A note on the content for today’s episode. The interview which follows is a discussion of disasters and their impacts, including food insecurity, personal injury, and suicide. Listener discretion is advised.
How do we prepare ourselves for disasters, whether natural or manmade, such as a seasonal storm, global pandemic, economic collapse, or political upheaval?
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This question forms the basis for co-host David Bilbrey’s interview with David Dodd. Mr. Dodd is the founder of International Sustainable Resilience Center, a non-profit focused on helping communities recover from disasters and build the capacity necessary to prepare for and withstand these disruptions in the future.
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Specializing in economic development and drawing from his experiences in Louisiana, Japan, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, David begins by sharing ways to achieve resilience throughout a local region by investing in small businesses, growing individual entrepreneurship, and creating continuity plans. The conversation then shifts in a more personal direction as he provides an intimate look at several transformative experiences from his own life and his perspective on the four steps to take to move our individual lives and communities towards resilience. Throughout, he shares stories and anecdotes that weave all these lessons together.
Find David Dodd's work with the International Sustainable Resilience Center at isrc-ppp.org.
When I first sat down to edit this episode, I wasn’t sure where this conversation with the heavy initial focus on economic development would fit into the catalog of The Permaculture Podcast. Though I take a broad view on what it means to practice these ethics and principles in our individual lives and society and focus less on the landscape during interviews in order to expand the community discussion of what permaculture can look like beyond that space, there was quite a bit of this interview which initially sounded like it was steeped in the world of business as usual.
As I listened to David talk about the kind of work he’s engaged in, however, the way these systems move resources and knowledge, from government to small business, from the national to the regional and local level, began to make sense and made me think of Chapter 14 of Bill Mollison’s Designers’ Manual. That chapter highlights many different ways to look at permaculture outside the garden or homestead and remains a reminder from one of permaculture’s co-founders, of all the pieces of our society that need the application of our beloved design. So far, however, we’ve only begun to scratch the surface. Knowing what David and the International Sustainable Resilience Center, and other related organizations, are doing provides us an opportunity to engage with these allies and ensure people, communities, and Earth are considered and planned for in all of their actions.
If you know of or work with communities, companies, or non-profits that apply permaculture to their practice of inculcating resiliency, I’d like to learn more about them. Leave a comment below.
Until the next time, explore what you find most sustaining to your well-being and participate in the activities that build you personal and community resilience, while taking care of Earth, your self, and each other.
Related Interviews
Community Development Finance with Bill Sommers
Zev Friedman on Co-Operate WNC, Mutual Aid, and the Scale of Collaboration
Designing for Disasters: Understanding and Mitigating Wildfires | Matt Fidler
Emergency Management and Disaster Preparedness (Chris Gilmour)
Designing for Disasters with Natural Building (Oliver Goshey)
Resources
International Sustainable Resilience Center
Doughnut Economics