Permaculture Design Course Teachers

Dorothee is Jodie’s partner and co-manager of Fair Harvest. Do is usually found in the gardens, orchards, milking the goats or tending the poultry . While she refuses to take a formal role in teaching she is always happy for students to find her in action where she generously shares her wealth of knowledge. Her attention to detail, planning ahead and care of plants and animals shows in the health and abundance of the gardens.

Before arriving in Australia in 2009 Dorothee worked in London as a gardener, creating beauty in small spaces. Dorothee grew up in the south of France in a fertile farming region, she studied boring things until she had the life changing experience of permaculture, she completed her PDC in 2012 and has been growing food ever since.

Jeff completed his Permaculture Design Course led by Bill Mollison in 1983. He has over thirty five years experience in teaching Permaculture Design and a longer history as a Permaculture Designer.

He has worked on four continents and has taught courses in Australia, North America and Africa. Jeff is co-author of the book Permaculture Plants – A Selection, and author of Permaculture Plants – Agaves and Cacti.

He is currently working on other permaculture plants books and a futuristic novel. He also contributed a chapter to the recently published Permaculture Pioneers. Jeff also enjoys working with sound and apart from several Bill Mollison audio sets; he has produced two music albums.

Greta Carroll is a permaculture educator and small-scale organic farmer currently based on Wadawurrung Country. She has previously taught for Permaculture College Australia and is currently a course facilitator for Permaculture for Refugees and Goodlife Permaculture. Passionate about accessible, inclusive education, Greta has built curricula and learning experiences for diverse groups. She has worked with people in displacement settings for over a decade – in Australia as well as internationally – and is currently the Chair of Permaculture Australia.

Pippa Buchanan (MSc SA) is an Australian resilience and sustainability educator, facilitator and urban permaculturist currently based in Linz, Austria. Pippa draws on permaculture design, systems thinking, informal education approaches, future scenario development and facilitation approaches such as Art of Hosting in her work.

Pippa’s background is in adult education, language teaching, web and games development and in addition to completing two PDCs she studied Permaculture Teaching Matters with Rosemary Morrow. In 2017 she completed an MSc in Sustainability and Adaptation with the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Machynlleth, Wales. Her research project explored how permaculture teachers and practitioners consider hazards such as floods and bushfires in their design work.

Pippa is fascinated by transformational processes, whether they be the evolution of new social forms, fermented foods or the transformation of yarn into knitted items. She shares her projects and ideas at makingspecial.org.

PB trained and qualified in Horticulture at Adelaide Botanic Gardens in 1977.He has been actively involved with horticulture ever since. He has run his own landscaping and garden maintenance business as well as commercial pruning and chipping, setting up a permaculture nursery and consultation service. He has always worked with an enthusiasm in organic methods of horticulture and embraced Permaculture in 1988 when he undertook a consultant design course. For the next 10 years he ran many Permaculture Design Courses in and around the Fremantle area including Murdoch Uni, Bentley TAFE, Apace and North Fremantle Permaculture Centre.

Since moving to Margaret River in 1997 he has extended his interests widely to include Bio Dynamic agriculture and practices. For 16 years he worked at Cape Mentelle Vineyard taking care of the grounds and biological waste water treatment which he instigated and set up. In 2015 he and his partner Swabodhi designed and completed their owner builder straw bale home which gained a 8.5 NATERS energy rating. They are now well on the way to food self sufficiency. In late 2015 he joined the team at Witchcliffe Eco Village as Permaculture Design Advisor. In 2018, PB was made a Permaculture Elder in recognition of his years of dedication and passion of permaculture.

Jamie, 52, worked as a mining field assistant, carpenter, sailor, journalist and furniture maker before moving to Margaret River in 1998 to develop a farming and permaculture property with his wife, Lara, and three children Max, Ned and Dan. He has a BA in English and Journalism, a Master Class 5, and completed a PDC with Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton.

Jamie’s 37 acre property, Burnside Organic Farm, commercially produces avocados, wine, honey and capers. It also provides their family with all their vegetables, meat and fruit. Cows, pigs, sheep, geese, bees and chickens are used on the farm as an integral part of the farming systems.Part of the property is share farmed with Jema McCabe who runs a market garden.Jamie’s property is certified biodynamic with ACO and has utilised permaculture principles for water harvesting, soil building and nutrient cycling. New work on the farm is approached through permaculture principles with a view towards a future of energy descent.As a result of their self-sufficient lifestyle Jamie has developed a keen interest in nutrition, food preservation and storage, home butchery and meat curing, winemaking and Mediterranean climate appropriate gardening and foods.

Jema spends most days thinking about, planting, tending, harvesting or selling vegetables, a vocation that extends across her work and personal passions. She grew up on 5 acres on the east coast of Australia and learned a simple version of permaculture at her small primary school, where all the kids could have a garden of their own.

Her early professional life turned out to be a self guided tour on organic farming, biodynamics, compost making, soil building, garden planning, seed saving and assorted outdoorsy-practical things. Completing a PDC at Fair Harvest Permaculture, teaching workshops herself and running her own micro-farm business have all been more recent explorations. Given that veggies take up a lot of her time, she really loves pondering ideas around how communication, community resilience, social structures, feminism, gender, sexuality, and domestic life intersect with permaculture.

Outside of the garden, Jema aspires to always check for underwear sections in op-shops, finding lost hair ties on the pavement to replenish her supply, and perfecting the art of fixing broken thongs with Gaffa tape.

Over the last three decades Mark has been active in the fields of organic/biodynamic production, permaculture, sustainability, agro-ecology and holistic management.

He has been involved in a number of education, research, community and commercial projects throughout Western Australia and managed orchards, livestock and market garden enterprises on various properties.

His consultation and education business, Productive Ecology, specialises in the establishment and management of integrated living systems.

He also works part time as the Witchcliffe Ecovillage horticulture manager and is a project advisor and content creator for the Lower Blackwood Catchment LCDC.

Trev’s background is in writing for newspapers and magazines around Australia and as a globetrotting London-based travel writer. He worked at a remote animal rehabilitation centre in the jungles of Costa Rica and has visited more than his fair share of exotic surf locations as a surf-travel magazine correspondent. But he fell in love with the rugged coast and fertile fields of Margaret River in Western Australia, where he’s put down roots and works for the green group Nature Conservation Margaret River Region and as a hiking guide on the Cape to Cape Track. He’s also the organiser of the annual Edible Gardens Festival, has turned his quarter-acre block into a permaculture powerhouse with 80-plus fruit trees, and swaps homegrown fruit ’n veg barter boxes for all kinds of stuff! Trev’s been showing permaculture students around his garden and running hands-on classes since 2018, and as a keen surfer, diver and conservationist, also teaches our Caring for Oceans class.

Ellen has studied the soil food web and soil microscopy with Dr Elaine Ingham and Dr Mary Cole (pioneers in this field) and completed a PDC at Fair Harvest. Ellen is keen to share this information and teach practices that will assist in developing and nurturing healthy, nutrient rich soil. The EarthWhile Australia team works with home gardeners, orchardists, growers and farmers to develop knowledge of healthy soils to affordably grow high quality food in sustainable ways that assist in regenerating our environment. It is no surprise that Ellen has been actively involved in supporting local community groups and organisations such as the Serpentine Jarrahdale Food and Farm Alliance and the Byford Glades Community Garden. Ellen is a founding partner of EarthWhile Australia.

Rod has worked nearly three decades in environmental management, especially in river and catchment management. This included more than 10 years running the state government agency, the Swan River Trust.

Rod completed a life changing PDC at Fair Harvest, Margaret River… which genuinely did sow the seeds of a change in life.Rod followed up with an advanced permie design certificate, quit his job, completed a Diploma in Permaculture at Candlelight Farm and set up his permaculture design and teaching consultancy, Leafcutter Permaculture.

Rod now lives on 136-acres of a mostly bush Land for Wildlife property in the Chittering Valley, north-east of Perth and is involved in the Bullsbrook Community Garden.

Since mid-2018, he has been Farm Manager at Perth City Farm where he grows some fruit and veg, looks after a few chooks and ducks and talks lots about compost.

Born near Fremantle, WA, Gillian grew up amongst the banksia woodlands of Yangebup/Spearwood, moved to Geraldton for most of her schooling, then shifted to Margaret River in 2014 with her husband and two sons for a larger dose of trees and cool weather.

Her earliest garden memory is of the vegetables and lush trees of her Great Grandparents back yard and wondering why no other gardens looked the same. After some early experiences of homegrown potatoes, parsley and 3 pet chooks, Gillian completed both a Certificate 3 in Horticulture and a Fair Harvest PDC in 2020, followed by Permaculture Teacher Training with Rosemary Morrow in 2022.

Alongside teaching at the Fair Harvest PDCs, Gillian works at Lazarus Horticulture, runs a small Permaculture Consultancy business and hosts “Garden Party” on Radio Margaret River.  She and her husband have also set up their 2017sqm Witchcliffe property to be an example of Permaculture systems and zoning, with vegetables, 2 orchards, chickens, worms, compost system and compost toilet, grey water, native plants and many future plans, including bees.

Jeff is a first-generation farmer near Balingup and the co-founder of Western Australia’s only vertically integrated, beyond organic, pasture-raised chicken and duck operation.  Since 2006, he has restored the historic Southampton Homestead property to perennial pasture twice – once from a pine plantation and again in 2013 following a devastating bushfire.  Jeff and his wife Michelle grew 10,000 meat chickens and ducks a year, and manage all aspects of the supply chain on-farm – from hatching, growing and harvesting birds through to marketing and selling direct at farmers markets, retailers and restaurants.   Southampton Homestead was recently a State Winner in the 2016 Delicious Produce Awards and a finalist in the National Landcare Awards for Innovation in Sustainable Farming Practices.   Southampton Homestead is a member of  an international communities of practice, the Regrarians, and is known for their pioneering work in using regenerative agriculture practices to restore eco-system services in farming.