Name:
Tracy Hind
Position:
Tutor
About Tracy:
Falling in fascination with permaculture while working on a Queensland farm, Tracy completed her PDC with Brighton Permaculture Trust in 2011 and has gone on to become a course tutor, management group member and part of Brighton Permaculture Trust’s People Care group
Tracy also works for a small mental health charity and freelances in community development and education. She is passionate about work that challenges barriers to inclusion. She co-works a permaculture-designed allotment and is slowly becoming more proficient at growing food. She aims to become a competent permaculture ‘generalist’, with a keen focus on people care.
Courses:
Tracy teaches on the following courses:
Name your permaculture hero? Why them?
Can I name two? Pandora Thomas who set up the Black Permaculture Network, and Rosemary Morrow, legendary teacher and teacher-trainer. I’ve not met either of them but would love to.
Pandora because, much as we might wish to integrate not segregate, there’s still so much work to do around understanding and breaking down the barriers to inclusion, to do more work around combating racism and inequality.
Rosemary Morrow because she has done so much to make permaculture ideas accessible and teachable, and to enable others to go and teach it.
Which permaculture principle do you have to remind yourself of the most?
Produce no waste. The people I share my life with are mostly not permaculturists, although they have varying degrees of consciousness and concerns about the environment. I’m far from the place I’d like to be myself in relation to waste, and when I spend time with my family and my partner’s family, and see all the endless goods, plastic and wasteful shopping, I often feel despair. I don’t want to be the policewoman or the preacher, so I try to introduce it lightly.
Which permaculture principle is always popping up in unlikely places?
Apply self-regulation and accept feedback. I don’t look after my health and well-being as much as I know I need to, and my mind, body and spirit, as a team, will suddenly remind me of this.
Best example of permaculture in action?
Just going by places I have visited myself, I’m still thinking about Sapote Farm, the first time I encountered permaculture, near Townsville in Australia, where I worked as a volunteer. They were obsessed, they couldn’t teach you enough, and had the most amazing library. Their main objective was to conserve rare indigenous fruiting trees and shrubs, long before ‘bush tucker’ became a fashionable thing. The farm was designed on permaculture principles, almost all needs were met within their system, and their love of the environment was inspiring. I still have some questions about Australia, but I haven’t yet seen a more beautiful and surprising land based design.