Ecovillage and Permaculture Certificate Program
Integrating Sustainability for the Land, Built Environment, and Human Communities
on the Village Scale and Beyond

Lost Valley Educational Center, Oregon

October 1 - 28, 2007

This exciting residential program includes a full permaculture design course and provides a holistic overview of the concepts and practices of ecovillage design, in addition to more elements you won't find in your standard permaculture course. There will be many opportunities to expand on the personalized instruction through hands-on activities.

You will learn practical solutions to environmental and social problems that you can implement in your own life, in your local communities, and on larger scales. You will also develop skills that help you foster communities that are more ecologically regenerative, socially cooperative, and personally satisfying. Lost Valley is an intentional community and living there you will have a unique experience of community life.

Subjects include:

Organic Gardening:  Learn the basics applied to a rural, urban, or suburban site. Practice soil building and composting. Understand soil composition, watersheds, swales, water catchment, and conservation, biological control agents, native plant guilds, annual, biennial, and perennial cycles, and other natural rhythms, patterns and biological relationships.
Natural building:  Explore international design and selecting appropriate models to suit a given climate. You’ll learn cob, straw bale, earthships, living roofs, passive solar and other techniques.
Appropriate Technology and Renewable Energy:  Designing to maximize efficiency through energy conservation and retention. We explore passive and active solar, micro-hydro, wind, bio-diesel, rainwater catchment, and grey water systems.
Eco-Forestry:  Harvesting food, energy, and medicine, while restoring damaged forest lands and monocrop tree plantations to diverse and productive systems.
Site Analysis & Design: Working with raw, developed, and semi-developed land to create home, garden, and village infrastructures, in harmony with the surrounding environment.
Community Living:  Explore ecovillage design and implementation, ecovillage economics, employment, education, self-government, health and wellbeing, and many other aspects of day-to-day life in community.
Social Permaculture and Creating Community:  Learn consensus and other decision making processes, explore interpersonal dynamics, and participate in personal growth workshops.
Green Lifestyle Choices:  Examine the ecological effects of various lifestyle choices and everyday decisions, from your home to food consumption to commuting to shopping.

An incredible team of experienced residential instructors and
nationally known guest instructors:

*Mark Lakeman, Founder of City Repair, Co-Organizer of Portland's Village Builder Convergence.

*Toby Hemenway, Author Gaia's Garden, former editor of Permaculture Activist.

*Rob Bolman, Founder of Maitreya Ecovillage, Co-Organizer of NW Permaculture Gathering, natural builder.

*Rick Valley, International permaculture instructor, nursery operator, Lost Valley Land Steward.

*Tree Bressen, Group facilitator, consensus trainer, founding member of Eugene's Walnut St. Coop.

*Jude Hobbs, Associate with Agro-Ecology, landscape designer, small farm consultant, and activist. She has presented Permaculture workshops and courses throughout the West and Hawaii for 17 years.

*Joshua Smith, Ecological landscape designer, eco-forester, author of Botanical Treasures of the West. Joshua has co-taught Permacutlure courses with Bill Mollison (co-originator of Permaculture).

*Melanie Rios, Urban Farmer, educator, activist, and Co-originator of Permaculture for the inner landscape. She has been teaching communication skills for a couple of decades.

*Marc Tobin, Masters in Community and Regional Planning, Lost Valley EPCP coordinator. He is also an avid musician, playing guitar and hand drums, often using music as a vehicle to build community.

*Marisha Auerbach, Certified herbalist,  ethnobotanist, permaculture & edible landscape designer.

*Gra Linnea, co-founder of Walnut Street cooperative and other cooperative houses, facilitator of the Heart of Now personal growth workshop.  He has extensive experience in group facilitation.

*Tammy Davis, certified permaculture instructor, trained in Consensus, Non-Violent Communication by Dr. Marshall Rosenburg, and Naka-Ima (now Heart of Now). She has trained with local experts in beekeeping, weaving baskets, and hunting and growing edible and medicinal mushrooms and herbs.

*Dianne Brause, Co-founder of Lost Valley and the only human resident the entire 17 years.

The Location:
Lost Valley Educational Center is an intentional community and nonprofit educational center dedicated to learning, living, and teaching sustainable, ecologically-based culture. We live18 miles from Eugene, on 87 beautiful acres of organic gardens, meadows, forests, hiking trails, pond, and creek. There is old growth hiking, hot springs, and mountains nearby.

Who should apply:
People who are interested in combining the theory and hands-on practice of sustainability, and have a positive attitude about rural community life. People involved in the following fields in particular will find many opportunities for growth: Design fields such as landscape architecture, planning, and architecture - Ecological fields such as environmental studies, biology, ecology, horticulture, forestry, and natural resource management - Social sustainability fields such as human ecology, environmental sociology, and eco-psychology. Business owners will experience a holistic introduction to ecologically-based culture, and have a deeper understanding of the changing values of consumer markets. Anyone who is interesting in helping to start, design, or someday live in an ecovillage,
intentional community, or green developments will find the course especially useful.

(Lost Valley also offers a 72-hour permaculture design course Nov 29 - Dec 13, 2007)

Please forward this information to any interested parties.

For more information:
Visit        www.lostvalley.org
Email      Outreach@lostvalley.org
or Call    (541) 937-3351 ext 112