Why Resilience?

We don’t know what the future might hold for ourselves and our communities. Creating resilient and durable systems that can respond and adapt to changes is one of the most sound strategies we can adopt in our lives, our businesses, our neighborhood and in our organizations.

If a variety of factors – such as climate change, peak oil, economic volatility – are coming together in unforeseeable ways, how might we best navigate through whatever comes to pass?

Or, to put it another way, how might we best design our systems to give people and our communities the best chance of an abundant, peaceful and resilient future? That future is one in which we have embedded our own health and happiness in the health and vibrancy of the natural ecosystems in which we live – as they are intrinsically connected and cannot truly be de-linked from one another.

And if it turns out that those challenges don’t come to pass, what’s the downside of our work? We still will have built thriving and healthy abundant landscapes and vibrant local communities!

Read more about resilience and, especially, adaptive resilience (so that any disruption allows our systems to evolve).

Our Work

The Resilience Hub emerged out of the Portland Maine Permaculture Meetup Group, which was founded in 2005 by Lisa Fernandes after she returned from the “Fueling the Future” conference in Kinsale, Ireland.

Since then, the Resilience Hub has evolved as an organization to hold community permaculture activity as well as more advanced projects. Our work is grounded in the permaculture ethics of Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share (and Future Care!). As with permaculture itself, our work touches many topical areas.

Some selected accomplishments…

Graduated more than 350 students from Permaculture Design Certificate Courses since 2008.
Graduated more than 50 students from the Advanced Permaculture Design Course; 20 of those students are using their permaculture design skills directly as part of their livelihoods.
Hosted Rob Hopkins for one of his few North American appearances in October of 2013.
Have provided professional permaculture consultation & design services to several hundred clients.
Convened the first Art of Hosting Training in New England in April 2014 and a follow-up Art of Collaborative Leadership training in November 2017.
Organized the successful 2010 and 2014 Northeast Regional Permaculture Convergences in Maine for more than 400 people each time.
Have averaged more than 70 events per year since 2005, ranging from skill-sharing events and workshops through guest lectures, courses and work parties.
Have created a “convening point” for more than 3,500 program participants via our Portland Maine Permaculture web site and calendar of events.
Convening point for the statewide permaculture organizing and catalyzing the Portland Permablitz Network (completed its ninth season in 2021).
Helped incubate the first Maine Tool Library which opened in 2015 as well as the Coop Design Lab, the Portland Permablitz program, the Repair Cafe idea, the Fermentation Fair, annual permaculture plant swaps, and permaculture group-ordering programs for tools and resilience-building supplies.
Have created a broad collaborative network with local businesses, organizations and agencies to build region-wide resilience.
Active in local, state and regional food-system and food security planning initiatives.