One of the most important men who has ever lived has recently died. He is up there with Gandhi, Mandela, Churchill and Krishnamurti. Unlike them he was not widely acknowledged during his life, being so far ahead of the curve, but his ideas have been adopted by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world at all levels, from the rebuilding of Cuba’s economy to farming in drought-stricken Africa to spiritual ecology at Findhorn. He is Bill Mollison, inventor of Permaculture.

Most people involved in the Transition Towns initiative will know that it is based on Mollison’s ideas: do what works, don’t keep putting effort into what doesn’t work, use natural processes to model solutions, co-operate rather than control, value small successes, take the long term view of everything. Rob Hopkins’ Transition idea came from applying Permaculture principles as a community-level response to global resource depletion and life beyond cheap oil. Read more here…