In the realm of applied ecology, Brock Dolman is something of a one-man band. (Though he prefers the term “specialized generalist”—a phrase he made up, like many things he says.) He is a co-founder of Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (OAEC) in Western Sonoma County, now marking its 30th year. Through three decades Brock and his colleagues have grown food, saved seed, healed watersheds, promoted eco-literacy, and prepared community soil for a just transition. In addition to hands-on work like monitoring species diversity and stuffing gullies to slow streams, Brock is a dynamic communicator who has coined such eco-mantras as the water ethic “Slow it, Spread it, Sink it” (as opposed to “Pave it, Pipe it, Pollute it”). Many of OAEC’s programs and vision are informed by Permaculture, defined as “a design methodology for regenerative and just human settlement patterns that are based on natural patterns and processes.” Says Brock: “A good Permaculturist is a specialized generalist. You need to be badass in some things but you also need to show up for the whole.”
Judy D. Schwartz: You call yourself a “restoration ecologist”. What does that mean?
Brock Dolman: Ecology is the study of home, oikos, Being a biologist I see ecology through the lens of relationships, the way all the components of natural systems interact. Tragically, here on this planet—our home—most of our ecosystems are in a degraded state, having been highly impacted and modified by modern humans. Their biodiversity, health, carrying capacity, and relationships among the parts could use some help. In the ecosystem restoration field some of us feel an obligation, almost like a Hippocratic oath, to serve as earth doctors and do healing work for the planet. Restoration is that attempt to try to bring healing to ecosystems, and soil and water and life are the realm where we get to play.
Our soil has been exploited and mismanaged by agriculture. The worldview of industrial agriculture is that soil is dead. Many industrial practices make sure it’s dead: fumigating with chemicals and plowing and killing out the life and then supplementing artificially with fertilizers, “salts”. Literally “a-salting” the soil, a form of assault and battery. There’s a crime being committed here, so we ecosystem restoration folks are like detectives and some of us show up at the scene as EMTs—Ecological Medical Technicians—to apply CPR and holistic health practices to revive these systems.
Photo: California Department of Fish and Wildlife
JDS: What are you most proud of at OAEC?
BD: The biggest project has been the co-creation with my partners of the Sowing Circle LLC intentional community that co-owns and stewards the land and makes decisions through transparent consensus-based processes. The nonprofit center is where we do retreats and permaculture trainings and wildland stewardship. It also houses the WATER Institute, a sub-project of which is the Bring Back the Beaver Campaign that has recently had a number of successes.
Beaver are known as a keystone species because when you pull them out of the ecosystem it is weakened toward collapse. At the time of European contact there were 60-400 million beaver in North America. We’ve removed 390 million keystones throughout the continent. For the last 20 years I’ve been publishing papers, doing education, and helping other sectors of society understand that they benefit from the work of beaver. Like salmon restoration people: if we want to bring back endangered salmon, partnering with beaver will help us do that. The fire folks: think “Smoky the Beaver”, holding more water on the land for a less combustible landscape. We’ve eventually organized California, through the Governor’s office, to create a beaver restoration program. With our partner the Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), we co-sponsored the Beaver Bill AB2196 with District 12 Assembly member Damon Connolly to put the beaver restoration program in the statute, now with funding and permanent staff. In mid-June CDFW did the second pilot beaver reintroduction on tribal lands, with the Tule River Tribe in the southern Sierra Nevada. All of a sudden people are realizing—“Oh my god! This critter beaver, when it’s happy in its place it will help us out.”
JDS: The entryway for you was Permaculture. What do you see as the value of Permaculture in regenerative work?
BD: Many think Permaculture is a gardening approach that features perennial crops and no-till. I think of it as a design method in support of our larger vision that we call Resilient Community Design rather than a suite of techniques. After decades of witnessing modern industrial settler colonial patterns of land use and abuse in the way we settle landscapes, it has become clear to me that ecological illiteracy is one of the great epidemics facing our modern moment. Permaculture models a transition from that paradigm to a just transition paradigm that creates conditions for life in all its forms to thrive.
Applying Permaculture to a site or a whole community is a several-step process that begins with thoughtful observation. There’s a deep listening of: How does the sun work on this site? How does the wind work? How does water work? How is the soil working or not working? What are the big wild energies on the site? There are mapping and other tools for this. Then there’s the visioning. The first piece is “what-do-you-got?” and the second is “what-do-you-want?” Then we do integrated design to inform holistic implementation. The goal is to give people a rigorous method to arrive at a more rightful, responsible, regenerative relationship with themselves and place.
JDS: What are the benefits of a Permaculture Design Course?
BD: A Permaculture Design Course (PDC) is the entry level where you get a certificate. There are lots of programs, in-person, online, or a hybrid. The Permaculture community has been trying to figure out how to optimize accessibility while not losing rigor and depth of the methodology. I’ve been teaching PDCs for 30 years and have certified thousands of students. There are those that took it early and used it as a meta-platform for how to see and engage with the world. Then there are the folks who come back and say, “Oh, I wish I had taken a PDC 20 years ago when I first bought the farm. Because boy, would I have done a whole lot of things different!”
A PDC is like a college survey course. You get a taste of many things: food forests, grey water systems, natural building, community decision-making, composting, biomimicry. See what you get impassioned about and follow that. Find people in your community or online who are doing this work. Volunteering is a great thing. Volunteer at a local farm or school garden. Look out for conferences and hands-on workshops. You can hold the wholeness of the Permaculture framework as a worldview, a fractal, a watershed map of the headwaters…of your head. Like any other process, it’s life-long learning.
JDS: What advice do you have for would-be earth doctors?
BD: In terms of learning, have a look-see of what’s available to you and what fits your capacity and budget and need. Online there’s a broad marketplace of ideas. As for books, Toby Hemenway’s Gaia’s Garden is a very accessible intro to Permaculture as a method. At some point you’ll need to participate in-person. Permaculture or restoration is not alone work. Having to engage with other humans and have empathy and compassion is probably the most important skill for this work. Growing seeds or rainwater harvesting, that’s easy—that’s kind of plug-and-play. Getting along with each other? That’s really hard. I would argue that getting along with others is the limiting factor for society to move forward in a regenerative way.