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PauloM

Page history last edited by PBworks 15 years, 3 months ago

  

  Paulo Mellett

 

 

 

 

          with Escopeta and Tita in Peru

 

 

Contact Details:

 

Wales, UK

+44 (0)1654 761708

+44 (0)7983 604309

paulomellettski(AT)gmail(DOT)com

skype: paulo mellett

 

 

Brief Biography

 

  • PDC in 2002 with Steve Charter at Ecoforest in Spain

  • BSc Development Studies, natural resource management, UEA (UK). 2002- 2005

  • Work on permaculture projects in Amazonia, Peru – including REDPAL with Limber Cabrera. Integrated agroforestry and aquaculture. 2004

  • Solar Water installer, Oxford (UK) 2006

  • Msc Architecture, advanced environmental and energy studies, Centre for Alternative Technology, Wales (UK) 2006-2008

  • Founding member of RESET, sustainable disaster relief training organisation.

  • Trained as a 'Strawbale Ambassador' with UK strawbale building social enterprise Amazonails

 

 

Projects/ Investigations

 

  • Ongoing work with RESET – Renewable Energy, Shelter Environment Training – to get more awareness and interest in sustainable technologies and strategies in disaster relief and aid sector: in particular natural building and passive design, renewable energy and permaculture/ ecological agriculture. I co-authored a briefing document for the all part parliamentary group on peak oil and gas and DFID, entitled “The Implications of Peak Oil on Development” available for download here.

     

  • Permaculture design for a farm in Portugal, including land plan, and strawbale and strawclay renovation and extension of house.

  • Hopefully will be teaching permaculture and natural building courses at Workhouse project in Wales in the new year - 2009

  • Developing strategies for climate-change proof ecovillage design, particularly hurricane proofing and flood resilience between the tropics. Collaborating with Roberto Perez and FANJ on a PDC graduate course on design strategies for zone 0 in 2009 in Cuba. Also teaching PDC in Cuba in early 2009.

 

Offers

 

  • Strawbale and natural building

 

Wants

  • Teaching opportunities (gaining teaching experience)

 

 

 

General Blah (Long Biography)

 

At the age of 18 I was turned onto a different path than most kids in my town by being diagnosed with leukaemia. I made a deal with the great spirit that I could come back to the world and live if I did something useful, and ever since have been looking for systems of regeneration and healing within and without. Obviously, as soon as I came across Permaculture it made perfect sense, and enabled me to articulate why so much of what was called 'normal' made absolutely no sense to me.

 

I have been a long time climber and activist, with greenpeace and other grassroots stuff. In the last couple of years have been doing a lot of anti-coal campaigning in the UK. Now I am looking to swing the balance of my energies over more to constructing the positive solutions, and want to work with permaculture full time.

 

Completed my PDC in Spain in 2002 at Ecoforest, a dryland project in the south, with Steve Charter, where I stayed for a few months and worked. After working in the gardens at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales, I completed a BSc in development studies, which included working on permaculture projects in Peru: one of my own in Iquitos, northern Amazon territories, working with a rural farmer to set up a demonstration farm for sustainable alternatives to the slash and burn so prevalent in the area, and the other being REDPAL's Shipibo Indian Aquaculture project in southern Amazonian region, with Limber Cabrera. Hard work and lots of mistakes, but I learned a huge amount. I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on 'silvoaquaculture' - integrated agroforestry and aquaculture techniques, in particular the advantages of eco-system based models of production over more intensive systems for poor farmers in the Amazon region.

 

In the past two years I have been focusing mainly on tools for zone zero – buildings and energy. I spent a year as a solar hot water system installer and I am in the process of completing an MSc in architecture and energy studies at CAT – now only have to write my thesis. My plan for thesis is quantifying and assessing the carbon sequestration potential of ecological agriculture, remembering the other multiple benefits we get from it, as compared to the more dangerous monocultural forms of 'carbon farming' that are currently emerging – monoculture forestry offsets, eucalyptus to biochar etc – that don't deliver the other benefits that ecological agriculture does.

 

I have approached my studies of renewable energy, natural building materials and passive building design with permaculture ethics and design principles in mind: the context of buildings and energy systems is within a broader holistic permaculture design that integrates them with food and water systems, instead of segregating them as most modern practice does.

 

During 2008 I have trained as a 'strawbale ambassador' with Amazonails, a social enterprise strawbale building company in the UK, who are responsible for pioneering straw into the UK and much of europe. I have participated in a house build in Bulgaria, lead a straw course at the UK convergence in September 08 and helped teach straw bale and clay plaster courses at CAT. I am currently working as a natural builder in Wales and have been involved in many projects, including low impact roundhouses, heavy timber frame constructions, and clay plastering.

 

I am now returning to broadscale permaculture and plants and agricultural systems, I am particularly interested in agroforestry and food forest systems. Currently working on permaculture design and strawbale and strawclay renovation and extension for a small farm in northern Portugal.

 

Projects for 2009 are continuing design and project work in Portugal, teaching on permaculture and natural building courses at the Workhouse in Wales, also perhaps getting involved in the hive project out in Portugal. Hopefully also going to Cuba to teach a PDC for Ryton Organics (formerly HDRA) who have an ongoing project there to combat desertification and regenerate degraded land. After that I hope to stay there and collaborate with Roberto Perez and FANJ on a PDC graduate course focusing on natural building materials and passive design techniques – strategies for zone 0.

 

I am also involved in RESET, a charitable NGO organisation that has developed out of the masters course students and staff at the Centre for Alternative Technology. RESET stands for Renewable Energy Shelter and Environment Training and aims to raise awareness of the challenges of peak oil and climate change, and the sustainable solutions to them, within the disaster relief and aid sector. In particular we aim to offer training and information to aid and disaster relief professionals on sustainable construction, renewable energy systems, and permaculture/ecological food growing systems, to ensure that the initial relief effort and subsequent phases of reconstruction do not lock in unsustainability as has so often been the case in the past.

 

Www.reset-development.org

 

 

I am a multi-skilled generalist, adaptable, a good communicator and good all-rounder: I dont have particularly excellent skills in any 1 field as I have chosen not to specialise too much. Diversity is strength. I want to get involved in ecovillage scale activities. I want to get more experience in general, and start teaching more. I dont feel right in the UK, and am looking for ways out...

 

 

Wants: teaching opportunities: permaculture and natural building.

 

Offers: help teaching and on general zone 0 stuff: buildings and energy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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