Instituto de Permacultura e Ecovilas do Cerrado: A

In the past years there has been crescent global awareness on issues of sustainability. Many social and ecological movements were created in response to the sense of global crisis and the need for a sustainable future. One such movement was Permaculture. Permaculture is a recognised path to sustainable culture which was created by Right Livelihood award winner, Bill Mollison. Permaculture stands for permanent culture. It is a design system for creating productive, sustainable human communities by which we can exist in such a way that we don’t continually erode our future on earth. This holistic design system works with nature, rather than against, through imitating natural processes, using wisdom of traditional and indigenous survival systems and modern scientific technological knowledge to create permanent and abundant communities. Permaculture ethics is defined by Mollison (1988:8) as caring for the Earth, caring for all species and sharing the surplus. The founder, through a series of lectures and intensive educational courses brought the movement of Permaculture to Brazil in 1990. This case study presents the undergoing of a permaculture ecological centre in Brazil as an experience on influencing people and environmental policies, educating and demonstrating the possibilities of a localised sustainable model.