site assessment
Ameli works with established Permaculture experts internationally. Depending on the client's needs, various team members are selected to come to the table and participate in any given project. If you are interested in Permaculture Design Philosophy and want to apply it to your land or business endeavor, a site assessment is the first step. In order to understand the full scope of the project an initial assessment is needed from which a design and implementation plan will later be formed. After the assessment the client can use our suggestions and implement the ideas on their own, or hire our team of professionals to manage the project holistically with the upmost integrity.
A Permaculture Site Assessment consists of the following practices and procedures:
1. OBSERVATION
Every project begins from getting to know our client and understanding their needs, goals and visions for their project. Whether you want to make money out of your property, become self-reliant, or just more environmentally conscious. By walking around your property together as well as spending time alone in quiet reflection, we will ask lots of questions and use all our senses to gather as much information as we can. Making no lasting judgements – just noticing – receiving impressions and taking detailed notes.
2. GATHERING DATA
We will need to study all existing maps of the land, if not available, we will need to create our own basic cost effective maps in order to determine what factors we are dealing with on any given site, the more information our clients can gather about the site prior to our involvement is extremely beneficial.
Types of information needed are:
- Maps
- Historical data
- Property size & neighbors (what’s happening upstream, upwind and around)
- Climate
- Soil information
- Water quality, quantity, source, use, availability
- Structures on site
- Plans for future
- Vegetation
- Any pests or persistent problems, catastrophes, potential disasters, etc.
- Rules and regulations of the land
- Resources and assets
3. INTERVIEWS
When possible Beeja consultants will sit down with each person individually who will be living on the site or somehow involved with the project. By interviewing all the members, we can come to understand the dynamics of each individual, hear about their dreams of how they want to interact and begin to understand the relationships formed. It also allows the members a chance to tell us their wish list and make known any likes or dislikes that they might want to see reflected in the design plans. By taking into account all the personal resources on site; everyone’s skills, knowledge, information, resources, hobbies, and states of health, it will all be addressed within the assessment and initial PC design phase.
4. ASSESMENT
Once we have done due diligence with our observations, research and interviews we will gather our findings in a format that can be shared with the entire team. The assessment report will cover all we have concluded and include suggestions on how you might move forward, identifying priorities, possible earthworks, explaining design strategies, species selection process, along with timelines and estimates for our services for implementation and project management.
Contact us to find out how Permaculture can create a sustainable lifestyle for you based on abundance principles.