Permaculture education in Taiwan began with a shack in the mountains above Taipei City, where Hui-i Chiang and Peter Morehead transformed degraded land into a living classroom.
Evolving over 27 years into the island nation’s leading permaculture organization, the Earth Passengers has trained thousands through 34 design courses that integrate traditional ecological knowledge with modern sustainable practices.
Earth Passengers began in 1997, when Chiang and Morehead initially focused on environmental education before discovering the transformative potential of permaculture. After Morehead completed a Permaculture Design Certificate Course in 1999 at Tyalgum Farm in Australia, established by permaculture co-founder Bill Mollison, the couple began integrating permaculture philosophy and principles into their educational programs and projects, pioneering permaculture education in Taiwan, where the concept remained virtually unknown.
The organization invited Australian permaculture pioneer Robyn Francis to hold the country’s first Permaculture Design Course in 2008. Since then, Earth Passengers has worked with international permaculture teachers, including Darren Doherty, Tom Ward, Joel Glanzberg, and Jude Hobbs, conducting 34 PDCs to date and hundreds of short courses over 16 years, building a strong network of students and colleagues across Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China.
Hui-i Chiang and Peter Morehead have conducted 34 Permaculture Design Courses since 2008, published four foundational permaculture books in the local language, promoted urban agriculture through sheet-mulching in Taipei parks with rainwater catchment systems, and hosted the 15th International Permaculture Convergence in 2024, bringing hundreds of practitioners worldwide to Taiwan. Photo courtesy of Earth Passengers.
Morehead regards his career as soil regeneration, restoring ecological diversity, feeding people, and inspiring others to live more resilient lifestyles. In addition to teaching courses in urban communities, villages, and schools throughout Taiwan, he provides professional permaculture design services. His work includes ongoing implementation of Earth Passengers Permaculture Learning Center design, corporate farm and homestead designs, rainwater harvesting system design and implementation, ecological education site design, rooftop utilization designs, and traditional architecture renovation using natural building materials.
Chiang’s journey into permaculture education in Taiwan began after working in Mailiao in 1994, before the construction of the Sixth Naphtha Cracker Plant devastated the countryside. Deeply moved by the countryside and intimately aware of nature’s rhythms, she began a career in environmental education. She learned permaculture design from Morehead after his 1999 training in Australia, and then received permaculture teacher accreditation from Permaculture College Australia after years of promoting urban permaculture design, urban agriculture, rooftop gardening, and ecological communities from 2008 to 2016.
The couple’s quarter-hectare property on Taiwan’s east coast in Taitung became both their home and a permaculture learning center, demonstrating permaculture education in Taiwan through hands-on practice. Divided into three areas, the house, the annual garden, and the food forest with ponds, the land sits at a low point with water draining in from all directions, presenting unique wet-site management challenges. They deepened ponds in the center while establishing water-hungry planting around edges, transforming excess moisture from a liability into an asset.
The totally off-grid house features walls made from natural building materials, which Morehead and volunteers construct on-site. Compost toilets, chicken runs, and classrooms complete the demonstration site, showcasing practical permaculture applications. Visitors describe the property as inspiring evidence of what can be accomplished on small parcels through thoughtful design and persistent implementation over the years.
Permaculture education in Taiwan through Earth Passengers extends beyond the learning center, with publications that improve access to knowledge. The organization published Taiwan’s first book introducing permaculture, “Design for Life,” by Morehead and Chiang in 2010. They translated and published Rosemary Morrow’s “Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture” in 2011, David Holmgren’s “Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability,” and Morrow’s “Earth Restorer’s Guide to Permaculture” in 2024, making foundational permaculture texts available in the local language.
Morehead served as editor-in-chief for these translations while contributing to Green Magazine’s feature issue on permaculture design. He served on the boards of directors for Homemakers’ Alliance and Taiwan Watch, on EPA’s committee for environmental education, consulted for New Taipei City community building center, and chaired Delta Electronics Culture and Education Foundation’s Home Energy Conservation Project, bringing permaculture principles into policy and institutional contexts.
Taiwan’s highly urbanized landscape, with only 33% food self-sufficiency and heavy reliance on imported energy, creates unique challenges for permaculture education in Taiwan. Earth Passengers promotes urban agriculture through community activities, using sheet mulching to grow vegetables in small parks in Taipei that were previously just lawns. They install rainwater catchment systems with overflow connected to banana circles, making watering easier while demonstrating practical techniques adaptable to urban constraints.
The culmination of Earth Passengers’ permaculture education in Taiwan came with hosting the 15th International Permaculture Convergence from mid-November through mid-December 2024. After attending IPCs in Cuba and India, Chiang applied in 2017 to host IPC15, bringing hundreds of participants from around the world to southern Taiwan for an over-week of presentations, workshops, and discussions.
Earth Passengers brought Taiwan to the global stage by hosting the 15th International Permaculture Convergence in late 2024, drawing hundreds of participants from around the world to southern Taiwan to explore how indigenous ecological knowledge and modern permaculture design can work together to build more resilient urban and rural communities. Photo by Cye Reyes.
The convergence theme “Connecting Urban and Rural Communities for a Resilient Future” addressed permaculture for disaster mitigation, refugees and vulnerable groups, youth education, community-based economics, resilient land management, and Austronesian/East Asian traditional ecological knowledge. Earth Passengers organized the event single-handedly, with volunteer teams, and in cooperation with the Rukai tribal village of Taromak to showcase indigenous ecological practices alongside contemporary permaculture approaches.
Earth Passengers offers courses ranging from introductory classes that provide a foundation in permaculture design to advanced courses that deepen understanding of specific skills. Hands-on workshops include self-sufficiency training in energy design, such as solar cooking, passive solar design, fire efficiency, water design, including landscape and household rainwater harvesting, soil remediation, and natural building. This spectrum introduces permaculture design concepts to thousands from diverse backgrounds in formal and non-formal education systems.
Earth Passengers’ greatest achievement isn’t the thousands trained or books published. It’s proving that permaculture education in Taiwan can take root in local soil. What began as a translation of permaculture concepts evolved into integration with Austronesian traditional knowledge, Rukai indigenous practices, and solutions specific to Taiwan’s wet sites, tropical growing seasons, and urban density. Earth Passengers proves that persistent education can catalyze nationwide conversations about self-reliance, ecological restoration, and what it means to inhabit land sustainably in the 21st century.
