The Belgian/Dutch Permacultuur Magazine has recently published its final issue, after eight successful years. Each issue had the core value “Designs for a resilient future,” and covered all aspects of permaculture, both the practice and theory: the edible garden, arable and horticulture, economy, social permaculture, transition, news and research.

Recently, Oliver Holmgren and Richard Telford from Melliodora Publishing were interviewed on a livestream with Jesse Tack from the Permaculture Institute of North America. The interview gives great insight into the personal stories of both Oliver and Richard, as well as what it takes to run a successful permaculture book publishing house that operates in line with the permaculture principles and ethics.

David was recently a guest on the Circular Metabolism Podcast, where host Aristide Athanassiadis invited David to speak about what permaculture is, how it can be applied to different contexts, what a permaculture lifeway looks like, how permaculture principles can be applied to all territories and what are some books and films David recommends.

Congratulations to Tim Loveday for writing the winning poem of the 2023 Venie Holmgren Environmental Poetry Prize, ‘i watch a cat choke / call it [redacted].’

Great Australian Walks is a new documentary series showcasing 10 of Australia’s most beautiful day walks. Host Julia Zemiro will take viewers across the country by foot in an entertaining waltz through history, geography, science, travel, and culture.
In episode 3, which aired on Thursday August 24, Julia chatted with David Holmgren at Vaughan Springs on The Goldfields Track, in beautiful Djaara Country.

If you have always wanted to learn permaculture but haven’t been able to commit to a 2-week intensive course, this live online PDC might be the course you have been waiting for.

When his mother passed away, David Holmgren established the Venie Holmgren Environmental Poetry Prize to honour his mother and her work as a poet and activist. It is with much excitement that we are launching the 2023 Venie Prize. Information and entry details can be found here.  

A huge thank you to Sébastien Marot for taking the time to translate three of David’s Writings into French: Money vs Fossil Energy: The battle for control of the world (2010), Crash on Demand: Welcome to the Brown Tech Future (2013) and Fusion Futures (2023).

Are you an Australian Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander? You are warmly invited to apply for a scholarship for the upcoming May – September 2023 Online PDC. Gadigal Elder Uncle Charles Davison and his partner, Wiradjuri woman Jen Ridley, guest teachers on the PDC and co-sponsors of the scholarship with

Permaculture elders Su Dennett and David Holmgren, alongside permaculture activists Artist as Family, are featured in a new French TV series directed by Thierry Robert and starring Cyril Dion as the narrator.

Please join David Holmgren on Monday November 28 from 8pm – 9pm AEDT for a free online RetroSuburbia masterclass, hosted by Morag Gamble. The masterclass is presented by the Permaculture Education Institute and Sustain: The Australian Food Network, who is the initiator and host of Urban Agriculture Month. The theme for 2022 is Growing Edible Towns and Cities. 

Are you ready to begin your permaculture journey? Or are you ready to take it to the next level? The team at Holmgren Design is excited to be offering two upcoming permaculture courses with David Holmgren, Beck Lowe & guests: A Live Online Permaculture Design Course and 2023 Rocklyn Ashram Permaculture Design Course.

Thank you to all the poets who took the time to compose their heartfelt and mindfelt reflections. We received nearly 300 entries to the Venie Prize this year.

You are warmly invited to join David Holmgren in a tour beyond the boundaries down the gully to Spring Creek, exploring the territory where he, Su Dennett and others in the community have for decades been stewarding the common land on a larger scale, making tracks, planting and pruning trees, grazing goats, building leaky weirs and engaging in other positive action that enhances ecological diversity, makes the land more fire safe and amenable to locals and visitors alike.

The Papillon Project is an educational charity that promotes sustainable living and environmental awareness to young people in the UK. They work with secondary schools to inspire young people to grow food for themselves and their local communities. David Holmgren is thrilled to continue being one of The Papillon Project’s patrons.

Jim Gale is a man with a vision. Through his organisation Food Forest Abundance, he is working towards turning “50% of the lawns around the world into Food Forests. “We can solve ALL of the world’s major problems,” he says.

While it’s best to do a PDC in your own bioregion, committing to a 2-week residential course is simply not possible for everyone. If you live in or around Central Victoria, and you are looking to learn more about living the ethics and principles of permaculture, you might like to book into the Castlemaine Permaculture Hub PDC. David is not the lead teacher, but a guided tour of Melliodora with David and Su is certainly part of the program.

We did it! We not only reached our initial crowd support campaign target of AUD$30,000, but we also reached our stretch target of AUD$40,000! Reaching our initial target means we can now go ahead and print the latest iteration of Rosemary Morrow’s best selling book, The Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture, revised as The Earth Restorer’s Guide to Permaculture, right here in Australia. The extra $10,000 means we are well on our way of being able to print the book in the US, ready for US distribution later this year.

We are a bit excited here at Holmgren Design. We have been running residential PDCs annually at the Rocklyn Ashram for years, but this is our first foray into the online PDC space. Rather than pre-recording all the sessions, we are running this PDC as a live online course, and limiting the class size to 26, so there will be plenty of opportunity for everyone to participate, be involved in discussions and get to know one another.

In partnership with ‘Rabbit: a journal for nonfiction poetry,’ we are thrilled to announce the launch of The 2022 Venie Holmgren Environmental Poetry Prize. Submissions close August 10, 2022. Major Prize: AUD$1000. The judges for the 2022 competition are Georgina Woods and Joel Davison.

Permaculture is sometimes understood as the work of the co-originators and sometimes that of one man, Bill Mollison. In fact, a diversity of people have contributed to its foundations, growth and spread, including Rosemary Morrow. With “Earth Restorer’s Guide to Permaculture”, Rosemary consolidates her substantial and ongoing contribution to the understanding and application of permaculture as a design system for living lightly and yet abundantly on this earth.

Introducing The Holmgren Permaculture Hub, a learning portal where you can learn the ins and outs of what it means to live a permaculture life. Take a course or a tour, or snuggle up with your favourite permaculture book to discover ways that you can apply the permaculture principles and ethics to your own situation.

50 years on, is the Limits to Growth report still relevant? 
Please join us for an exciting conversation between two dynamic environmental thinkers, Richard Heinberg and David Holmgren.

To celebrate International Permaculture Day this coming Sunday May 1, the Permaculture Education Institute is presenting a series of free panels, including Session Two: Permaculture Futures, featuring David Holmgren.

David was recently interviewed by Patrick from Artist as Family. As they write on their blog, “Our conversation ranged from the personal to the geopolitical, dark green ecology to bright green billionaires, pandemic constriction to war construction, the role of energy in shaping culture to the gaming of the progressive liberal media.”

Bushfire has been a recurring theme in my work over nearly four decades and a central concern for anyone involved in permaculture design, teaching and practice in rural Australia, especially the south east of the continent, which has the dubious title of being the most bushfire prone region in the world.

The portrait of David Holmgren, painted by Eugene von Nagy, was a finalist in The Lester Prize, the third largest portrait prize in Australia, after the Moran and Archibald. Voting is now open for the People’s Choice Online Vote.

David’s latest writing, “Pandemic Brooding: Can the Permaculture movement survive the first severe test of the energy descent future?” has now been translated into French, which you can download as a PDF at the top of this page: https://holmgren.com.au/writing/pandemic-brooding/

We were thrilled to announce David Holmgren, as the first Patron of Permaculture Australia at the Australasian Permaculture Convergence earlier this year.

We received nearly 200 entries to the Venie Prize this year – thank you to all the poets who took the time to compose their heartfelt and mindfelt reflections. This year the two judges were Carissa Lee and John Charles Ryan. As John said after reading the poems, ‘Thanks again

In 2019 David Holmgren sat very still for a long time, something difficult to do for the indefatigable 60-something year old. While David sat, Eugene von Nagy sketched and painted a portrait of David that has just been made a finalist for The Lester Prize, the third largest portrait prize in Australia, after the Moran and Archibald.