Blue Mountains Permaculture Institute

The Blue Mountains Permaculture Institute is a not-for-profit education organisation based in Katoomba, in Australia's World Heritage-listed Blue Mountains. It was launched in January 2009 by permaculture teacher and author Rosemary Morrow and educator and community developer Lis Bastian, and it operates under the umbrella of The Big Fix Ltd. Its purpose has stayed constant from the start: non-formal education that is accessible to everyone, and practical strategies for growing social, environmental and economic resilience.

The teaching follows the learner-centred approach Morrow set out in the Earth User's Guide to Teaching Permaculture and Permaculture Teaching Matters. Courses are participatory, grounded in the second permaculture ethic of care of people, and taught in the conviction that how permaculture is taught matters as much as what is taught. More than a thousand students from around the world have graduated from the Institute's programs.

Those programs cover the whole arc of a permaculture education. Permaculture Design Courses give newcomers the standard grounding. The six-day Teaching Permaculture Teachers course prepares experienced practitioners to run courses of their own. Permaculture in Precarious Places carries the curriculum to settings where land, security or resources cannot be taken for granted. For experienced designers, the Institute awards merit-based Permaculture Diplomas, assessed through peer review and presented at the Australasian Permaculture Convergence.

The Institute honours the Gundungurra and Darug peoples, the traditional custodians of the land it works on, and it actively supports refugees both locally and globally, a commitment expressed in Morrow's own teaching in camps and war-affected communities. Its motto is 'Seeding the future'.

Permaculture Design Courses, a six-day Teaching Permaculture Teachers course, Permaculture in Precarious Places training, and merit-based Permaculture Diplomas assessed through peer review.