Whilst I have gardened since childhood, my passion for permaculture is primarily motivated by my deep concern over climate change and the implications for that for EarthCare, PeopleCare and FairShares. If permaculture as a movement can engage with multiple systems, adopting a permaculture approach is one of our best hopes for the future.
As noted, as an organic gardener in my personal life, I have been interested in permaculture for a long time anyway. As a psychologist and systemic therapist in my professional life, I particularly appreciate the holistic approach that permaculture offers, including as it does the critical variable of people and their needs and behaviour in the design of sustainable ecosystems. My interest in the latter led me to undertake Looby Macnamara's People & Permaculture course and I would recommend both this and her associated book.
I also have a particular interest in building retrofit. Here in the UK, we have one of the oldest housing stocks in Europe and, although new building passive houses may be more appealing on the face of things, a low carbon approach necessitates that we effectively address the issue of improving our existing buildings. My own house is unfortunately a solid walled building so I have a personal interest in this topic and am planning a low energy retrofit to improve its performance. I attend Ecobuild (the world's largest green building show) every year and would recommend this as a source of information, workshops and lectures (much of which is available online).
I'm currently involved in turning my latest permaculture design for my own patch into reality, as well as sharing my knowledge with the Workawayers and Helpxers that I host. I used to be a WWOOF host, but I prefer the latter systems in the UK.
I'm also involved in our local permaculture group and in the development of a local permaculture community garden, focussing on low input forest gardening.