Oakhaven’s integrated farming and waste management system combines the ethics of Permaculture with the design principles of ZERI. The principle underlying both is to connect processes so that waste from one becomes an input to another.

Permaculture is a word coined by Bill Mollison which means Permanent Agriculture: a sustainable agriculture based on guilds or beneficial groupings of trees, shrubs and perennials that support each other.

Ethics is at the core of Permaculture. The four elements of Permaculture ethics are: Care of the Earth; Care of all beings; Share the surplus – take and use only what you need; and be aware of the limited resources of the Earth. Permaculture is a design system, based on these ethics, for building sustainable human habitats, cultures, and environments.

ZERI stands for Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives. It uses five design principles derived from Nature and the five Kingdoms of Nature – bacteria, algae, animals, fungi and plants – to design systems to eliminate waste by finding ways of turning wastes either into inputs – and reducing costs – or into new products – which add revenues. In either case the bottom line increases, and man-kind gains more benefit from what nature produced – the raw materials we all take for granted.

In June, Oakhaven sponsored a ZERI based Teacher Training program taught by ZERI founder Gunter Pauli and attended by 16 local teachers. The program focused on environmental literacy and systems thinking grounded in the sciences – biology, chemistry, physics, engineering and math – and other disciplines – economics, ethics, history, geography, life-style, sociology and psychology.

This group of local teachers is planning to offer programs using the 36 ZERI based fables in summer programs, after school programs as well as through programs offered by other organizations.

For more information about this program, contact Christie Berven at cberven@oakhavenpc.org or at 970-259-5445.