Julie Budgen is a director at Corvidae Environmental Consulting Inc. and has been working as an environmental consultant with a B.Sc in Environmental Planning for over 13 years before taking the Permaculture Design Certificate Course with Verge. She was drawn to the course because of its comprehensive and holistic nature, impressed with how it can be implemented with “minimal impact by reducing the need for resources such as water and chemicals and/or weed control.”

After taking the PDC in June of 2010, she quickly started implementing what she learned into her environmental consulting. “First adding it in the Environmental Assessments (EAs) as recommendations. Then approaching clients to design their projects with permaculture principles.” Some of the topics that she found most interesting and beneficial were water storage strategies and weed control. “Before my PDC I just prescribed pulling and mowing, etc. [of weeds]” Julie stated, regarding the weed management plans that she writes.

Though Julie is just getting started using permaculture design, she is using her property as a pilot project, and applies the principles to daily life in her home, yard, and greenhouse. The part of the PDC that was most influential for her was “knowing that there are options to have a well developed system that runs on it’s own (no energy/resource input).”

Looking towards the future, Julie said, “I have a 5 year plan to be fully implementing permaculture design systems for clients throughout BC, Alberta and Brazil. My dream project is to reclaim a mine into a permaculture system, creating a food forest, after the successful remediation of the soils.”