovered that maintaining large annual vegetable beds, rearing livestock and taking care of an orchard were tasks beyond his strength. However, he also observed that a small bed of perennial vegetables and herbs he had planted up was looking after itself with little or no intervention. Furthermore, these plants provided interesting and unusual additions to the diet, as well as seeming to promote health and vigour in both body and mind.

Noting the maxim of Hippocrates to “make food your medicine and medicine your food”, Robert adopted a vegan, 90% raw food diet. He also began to examine the interactions and relationships that take place between plants in natural systems, particularly in woodland, the climax eco-system of a cool temperate region such as the British Isles. This led him to evolve the concept of the ‘Forest Garden’: Based on the observation that the natural forest can be divided into distinct layers or ‘storeys’, he developed an existing small orchard of apples and pears into an edible landscape consisting of seven dimensions;

• I)A ‘canopy’ layer consisting of the original mature fruit trees.

• 2)A ‘low-tree’ layer of smaller nut and fruit trees on dwarfing root stocks.

• 3)A ‘shrub layer’ of fruit bushes such as currants and berries.

• 4)A ‘herbaceous layer’ of perennial vegetables and herbs.

• 5)A ‘ground cover’ layer of edible plants that spread horizontally.

• 6)A ‘rhizosphere’ or ‘underground’ dimension of plants grown for their roots and tubers.

• 7)A vertical ‘layer’ of vines and climbers.

Hart's vision of the spread of the forest garden is summarised in the following quote;

“Obviously, few of us are in a position to restore the forests.. But tens of millions of us have gardens, or access to open spaces such as industrial wastelands, where trees can be planted. and if full advantage can be taken of the potentialities that are available even in heavily built up areas, new ‘city forests’ can arise...”

Sepp Holzer

Sepp Holzer (born July 24, 1942 in Ramingstein, Province of Salzburg, Austria) is a farmer, author, and an international consultant for natural agriculture. He took over his parents' mountain farm business in 1962 and pioneered the use of ecological farming, or permaculture, techniques at high altitudes (1100 to 1500 meters above sea level) after being unsuccessful with regular farming methods.

Holzer was called the "rebel farmer" because he persisted, despite being fined and even threatened with prison, with practices such as not pruning his fruit trees (unpruned fruit trees survive snow loads that will break pruned trees). He has created some of the world's best examples of using ponds as reflectors to increase solar gain for Passive solar heating of structures, and of using the microclimate created by rock outcrops to effectively change the hardiness zone for nearby plants. He has also done original work in the use of Hugelkultur and natural branch development instead of pruning to allow fruit trees to survive high altitudes and harsh winters.

His expanded farm - the Krameterhof - now spans over 45 hectares of forest gardens, including 70 ponds, and is said to be the most consistent example of permaculture worldwide. In 2009 Sepp Holzer left the Krameterhof in the hands of his son Josef Andreas Holzer. Since 2013 Sepp Holzer lives on his new farm - the Holzerhof farm - in the Burgenland, Austria. He is currently conducting permaculture ("Holzer Permaculture") seminars both at his Holzerhof farm and worldwide. 

He is author of several books, works nationally as permaculture-activist in the established agricultural industry, and works internationally as adviser for ecological agriculture.

Nadia Lawton

Nadia completed her PDC in the Dead Sea Valley in 1999 then proceeded to work on the "Green the Desert" project and establish permaculture women's groups and school projects with this work. As reference she went on to complete her permaculture diploma in design, education and site development and registered as a permaculture teacher in English and Arabic with the Bill and Lisa Mollison's permaculture Institute of Australia. Nadia now lives in The Channon in Northern New South Wales, Australia at Zaytuna Farm the home of the Australian Permaculture Research Institute. Since 2003 she has been working with PRI as an international permaculture teacher, consultant and aid worker.

Lisa Mollison

With a background in agriculture, Lisa Mollison completed her Permaculture Design Certificate in 1995 under the mentorship of Bill Mollison, the co-founder of Permaculture. Lisa became the Managing Director of the Permaculture Institute in 1997 and leads Tagari Publications, supporting the work of the Permaculture Institute through the publication of educational materials. Lisa is passionate about furthering Bill's vision to spread Permaculture design principles and ethics across the world.

Paul Stamets

Paul Stamets, speaker, author, mycologist, medical researcher and entrepreneur, is considered an intellectual and industry leader in fungi: habitat, medicinal use, and production. He lectures extensively to deepen the understanding and respect for the organisms that literally exist under every footstep taken on this path of life. His presentations cover a range of mushroom species and research showing how mushrooms can help the health of people and planet. His central premise is that habitats have immune systems, just like people, and mushrooms are cellular bridges between the two. Our close evolutionary relationship to fungi can be the basis for novel pairings in the microbiome that lead to greater sustainability and immune enhancement.

Paul’s philosophy is that “MycoDiversity is BioSecurity.” He sees the ancient Old Growth forests of the Pacific Northwest as a resource of incalculable value, especially in terms of its fungal genome. A dedicated hiker and explorer, his passion is to preserve and protect as many ancestral strains of mushrooms as possible from these pristine woodlands. His research is considered breakthrough by thought leaders for creating a paradigm shift for helping ecosystems worldwide.

Paul is the author of six books (including Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save The World, Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, and Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World), he has discovered and named numerous new species of psilocybin mushrooms, and is the founder and owner of Fungi Perfecti, LLC, makers of the Host Defense Mushrooms (www.hostdefense.com) supplement line.

He has received numerous awards, including: Invention Ambassador (2014-2015) for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the National Mycologist Award (2014) from the North American Mycological Association (NAMA), and the Gordon & Tina Wasson Award (2015) from the Mycological Society of America (MSA). His work has entered into the mainstream of popular culture. In the new Star Trek: Discovery series on CBS, the Science Officer is portrayed by an Astromycologist.... a Lt. Paul Stamets. Paul's work with mycelium is a central theme of this series.

Paul funds research to save rare strains of mushrooms that dwell within the old growth forests. He is a collaborator with numerous scientific organizations and research institutes. Currently he is testing extracts of these rare strains at the NIH (National Institutes of Health/Virology) and with Washington State University/United States Department of Agriculture against a wide panel of viruses pathogenic to humans, animals and bees.

“We are now fully engaged in the sixth Major Extinction (“6 X”) on planet Earth. Our biosphere is quickly changing, eroding the life support systems that have allowed humans to ascend. Unless we put into action policies and technologies that can cause a course correction in the very near future, species diversity will continue to plummet, with humans not only being the primary cause, but one of the victims. What can we do? Fungi, particularly mushrooms, offer some powerful, practical solutions, which can be put into practice now.”

Bill Mollison

Bruce Charles "Bill" Mollison (4 May 1928 – 24 September 2016) was an Australian researcher, author, scientist, teacher and biologist. In 1981, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award "for developing and promoting the theory and practice of permaculture".

Permaculture (a portmanteau of "permanent agriculture") is an integrated system of ecological and environmental design which Mollison co-developed with David Holmgren, and which they together envisioned as a perennial and sustainable form of agriculture. In 1974, Mollison began his collaboration with Holmgren, and in 1978 they published their book Permaculture One, which introduced this design system to the general public.

David Holmgren

Holmgren was born in the state of Western Australia to political parents who were very active in the movement against Australia's involvement in the Vietnam war. Political activism against injustice provided a background to his own life's work with Permaculture as positiveenvironmental activism. (ref Permaculture pioneers) After graduating from John Curtin High School he spent a year hitch hiking around Australia which exposed him to the first wave of "Back To The Land" rural resettlement. In 1974 he moved to Tasmania to study Environmental Design, at the innovative school set up by Hobart architect Barry McNeil at the College of Advanced Education in Hobart. Towards the end his first year of studies he met Mollison, who was then a senior tutor (in the psychology faculty at the University of Tasmania. The two found they shared a strong interest in the relationship between human and natural systems. Their wide-ranging conversations and gardening experiences encouraged Holmgren to write the manuscript that was to be published in 1978 as Permaculture One.

Elaine Ingham

Dr. Ingham discovered the soil food web nearly 4 decades ago and has been pioneering research ever since. Widely recognized as the world’s foremost soil biologist, she’s passionate about empowering ordinary people to bring the soils in their community back to life.

Dr. Elaine’s™ Soil Food Web Approach has been used to successfully restore the ecological functions of soils on six continents. The courses offered by Dr. Elaine’s™ Soil Food Web School have been designed for people with no relevant experience – making them accessible to individuals who wish to retrain and to begin a meaningful and impactful career in an area that will help to secure the survival of humans and other species.

B.A., Biology and Chemistry, St. Olaf College
M.S., Microbiology, Texas A&M University
Ph.D., Microbiology, Colorado State University

Jeff Lowensfels

Author of the Award-winning Teaming With Microbes: The Organic Gardener’Guide To The Soil Food Web, Teaming With Nutrients: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to Optimizing Plant Nutrition and in January of 2017, Teaming With Fungi: The Organic Grower’s Guide to Mycorrhizae, Jeff Lowenfels is one of the most humorous and entertaining lecturers on the garden lecture.

He is also a lawyer who writes the longest running garden column in North America, having never missed a week in 41 years. The combination of garden writing and law earned him the moniker of “America’s Dirtiest Lawyer,” though with the publication of his third book, a trilogy, he will morph into “Lord of The Roots.”

Jeff is a highly respected and popular garden writer. He is the former President of the Garden Writers of America, a GWA Fellow and in 2005 was inducted into the GWA Hall of Fame, the highest honor a garden writer can achieve.

Jeff Lowenfels has become a leader in the organic gardening/sustainability movement as a result of his two, best selling books. His talks have converted tens of thousands of gardeners at venues throughout North and South America. Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to The Soil Food Web was reviewed as the most important new gardening book in 25 years and maybe even ever! It is now out in a Revised Edition, and has been translated into 7 languages. His second book, also an award winning best seller is Teaming With Nutrient, The organic Gardener’s Guide to Optimizing Plant Nutrition.

Jeff grew up as an indentured servant on his father’s hobby farm in Scarsdale, New York. There he was forced to plant, weed, mow and pick fruits, flowers and vegetables on an 8 acre ‘gentlemen’s farm’ replete with acres-wide vegetable gardens, a Versailles-style formal flower garden, a 100 tree fruit orchard and countless landscape shrubs, lawns and decorative beds. He escaped to Harvard College where he majored in Geology.

One day back in the early 70’s while attending law school, he was held up and shot. As a result, he ran as far away as he could without a passport and ended up in Anchorage, Alaska. There, he has been able to translate his work-filled childhood into a meaningful and enjoyable hobby and avocation.

Jeff hosted Alaska public television’s most popular show, “Alaska Gardens with Jeff Lowenfels.” The show was so popular, it ran four times a week and aired even in Barrow, way above the Arctic Circle. He also hosted a popular, weekly, garden radio show until his travel schedule lecturing around the world caught up with him.

Most important, Jeff is the founder of a now national program that started as “Plant a Row for Bean’s,” the soup kitchen in Anchorage, and is now “Plant A Row for The Hungry.” The program is active all 50 states and Canada and has resulted in millions pounds of garden produce being donated to feed the hungry every year. Jeff is as passionate about “Plant a Row” as he is about organics. He encourages gardeners every where he goes to participate in the program and constantly reminds his fellow garden communicators of the pressing need to solve the hunger problem.