I joined PINA because my friend Peter Bane asked me. I respect Peter deeply for his patient and humble leadership in the movement. I see the value in transcending the iconoclastic and counter culture roots of permaculture while including the robust soil from which it was born.
It is now time to build bridges. We need both to honor the roots and the elders of this ecological wisdom and to organize ourselves effectively to meet the large scale ecological instability created by an untethered and immature culture. The problem is the solution: we have the opportunity to create a culture of great beauty, abundance and equitable sharing of resources, and the world is hungry for it.
Marco Chung-Shu Lam, MSOM, L.Ac
has been practicing and teaching permaculture and sustainable living skills for over 25 years in diverse climates from the Andes to the Hawaiian islands. Originally trained by the founder of Permaculture, Bill Mollison, Marco’s teaching style moves away from the lecture format and emphasizes getting people’s hands in the Earth. Marco is the founder of the Mandala Integrative Medicine Clinic and a renowned acupuncturist and herbalist who grows many of the herbs used in his practice. His vision is a melding of ecological sustainability and nature-based health care where our personal healing and our land stewardship are deeply intertwined. Marco has been an active creator of new permaculture curriculum. He pioneered the “Permaculture through the Seasons” course with Sandy Cruz, and through the 9-month permaculture course planted seeds for a more robust permaculture community. Marco created the permaculture curriculum for the Environmental Studies department at Naropa University in 2006 and stewarded the program there for six years to become the most popular class on campus. He is passionate and committed to teaching a new generation of earth stewards and healers to show up with their gifts and presence to help regenerate the relationship between people and the Earth.
