PERMACULTURE IN PRACTICE (PIP)
4-week Internship
This is a special opportunity to gain hands on experience implementing Permaculture systems under the guidance of experienced and internationally active Permaculture Designer Rico Zook. For one month we will live as a community designing, implementing and learning about the many different regenerative systems that are part of a functioning and productive holistic farm ecosystem. This is an in depth opportunity to live and work on a developing permaculture farm in the beautiful Pyrenees north of Barcelona Spain.
The Can Lliure Project is in its pioneer phase and this gives us the incredible experience of real life hands-on practical Permaculture Learning in the field, mentored and guided by professionals.



Week 1: Invisible Structures & Design:
This first week will set the solid foundation the 4 Week Permaculture in Practice Internship.Here we will have an overall look at our collaboratively created learning ecosystem.We will get a deeper look at the site itself and its Permaculture systems.We will refine the Can Lliure Design together, learn more about the invisible structures that strongly influence the success or failure of a permaculture project like social arrangements, legal, and finance.

• Introduction to community living and collaborative decision making
• How we organize ourselves living together for the next 4 weeks in a learning Ecosystem
• Daily Farm Chores, Schedules and Projects outline
• Presentation of the current state of Can Lliure Design and Vision
• Design Sessions on the Strategic Design for Can Lliure,
• The Invisible Structures understood and made Visible !

Week 2: Water and Earthworks:

All physical land systems are literally grounded in the earth. The Water and Earthwork aspect to macro scales of understanding about water and landscape for designing, working and shaping the earth as the foundation for regenerative systems; concurrently learning and understanding about how water interacts and affects the land, supports productive landscapes with human habitation, and its central role in resilience and regenerative system design.
TOPICS INCLUDE

• Water: mineral, resource, living, precious and political
• The watershed perspective
• Patterning in water and earthworks
• Keypoint and keylines: conceptual understandings and practical applications
• Earth structures: hand-built and working with machines
• Ponds: siting, construction, creating an ecosystem, full site perspective
• Water in the built landscape, urban and suburban situations
• Water and Infrastructure
• Forest Garden design and implementation
• Advanced Design strategies and techniques

Week 3: Annual and Perennial Production Systems:
With focus on our regenerative production landscapes we will dive deep into how to produce all our food needs in a regenerative way using annual and perennial species with the integration of suitable animals.This will give everyone the confidence that a regenerative way of producing food is possible in all climatic zones if we observe nature and work with her rather then against her. We will share with you several important design and implementation considerations in setting up such systems and also we will get a lot of time to actually practice in the field.

• Establishing and designing of regenerative Agroecosystems,
• Market Garden Design and Layout,
• Intro to Syntropic Agroforestry and Forest Garden Systems,
• Edible Landscaping,
• Animal Integration into Production Landscapes

Week 4: Sustainable Forest Management and Economic, Social and Invisible Structures Design:
Being surrounded by a big oak forest thats protected by the government we will have the opportunity to share with you about how to manage a forest ecosystem in a regenerative way.We also will talk about Fire Preparedness and Preventive Management Strategies as we are located in a Fire Prone Landscape.We will share with you some insights on Ecological Beekeeping and Ecological Mushroom Production.We also will have the chance to have a look once more at the Can Lliure Design and focus in from Pattern to Detail at the Economic and Social Landscape of the project

• Ecological Beekeeping,
• Ecological Mushroom Production,
• Forest Health and Management,
• Fire and Disaster Preparedness,
• Design of Can Lliure Economic and Social Landscape

POSSIBLE PROJECTS INCLUDE
Number of participants and the interests of the group will influence projects done. There is room for multiple concurrent projects, allowing for layered and expansive learning opportunities.

• Siting and Hand building small swales, boomerangs, and other small harvesting structures
• Installing greywater system for an outdoor shower
• Planting Guilds
• Working to establish a Forest Garden
• Annual and Perennial Garden Design and Implementation
• Designing and Creating a Nursery
• Drip irrigation design and installation
• Chicken and Duck coops and system
• IMO’s, Vermicompost, and Compost tea
• Pond siting and design
• Forest Management
• Building an Herb Spiral
• Can Lliure Permaculture Farm Infrastructure development
• Reishi and Shitake Mushroom log inoculation
• Truffle Plantation area preparation
• Bee forage area design and implementation
• and much much more!

  INSTRUCTORS

Rico Zook (USA)
For the past 20 years, Rico has been a Permaculture designer, consultant and educator. He has worked with private individuals, farmers, villagers and local organizations in India, Cambodia, Spain, USA, the mid-east and other parts of the world. His work focuses on assisting all levels of the global community to create culturally and environmentally appropriate life systems that are resilient and regenerative. He has also worked with local and indigenous cultures to help preserve traditional knowledge and technologies while adapting to, and becoming active members of, our rapidly globalizing world. With work in different climates and cultures, Rico has established himself as one of the new leaders and innovators in permaculture worldwide. This is further supported by his work with global permaculture organizations organizing the International Permaculture Convergence. He is a managing partner at Permaculture Design International, a leading global design, build, and educate company.
www.i-permaculture.org



Roman Eisenkolbl (Austria & Spain)
A semi-nomadic Tree Planter,Soil Builder and Seed Disperser has been studying and living in Permaculture Projects and Communities since over 8 years which brought him to a diverse range of Projects, Countries, Climates, Cultures and People all over the planet.
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He has lived, worked and learned in places like East Africa, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Australia, the Caribbean, South and Central America, Portugal and Spain.

He has been part of 15 PDC Courses (organization & co-Facilitation) and several short courses .He has learned himself from some of the Pioneers and Experts of Permaculture include David Holmgren, Darren Doherty, Rosemary Morrow, Robyn Francis, Sepp Holzer, Ernst Goetsch, Martin Crowford, Larry Korn, Alex Kruger (Berg en Dal Ecovillage), Bernard Declercq (Pebble Garden,Auroville), Rico Zook (i-permaculture) and Govinda Sharma (Organic Hasera – Nepal).

He is the founder of the Soil-Sun-Soul Project and Blog.

For the last 2 years he has been living, working and learning in Auroville, India and visiting,advising  and volunteering at countless other projects in South East Asia. He spent 6 months doing a Practical internship program  at the Permaculture Research Institute Maungaraeeda, Sunshine Coast, Australia, where he deepened his experience and studies in the field guided by PRI Teacher Tom Kendall. During his time in Australia he spend time in Crystal Waters (the first Ecovillage designed with Permaculture Principles),has been inspired by Permaculture Pioneers like Max Lindegger and Robyn Clayfield as he has been part of the monthly Crystal Waters Permaculture Village Markets several times.Recently he has been deeply involved with organizing together with an international Team the Pre IPC India Permaculture Teacher Training and PDC in India with a total of over 100 participating students from over 30 countries which greatly furthered his international experience and connections.

Currently he is based in Spain to start a regenerative Enterprise at Can Lliure a 100ha Living and Learning Centre and in the process learn more about eco-social life systems design and integrated Agroecologies whilst still supporting various projects in India, Sri Lanka and Nepal by co-facilitating and sharing his experience. 
https://www.soilsunsoul.net


ACCOMMODATION, FOOD, AND SITE

SLEEPING   

During the courses students get a chance to experience aour land and permaculture site more intimately by camping on the land. In a semi-wild area, we have several level terraces among the trees and stones for people to pitch their tents in a beautiful natural setting surrounded by mountains and forest..
There is also the possibility for some students with their own bus/camper-van to stay on the land, although space is limited; so if you are interested in bringing a bus, please get in touch and we’ll do our best to accommodate everyone!
FOOD

From the outdoor communal kitchen, we provide 3 meals per day, breakfast, lunch and dinner included in the cost of the course (except Sundays when the students are free to feed themselves!) 
Prepared with love, the food is always diverse, fresh, healthy, homemade and vegetarian. By that we also help to stimulate the local food economy by purchasing what ingredients are not grown at Can Lliure from the local organic “Cooperativa” and other local producers and processors

CAN LLIURE

Can Lliure as a place for mindful Human-Nature Relationships. With our aim of creating a Living, Learning & Research Centre to develop once capacities and to realize inherent potentialities with natures guidance and support.

We see Can Lliure as a important, vital place and seeding ground for ourselves and the wider global community to adapt to their surrounding environments once again and enjoy their bounties in a sustainable manner.

Can Lliure is based in the wonderful and magical Alta Garrotxa area close to the Spanish Pyrenees. The land we are in Stewardship of is 100ha and is mainly covered in wild Oak forest with lots of wild goats, wild boars and limestone cliffs. There are 3,5 ha of cleared terraces with stunning views of the surrounding mountains. We recently started to regenerate these terraces which in the future will become a diverse Agroforestry systems and organic vegetable gardens. We also started our first steps on Mushroom Production and we host a ecological Bee Sanctuary on site. We are very blessed and very grateful to have a clean, natural freshwater spring on our land from which we drink. We also have a few simple structures like outdoor showers, compost toilets, geodesic dome and bell tent to accommodate and host people to enjoy this wild and natural place. 

Pictures of the site can be found here
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B765VFv3Jln0SFpRRjA1cDBCRXM

The current initial evolving site design of Can Lliure can be found here
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B765VFv3Jln0R0hENUZJQ1RFM1k