The intention for developing the iLAND Network is that members freely communicate and share solutions, resources and good practice amongst themselves, directly and through the iLAND Forum, as well as via IPEN.
We encourage demonstration centres to communicate between themselves, and are also keen to support the development of the iLAND Network and projects related to it – for example:
- Helping establish national LAND Centre systems by working with national permaculture associations, or collaborating associations – for example, Denmark has established its own Danish LAND Centre initiative and the Visegrad LAND Network is collaboration between the Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Polish and Ukrainian permaculture movements in eastern Europe.
- Helping collaborating groups of iLAND Centres to develop and expand their facilities, activities and impacts – in one or several neighbouring countries – e.g. by working with them to secure funding support linked to capacity building, education, networking and / or research.
- Helping translate particularly valuable education resources into the native or first language(s) that particular iLAND Centres are working with.
- Supporting the teacher training and development through iLAND Centres, particularly those that are native to the relevant country, culture and language to help expand and strengthen permaculture teacher training.
- Already there are discussions emerging amongst EuPN members (European Permaculture Network), including IPEN, about establishing a Europe-wide LAND Centre network and system. This example can readily be copied in other regions of the world.
In any of the above situations or similar situations, IPEN will play an important part in the collaboration, although iLAND Centres need to be aware that IPEN has very limited resources and capacity (so please do not expect us to do all the work!).