This is an opening lecture. The principles of functional design for sustainability are unique to Permaculture design.
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From a singular event all other events are set in motion in recognizable and predictable patterns This pattern recognition is the core of design in Permaculture.
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Efficiency of energy, resources, and time, and the creation of highly productive systems are the results of good Permaculture design. The methods are obvious once we have become co-creative with the forces of nature.
Download video   (159 MB)

Find out why it is so important to grow your own food and how to install the easiest, and highly productive, home food propagation systems; mulch garden, potato box, herb's spiral, and more. You don't need much space. These are basic Permacultural techniques.
Download part 1    Download part 2 (~151 MB total)

The tree is life - profound, magnificent, and mysterious. To learn what little we can know of trees is sufficient to leave one awestruck and reverent.
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Why is a tree green? Where does a tree end or begin? Why have all human societies destroyed the tree? A Mollison rave.
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These are very specific trees which are used around the world for their ability to improve
soils. They are invaluable in range for livestock, as well as in fields under cultivation.
Download video   (163 MB)

Methods to plant, sustain, and best utilize woodland and wood for fuel, forage, windbreak and construction.
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What is cultura promiscua? To maintain functional bio-diversity is a basic tenet of Permaculture. Severely degraded land can be easily restored to highly productive land by using good observation techniques, plants and animals in succession, and common sense.
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... a continuation of #10. Two main techniques: the chisel-plow, and the wonders of worms and how to cultivate them. The patterns described in these two videos can be replicated in any type of Permaculture system, and scaled to any size.
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...a continuation of the Trees video. Potable water - where does it come from? How did it get there? What has become of it? What we can do to ensure that we will have safe water to drink, and to conserve as much of this precious material as possible.
Download video   (157 MB)

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Once one has learned to harvest water, then the real fun begins with production of the myriad of foods and marketable commodities hosted by ponds and other water-rich environments.
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There are a multitude of ways to harvest, conserve, and utilize water. These strategies apply to coastal regions or islands with with zero precipitation, arid lands, as well as to areas with plentiful seasonal rainfall.
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As desert is rapidly claiming vast areas of our planet, millions are on the verge of starvation. Yet, crops which occur naturally in arid land can provide all necessary nutrition for people and animals. The strategies discussed arise from years of observation in the deserts of Australia and from the peoples of Kalahari.
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... continuation of Drylands 1. Never, never irrigate the desert. The devastation caused by irrigation of arid land is irreparable. But there are alternatives: methods to set up a drought proof system. This is serious Permaculture!
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A documentary on the permaculture work done in Ecuador by the Rainforest Information Center, Centro de Investigatión de los Bosques Tropicales.
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NetWorks Productions - Permaculture
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100% of your tax-deductible donation will help us maintain this web site to continue to spread the good news of Permaculture Design around the world. Any size donation is gratefully accepted.

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Straw Bale Construction
Straw bale construction is gaining worldwide recognition as a viable, high-performance, earth- and people-friendly building technique which utilizes a natural by-product of food production. The Straw Bale Solution is 30-minute video introduction to straw bale building. It offers viewers an excellent look at $1.50 a square foot straw-bale homes in Mexico and the custom high-end straw-bale mansions of Santa Fe... How and why they are built, why they make so much sense and cents, and how to get started are all covered."

The Straw Bale Solution (#C 01)
Building with bales can produce ecological, empowering and affordable housing, and NetWorks' award-winning video provides an entertaining overview of how and why. Narrated by Athena and Bill Steen, co-authors of The Straw Bale House book, The Straw Bale Solution features interviews with architects, engineers, owner-builders and leading straw-bale advocates. See how-to-build, learn about weather and code implications, and experience the barn-raising, community-building aspects of straw-bale homes. Then follow the Steens south of the border as they work with Save The Children in Sonora, Mexico, empowering local townspeople to create comfortable homes from straw bales - an abundant agricultural "waste product" of the region. Educators and innovators, Bill and Athena Steen push the boundaries of vernacular architecture and reveal how the world-wide housing shortage could have a Straw Bale Solution. Made possible by the Katherine and Lee Chilcote Foundation and The Lifebridge Foundation. 30 minutes.

The Last Straw
The Last Straw, the quarterly journal of straw-bale and natural building, began in 1992 with Judy Knox and Matts Myhrman of Out On Bale (un)Ltd at the publishing helm. Five years later, with The Last Straw well-established and recognized as the resource for up-to-date and pertinent straw-bale construction information, Judy and Matts felt the need to begin focusing on other important projects which had to be put on hold when interest in straw-bale construction skyrocketed. They began the search for a responsible, committed team who would continue the tradition of high quality outreach and reporting they had established, and in 1998 they chose NetWorks Productions to be their production and publishing successors.

In 2003, TLS was transfered to, and is now published by the Green Prairie Foundation for Sustainability in Lincoln, Nebraska.  For a current subscription visit www.thelaststraw.org

Networks still sells back issues (#1-39) of TLS

Contact:
Catherine Wanek, NetWorks Productions
119 Main Street
Kingston, NM 88042
575-895-5652
mail@builderswithoutborders.org

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the realization of all our projects. For this reason we request
that our copyrights be faithfully observed.
 
Audience participation of tax-deductible donations are gratefully accepted.
 
If you have a project idea which NetWorks could help you realize,
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