Food for thought? Join us as we showcase a series of films centered around the rise of permaculture and the art of eating sustainably. We look at our own local food heroes, Robert and Robyn Guyton and their journey to creating a permaculture food forest in Riverton, we visit Mangarara, in New Zealand’s beautiful Hawke’s Bay and finally we hear about Hua Parakore, which provides a framework using Indigenous values – Māori principles – for producing natural food without chemical inputs or GMO.

An Invitation for Wildness: Amazing 23-Year-Old Permaculture Food Forest (20 minutes)
In the small town of Riverton at the bottom of New Zealand’s South Island is Robert and Robyn Guyton’s amazing 23-year-old food forest. The 2-acre property has been transformed from a neglected piece of land into a thriving ecosystem of native and exotic trees where birds and insects live in abundance.

Growing Wild Together: Magical 28 Year-Old Permaculture Food Forest (16 minutes)
In Growing Wild Together we return to the nearly 30-year-old food forest growing on 2 acres of urban land in the very south of Aotearoa New Zealand. The forest, previously an abandoned section filled with rubbish and burnt house remains, was the subject of An Invitation for Wildness. Now we’ve returned to find out what has changed in the forest and for the people who live there.

Creatures of Place: Living a Radically Simple Permaculture Life (12 minutes)
Creatures of Place is an insight into the wonderful world of Artist as Family: Meg Ulman, Patrick Jones, and their youngest son, Woody. Living on an urban 1/4-acre section in a small Australian town, Meg and Patrick have designed their property using permaculture principals. They grow most of their own food, don’t own cars – riding their bikes instead – use very little electricity, and forage food and materials from their local forest.

The Plummery: Incredibly Abundant City Permaculture Garden (8 minutes)
The Plummery is a suburban home where a backyard permaculture garden measuring only 100sq/m (1076 sq feet) produces over 400kg/900 pounds of food year-round! Kat Lavers describes her approach to gardening, including vertical and biointensive growing, and how important it is – and possible! – for city dwellers to be food resilient in the face of natural, financial and social crises.

Building Indigenous Food Sovereignty with the Hua Parakore Organic Framework (9 minutes)
Hua Parakore was established in Aotearoa New Zealand by Te Waka Kai Ora, the National Māori Organic Authority. It provides a framework using Indigenous values – Māori principles – for producing natural food without chemical inputs or GMO. It also encapsulates the Māori worldview in its approach to how food growers are verified as Hua Parakore, with principles that require practitioners to deeply consider such things as their connection with the land, its energy, the many species living on it, and their community.

Check out our other Film Sessions:

The Wao Summit is a six day annual event held in the Southern Lakes (Wānaka and Queenstown). Its aim is to inspire, educate and enable our transition as a community and nation to a healthy, thriving, diverse, low carbon community.

This event is part of the Wao Summit 2022, check out the full programme here.

wao.co.nz