Formed in 1997 in Manaus, Brazil, as the result of an initiative backed by the United Nations Development Program and the Ministry of Agriculture, the Instituto Permacultura da Amazonia (IPA) was created to establish a sustainable farm and initiate a complementary permaculture education program . The farm has since become the most influential showpiece of sustainable practices in the Amazon.

Community water tank for emergency water supply for village community.

Relying on an integrated design of agroforestry, aquaculture, and multiple animal systems, the farm vividly displays the benefits of applying ecological principles towards the reconstruction of a destroyed landscape, transforming it into a productive and stable environment. Any part of the system can be replicated, in part or in whole, on an individual farm or greater community scale.

CFR school complex in front of IPA’s new jungle center deep in the interior of the Amazon.

IPA’s educational infrastructure hosts and trains apprentices in innovative architectural designs and renewable energy technologies. Half a million liters of drinking water has been harvested and is stored on site, and tens of millions more liters fill five fish ponds. Organically grown animal feed (3 tons monthly) is produced on site, making the purchase of commercial feed obsolete, and farm vehicles and machinery operate on bio-fuels, also produced on site. Hundreds of students from government agencies, universities and other NGO’s take our courses.

A Bunda design for multipurpose aquaculture

New IPA underground auditorium as seen from ferrocement fish tank.

Since its inception IPA has partnered its activities with the Fundacion Daniel D’ascal - a non-profit arm of Tectoy, a Sao Paolo business corporation based in Manaus. Together we are addressing the issue of urban food production in the slums of Manaus and our extension program is expanding our operations deeper into the Amazon interior.

Our 2006 Amazon objectives:

1. Expand the training and community activities program in our jungle center in Boa Vista do Ramos to serve an eventual one hundred and fifty communities. Pursue economic activities to include oil extraction (biodiesel), aquaculture, earth dam building, a fish hatchery, and an agriculture export program to urban centers.

2. Develop an organic farmers network on the outskirts of Manaus.

3. Publish a ‘How to’ manual for small-scale technological systems for biological sanitation, water storage, and the raising of small farm animals (pigs, sheep, chickens, native Amazon bees).

4. Introduce concepts of sustainable technology as general academic curriculae. A one year prototype syllabus is to be taught in association with the Federal Agriculture College of Manaus to graduate a class of students as ‘tecnicos de tecnologias sustentavel’. This is an official program with national implications and will be monitored by the Ministry of Education in Brasilia.

5. Link community economic initiatives with support from the local business sector ( Manaus Free Trade Zone), and continue developing and marketing native products that reinforce the economic base for the protection of the rainforest.

6. Strengthen working relations with the Federal University of Amazonas (bio-fuels, chemistry and agriculture faculties) and IDAM (Amazonas state agriculture agency).

Ongoing research to identify alternative formulas to substitute the crippling costs of commercial animal feed.

A designed "Garden of Eden" food forest.