Occidental Arts and Ecology Center

From PIW

The Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (OAEC) is a nonprofit organizing and education center and organic farm in Northern California’s Sonoma County. OAEC was founded in 1994 by a group of biologists, horticulturists, educators, activists, and artists seeking innovative and practical approaches to the pressing environmental and economic crises of our day. Much of the Center’s work addresses the challenges of creating democratic communities that are ecologically, economically and culturally sustainable in an increasingly privatized and corporatized economy and culture. OAEC's programs combine research, demonstration, education, and organizing to develop collaborative, community-based strategies for positive social change and effective environmental stewardship.

In OAEC’s Permaculture courses, students learn through group study and analysis, culminating in the presentation of a site design project. The 80-acre OAEC site is full of the results of hands-on design projects implemented by permaculture students, including numerous erosion-halting gabions, nearly a quarter-mile of infiltration swales, forest fuel-load thinning, natural building elements, sheet mulching, and food forests.

The Center is located in Sonoma County, California, 65 miles north of San Francisco and 10 miles northeast of Bodega Bay (click here to see map and directions). Most of the 80-acre property is protected as wildland and includes numerous walking trails through meadows and mixed oak, fir and redwood forests. The Center's extensive biointensive, organic gardens and orchards have been a source of inspiration and training for thousands of gardeners over the past 30 years, first as the Farallones Institute (1974-1990), then as the Center for Seven Generations (1990-1993), and since 1994 as OAEC.

http://www.oaec.org/