The Northern Rockies PRI was originally conceived of as an extension of a collective ambition to establish a realm-wide network of institutes. This vision was born and fostered alongside others, at the International Permaculture Research Institute on the continent of Australia in January of 2018. While we have sought high and low for a suitable property, right now, all we have been able to come up with with is an urban property on the northernmost tip of international edge space on the US Idaho State purchased in 2019 to be a base of operations for Boundary Conditions Consultancy and Designworks, and to serve as a flagship for regenerative agroforestry in the semi-arid cold climate intermountainous zone of the inland northwest. While we continue to look for the right land situation whereon we can establish a full-fledged manifestation of systems-thinking design science, our current base-of-operations and headquarters maintains lab facilities and continues to serve as the urban restoration office it was intended to be.
We practice methods pulling from ancient indigenous cultures, the antiquity of medieval European systems, cutting edge modern science, and more. We use anything from the most simple and ubiquitously available tools and materials to sleek high tech surveying instruments to provide solutions on a site specific basis. We strive to intervene landscape shaping events at the critical time to change future trajectories to encourage bioregional stability and positive future trajectories. We aim to provide our clients, students, friends, neighbors, volunteers with renewable value and multifold return on investment; we donate to projects in time and resources in this spirit of natural regeneration that is economically and energetically discerning but non-exclusive.
Bringing cosmic awareness to realm we know as earth…
Where the “Wild West” and the “Great Northern” intersect, at the confluence of 3 mountain ranges where the river flows north, on the edge of nations…
Bringing an understanding of natural patterns and putting attention to the urban sphere with intention…
The Urban Headquarters was typical city lot, quite degraded and neglected for decades – over a century, actually. In a short time, we regenerated the soil to a state of primary ecological productivity using lots of hard work, intelligent design and the secrets of what we know how to do. We installed urban scale water-holding earthworks, a successional forest garden regime, and homestead gardening tactics were all employed to great effect. It is a public demonstration site, where classes are hosted and further research is continued. It houses several home-scale businesses and serves as an example of formative thought processes and working with a small amount of land to produce and extend living systems into abundance. Having brought this site from wasteland to a comparatively fertile oasis (though still a very young system), we are now in the process of looking for a rural campus that we can demonstrate principles of restoration agriculture to the next fractal scale of resolution, to build greater examples and continue providing the communities of the Northern Rockies and beyond with such services. We are plugged into international support networks and are the movement. We are crafting the world to be the change we to seek: one property, one shovelful at a time. Check it out.
More to come; we prefer to have an on-the-ground earth presence rather than an abstract web presence, to us the mycelium and fungal soil web of life is the true internet.
For the common good of all life on earth, we march forward. This is where we’re at right now, this is what we’re up to.