Mapping Permaculture Convergences – Ian Lillington

Ian Lillington discovered permaculture via City Farms and Community Gardens in England in the early 1980s when Bill Mollison travelled there to promote this new idea.

Ian did his PDC in Scotland in 1990 and a workshop with Bill in 1991 and shortly after, migrated to Australia, partly because it was the ‘home of permaculture’.

Australia/New Zealand had hosted Australasian Permaculture Convergences {APC} every 2 years since 1984, which was the first one anywhere. That 1984 event was truly international, as Permaculture had started in Australia in the late 1970s and people came from far and wide to find out more.

Ian attended his first APC in 1992 in Queensland at the Crystal Waters eco-village, and in 1993 attended the International Permaculture Convergence in Sweden and Denmark in 1993. Since then, Ian and his family have built 3 eco-homes and developed a small business in teaching and consulting on permaculture. Now based in the town of Castlemaine, north of Melbourne, he is connected to a large local, national and global network.

Ian has the lead role for the next APC that will happen in April 2027 at the Woodford Folk Festival site, a dedicated parkland of 40 hectares that has been developed using permaculture principles. Tickets go on sale in August – https://www.returntothevillage.com.au/

Ian is happy to be be be contacted at Ian.lillington@protonmail.com

CoLab Podcast with Ian Lillington © 2026 is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International 

The creation of this podcast episode was made possible through funding received from the Emergent Festival.

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