The Spokane Permaculture Symposium brings together the Spokane permaculture community along with people interested in learning more about permaculture. It's about incorporating permaculture ethics, principles, objectives and techniques into our gardening, farming, restoration, planning and community work. The focus area is the City of Spokane, Spokane County, the Spokane River watershed and the Spokane regional foodshed.
Coming Soon
The schedule for Saturday and Sunday at Spokane's Shadle Park Library includes lightning presentations by regional experts, breakout sessions and roundtable discussions on critical topics that everyone can participate in, not to mention networking and community-building. Lunch on Saturday is on your own. Grocery stores and restaurants are nearby or bring a picnic lunch to enjoy in Shadle Park.
Following the symposium at the library on Saturday, there will be an overnight campout at Heartsong in Tumtum, WA from 5pm Saturday until 11am on Sunday morning. The venue offers a spacious remodeled barn where you can mingle and enjoy a catered dinner and breakfast. Hike around the lake. Sleep under the stars. It is required to REGISTER for the campout if you come for that ($30 camping and food; $10 food only with no overnight stay). No pets or children please. Dinner and breakfast will be provided and potluck style donations of food are welcome too.
This event encompasses:
Permaculture: Whole systems design for yards, farms, cities, bioregions and societies. Includes regenerative agriculture and agroecology, economics and governance.
Earth Repair: Ecosystem restoration, holding more water in the landscape, reducing wildfires, increasing biodiversity.
Bioregionalism. "Bioregionalism is a philosophy that suggests that political, cultural, and economic systems are more sustainable and just if they are organized around naturally defined areas called bioregions ... bioregionalists see humanity and its culture as a part of nature, focusing on building a positive, sustainable relationship with both the sociological and ecological environments" (Wikipedia). Globally, more people, be they peasants or whole governments, are doing their thinking and planning at the watershed level. In our case the natural bioregion is the lower Spokane River watershed. The Spokane Permaculture Symposium hopes to contribute to the increased adoption of bioregionalism in regional land use planning.
Scope of the event:
Networking/ Meet-up. This event is being organized by members of the permaculture community and we are putting out a call for all permaculturists and like-minded people in the region to participate so we can grow our network, meet each other and collaborate more.
Action Plans. During the event, small-group breakout sessions will explore the program's identified topic areass. Invited guest presenters with specialized expertise and symposium attendees will have these conversations in a roundtable format where everyone has a chance to speak and each group will report back to the whole group. One outcome of this process might be drafting a series of recommendations to be communicated to the citizens of the area. What would we recommend to improve the regional ecology and society?
Invitation:
We are particularly inviting people from Spokane, Spokane County and surrounding counties-- people who are involved in (or interested in) permaculture, earth repair (in its many forms) and/or bioregionalism. Permaculturists are always interested in Earth repair/ecosystem restoration since 'Care of the Earth' is one of the permaculture ethics, so we have common cause with people from the Soil Conservation District, native plant organizations, regenerative farmers & gardeners, indigenous peoples, environmental groups, and others concerned with ecosystem health. If that describes you, please come and share your wisdom with us. When the symposium is over, we hope we will all be better equipped to incorporate what seeing the world through a permaculture lens has to offer. Maybe permaculture can put new tools in your hands and add to your effectiveness. We invite you to attend. If you know someone who might be interested, please feel free to pass this information on to them.
Here are the roundtable topics identified so far:
Regeneration
Permaculture
Disaster Preparedness
Reduce Wildfire Hazard
Increase Local Food Production
Community Gardens and Food Forests
Soil Health
Watershed Health
Access to Land
Bioregional Planning
This event is co-sponsored by:
