A Life Shaped by Permaculture

The mention of the name Declan Kennedy is immediately associated with the whole permaculture movement in Germany and in Europe. He is also well-known for his work with Ecovillages. He is a dancer, an urban designing architect, a mediater, moderator and spiritual healer. Declan Kennedy in an institution. Indeed, it was he and his late wife Margrit who invited one of the two inventors of permaculture, Bill Mollison, to come to Berlin and to launch the concept in Europe 1981. From there Bill took it to North and South America, often accompanied by Margrit and/or Declan Kennedy as co-teachers. Bill had just received the Right Livelihood Award, the so-called „Alternative Nobel Prize“ when he came the second time to Berlin, this time speaking to more than 500 people who immediately became enthusiasts and followed the Kennedies in establishing the concept - the beginnings of a world-wide movement. The two Kennedies immediately did the Permaculture Design courses in Tasmania and were asked by Bill to be his representatives in Europe. Declan taught the first two Permaculture Design Courses in 16 European countries (and in Brazil) in the 1980's and into the 1990's. He then expanded the concept - with others - into the Global Ecovillage Network of which he became Founding Chairman in 1995. In the meantime, Declan & Margrit had moved from Berlin to the first German ecovillage: Lebensgarten (1985) where they also invited the other founder of Permaculture: David Holmgren who had been continually expanding the concept into landscape design. people design and design for sustainability. Declan's development ran pretty well parallel, now a amazing life's work. This book, written by the German author and biographer Peter Krause and translated by Californian Elisa Graf, shows how most of Declan's transformation came about and how his creative upbringing in Ireland and other activities before 1980 paved the way for his later inspiring contributions.