- The Site – Located in the shadows of Nightcap national park, in the sleepy, picturesque village of The Channon, Djaning seeks to incorporate contemporary regenerative agricultural practices with a laissez-faire artistic flair. Utilising a holistically managed Permaculture mainframe whislt using multistrata agroforestry with a homesteaders attitude.
- The Owner Operators
Fionn Quinlan (AUS) & Laura Whitley (UK) are environmental educators, gardeners, parents, designers, and permaculture practitioners. They are based in Sub-tropical Northern New South Wales, where they are developing a 25 acre site into an abundant, multifaceted farm-garden, come learning sanctuary, school, and home.
Fionn & Laura have applied a full praxis of study, integration and implemention of methodologies as project managers, owners, designers, facilitators and project officers. Including Permaculture (and it’s many affiliated techniques), Syntropic Agriculture, Holistic Management, Natural Farming, Miyawaki Method, Restoration Agriculture, Rainforest regeneration and more.
As educators Fionn and Laura each have over a decade of experience, their teaching methodology and educational approaches have been applied and developed largely in Australia, though has been inspired and applied in countries such as India, Ghana, Cambodia, France and throughout the UK. Their central theme as educators, be they 2 or 102, is education for critical conciousness through direct application.
Laura Whitley
Laura was born on a spring day in the newly budding suburbs of Southern England. Some of her fondest memories are of mountaineering adventures with her family, and all the days and nights spent adventuring in the nearby Alice Holt forest.
Laura studied fine art at UCA, Surrey, and has worked in as diverse positions as chocolatier, painter and decorator, therapist, gardener, councelor, artist, teacher and designer.
One of her more obvious introductions to the ecological aspects of the permaculture concept came when working in a remote village in the Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu, India. Being shown, and tasting, the layers of this tropical forest garden or ‘food forest’ was a key point in her beginning the process of what is now a full time passion and occupation. One that is now moving beyond the physical and sensory aspects of a forest of food, to the emotional and sociological landscape of us all.
Laura has trained with many of the worlds leading permaculture, nature connection and nature philosophy practitioners and pioneers. Laura digs hand drawn designs, community development, and the internal landscape. She walks the walk and directly applies the internal and external landscape design factions of what she teaches.
Fionn Quinlan
Fionn was born in Sydney, though promptly moved from Australia’s largest city and earned his first memories on a 10,000 acre sheep farm in central West New South Wales. Upon gaining a taste a for wide open semi-arid spaces, he and his family moved to the Northern Rivers of NSW, to a 72 acre ‘hobby farm’, where most of his days were spent tending to cattle, regenerating rainforest with his father or skipping school to go surfing.
Fionn holds a Bachelors Degree in Music, a Graduate Diploma in Education, a Masters Degree in Sociology (International Development) and is soon to complete his Permaculture diploma. He has tertiary qualifications in Holistic Management and Theatre.
Fionn has worked as an adult educator in sustainable community development organisations the world over, namely India, Ghana and Cambodia, where he met Laura. As well as running workshops at home, teaching drums, and raising three children, Fionn is a teacher of Environmental Education for K-12 @ Dorroughby Environmental Education Centre.
Many years of ongoing participation in civil disobedience movements, deep investigation through sociological and ecological lens’ led Fionn to permaculture, feeling it the only positivistic, solutions based concept that made sense.
Upon ‘discovering’ permaculture for himself he has hit the ground running. Studying and teaching alongside many of the movements best known characters.
A combination of the practical philosophies of Masanobu Fukuoka, Murray Bookchin and David Holmgren have been paramount in his development as a teacher, philosopher and permaculture practitioner.
Djaning 