Picture:
Bill Mollison and Enrique Hidalgo
The Latin American Permaculture Institute was born by recommendation of Bill Mollison during the World Permaculture Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, the year 1993.
I was a little reluctant to start something called the Latin American Permaculture Institute ILP in Bolivia, because there were other permaculture organizations in other Latin American countries that had already reacted against me taking the lead in starting a Permaculture Institute that applied the name of half a continent. Although this was completely understandable, the desired effect was not to centralize any form for power or excercise any kind of control of the word Permaculture, but rather inspire the creation of many institutes all over the American continent. Permaculture after all, focuses on cooperation rather than competition and on community values rather than selfish gains.
Bill said to me: Just start it, and everyone will follow... We had already given the first Permaculture course in Bolivia with invited teacher Alejandra Caballero from Mexico, so it felt comfortable to simply continue the work. The first institute founded in Latin America, was Marsha Hanzis institute in Brazil and it existed long before the ILP. Later, Marcelo Bueno started the Permaculture Institute of the Mata Atlantica IPEMA, André Soares and the Permaculture Institute of Cerrado IPEC.
We have lost track of all the new institutes and organizations bringing this so necessary tool to our precious continent, but we salute all of them and thank them for all the great work they are doing for our Pachamama. They are welcome to write to us to we stablish a link with one another and come closer together.
Since that time, many courses in Permaculture Design have been given by the ILP at El Poncho Ecocenter in Bolivia, which was the base for our courses during the last 10 years.
Today, Andes Studies is re-starting its course activity with a series of Permaculture Designers courses in both Norway and Bolivia. Our teacher team is composed of highly experienced teachers like Giovanni Ciarlo, Maria Ros, Lucía Bategazzore, Enrique Hidalgo, Marcelo Bueno, Carlos Gomez, Kristen Getler, Julio Perez, etc.
This page is dedicated to all those wonderful connected people who would like to take a course to become a designer in the field of Permaculture, and enhance this world with beautiful solutions and with the retrofitting of damaged areas all over the globe.
For those of you travelling throughout South America, your chance to get a PDC certificate is at hand when you pass Bolivia.
We offer studytrips following the courses for those interested in digging even deeper into the subject.
Welcome to a wonderful experience!
Sincerely Yours,
Enrique Hidalgo
Andes StudiesBill Mollison was right. It did not take long before other institutes were started throughout the whole Latin America taking the name of "Institute" in their own countries.
