started to transfer to new site:

https://sites.google.com/site/permaculturesciencenet/english/labs/ipcs

International PermaCulture Convergences

THANKS A LOT to Tony and Robyn in getting this info together.  Stella interviewed them at IPC8 then rectified the transcript of the interview with Tony.

Stella : The ROOTS of our movement are important, in order to understand who we are, where we come from, and so where we are likely to go, as a movement.

 I think it's very important for the PC Network, and in particular for the newer generations that we are all empowered with accurate information about the PermaCulture movement, so we know our past, and don't go repeating errors in the future (hopefully).

 Here we'll be collating 23 YEARS OF HISTORY OF IPCs, not the sum-total of our history but an important collective-decision-making part.

PLEASE PARTICIPATE: if you know of additional information, wanto make corrections (make them openly - feel free to disagree, just don't erase other's views!).

If you don't feel confident with editing here direct, or wanto talk about this, there is now a dialogue group for this topic here:

http://permainst.ning.com/group/roots

1984 - IPC1 held in Australia & Tasmania

This very first convergence was disrupted by a half a dozen people who didn't know what permaculture was and kept interrupting & asking things like "what is a swale",  etc. and so it was decided there (& unanimously agreed minus the 6 disruptors) that the Conferences would be open to all, but the Convergences be just for practicing peer permaculturists for sharing experiences, develop policy and strategies.   At this convergence were made the decisions regarding the content of  the PDC ....

   * * (Robyn sending Journal articles with more detail)

1986 - IPC2 held in California, Berkley, Seattle & Evergreen College

      details?

1989 - IPC3 held in New Zealand

organized by Steve Hart in a style later imortalized as Kiwi Planning ...

At this conference the definition of PermaCulture officially changed from Permanent Agriculture to Permanent Culture, Urban PermaCulture & Bioregionalism was added to the PDC curriculum.   It was also decided to have the sequence of Conferences in Nepal, Copenhagen & South Africa.

The Kiwi Planning consisted in having the bus driver saying "I want my money first" when people got on the bus, then finding out, on the second day, that Lea & Bill, as teachers of the course, hadn't received payment and had had to pay for their own travel there ... so a hat was passed around.

The Convergence was held on Canterbury planes, a horrible place totally deforested by sheep .. there was only a small gulley with trees with a boy scouts camp.  We had a vegan & only-eat-local cook who every day would go up & down the gulley collecting for their salads.  After the second day we said we need some protein & went to the town and brought a big sausage, some fish, poultry and beans & peas.  We said to the  cook we'll prepare the meat ourselves but could he cook the beans ...  to which he replied "I'm leaving".  Eventually he agreed to stay if we cooked the meat in a totally different place ... and so we did.

Amongst others, there was Lea Harrison, Max Lindegger, 3 Danes and Bill Mollison, who talked day & night with a cigarette and a beer in his hands.   Max wanted to present Bill with a certificate of Professor in PermaCulture.   Also present was Chris Evans & Badri Dahal .. who went  on to organize the next IPC ...   The conference was held in Auckland and the Course at Waihiki Island

1991 - IPC4 held in Nepal

Here bioregionalism was firmly restated as important to the PDC curriculum because some disaster had just happened and the local PC response had been to plant watershed management trees to protect from flooding.

It was organised by Insan / badri Dahal with support from ChrisEwans, Jajarkot Project

The Convergence was held in a new developed Permaculture educational centre in Baretnigar in eastern part of Nepal (supported by the Australian and Danish 3. world aid organisations)      

This convergence was the manifestation of the strategic long time planning of the Nepali Permaculture development.

What other points came out of this one?

Due to lack of administrative and practical capacity at the Permaculture Institute in Tyalgum was it decided that the international Permaculture network could be structured by a Permaculture Guild consistent of Diplomaholders and administered from a secretariat in England and locally from gatherings of Diplomaholders.

After an international furore in the Permaculture network was it decided to lay it down.

But it was the start of deciding about some decentralization of the network.

The Conference was held in an international hotel in Kathmandu where all got a stomach infection. Here did the beginning of the global environmental catastrophes show up ñ which for the first time led to the statement of the 10.000 trees pr. person for coping with the climate change.

1993 - IPC5 held in Scandinavia

Course in Norway, then a boat trip to Sweden (Gerlesborg) for the  Convergence, then a bus trip through Denmark to Copenhagen for the Conference.   

Many people have said this was the best conference ever, because a  Great number and variety of people were able to attend thanks to  funding from Danida (a Danish govt. aid organization) which at that time financed many third world PCers.

There were about 400 people at the Conference, about 120 at the Convergence, and lots of people from the 3rd world.

Bill was at the Conference in Copenhagen and accepted the principle of decentralizing of the PC network as the numbers had created difficulties in the centralized system of issuing diplomas.   So he officially delegated authority to issue diplomas to Scott for the USA, Declan & Tony for Europe, Ali for Latin America.   Tony never used this authority personally but set up the Convergence model for diplomats, and Ali never used it, feeling that people wanted Bill's signature on their diplomas.

There are a report, a paperback of 137 pages in Tonys office in Copenhagen

1996 - IPC6 held in Perth

All the presentations documentation can be found here

After the Scandinavian IPC did The South Africans expressed difficulty in thinking of the next IPC there for political instability situation reasons.  So Pat Dare, a great peacekeeper and organizer, took the responsibility.

this was done in the order of Conference, Tour, Convergence (??course??)

There were lots of hippies at this convergence .. Skye proposed having the next IPC in Mexico .. the South Africans got very pissed off, as the first time they had said they weren't ready to hold the convergence  in their country, but this time they really had done the planning.   Relationships broke, the South Africans went home saying they didn't want anything to do with them.

There were also internal politics issues in the Mexico PC community, so  the next conference never happened as planned there either.

Then there was a large gap... after Mexico said they couldn't host it,  Argentina volunteered but they asked that Tony do the fundraising... so  then New Zeland was tried as an option .. but wasn't viable.

2005 - IPC7 held in Motovun, Croatia

Archives here, final report here > IPC7finalREPORT.rtf

Eventually it was tried to do it in Europe.. and Croatia was choosen because there were a academic professional group there, around Marija de Heffer Lauch. This group brook down a year before the event was planned, due to all academically excuses (Marija had a lecture about that at the conference ñ how unreliable academics are, itís in their brains). But Marija knew a  young group from the anti-war movement (which included Marijana) ... who hadnít done a PDC, so Tony went there and offered them one .. and  from this rose the organizational committee .. and within one year they put IPC7 together.  

The young group organized the transport side from Zagreb, Marija's father was an organic agriculture team inspector in Croatia and Vlasta was the one in Istria. She was in charge of organizing the accommodation side of things.  Tony couldnít get hold of her and up to the last minute, neither by email or phone, so he got on a plane ... and she was organizing... but the hotel & venue asked for an upfront payment of 15,000 dollars and they had to pay this or the  whole event was off.    So Tony phoned his bank and was able to get this loan (important, as Ali also found out, to have good relationships with the bankers, in order to get these events off the ground).

Important that there are long-term agreements at these events, and also that there is some financial support from the community, eg. in Scandinavia have the PC associations decided that 5% of all course inscription charges and 10% of membership fees go to an IPC fund.

In lots of permaculture events, it is common that many people who sign up never show up, but also that many who don't sign up, then show up.   At this event many less people came than was thought.  This was also due to a great boicott within two months of the event, in which Max Lindegger denounced the PC movement in the PC Activist, saying that people should join GEN (Global Ecovillage Network).

And on the events itself there were a harsh criticism from 4 or 5 younger people about everything: the accomodation, the food, the concept of Permaculture and the lack of international organisation.   Tony was left with a deficit of 3,000 euroes.

The main purpose of IPC 7 was to get the IPCs running again to keep the global understanding and the special coherent genuinity of Permaculture running again: more needed than ever.

There are a report attached from the events, that shows how the communal global understanding was on the edge to brake down.

2007 - IPC8 held in Brasil

see IPC8

Conference in SaoPaulo, Course in between 3 Favelas, Convergence in IPEC, Pirenopolis

after this the conferences are well documented..

Archives in ipcon.org

2009 - IPC9 held in Africa

IPC 9 OFFICIAL REPORT.doc  

also see http://www.ipcon.org

very good page of the Open Space presentations here

2010 - PC10 in Jordania.  With online conference ?

see IPC10

Many of us who have found International Conferences difficult to get to for many reasons, hope this next conference will be a quantum-leap in inclusion and interesting participatory democracy designs

If you don't feel confident with editing here direct, or wanto talk about this, you can talk here:

http://es.wiserearth.org/group/CPInst

 only members of the Chaordic Institute: free to join, just take the trouble of putting up your profile here please, so we can know you more personally, thanks!

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