About Paul Kean

Having grown up with earthmoving I have followed it with my occupation all around Australia and overseas in the civil and mining sector most of my life. I currently train operators of heavy earthmoving machinery in the safe and productive use of this equipment. I have been an avid gardener all my life and have a heart felt urge to help people to grow and share their food within their community.

After being introduce to Permaculture by my late father I searched for information on the system and found myself being torn between mining and sustainability activities. With this I gave up mining and found an internship at Permaforest Trust, NSW and was guided to use my earth working skills for good rather than negative. I had a real urge to get involved in aid work and with this urge I took a posting in Aceh 1 year after the Tsunami in 2005 for 2 months under Steve Cran. While overseas I then went on to manage earthworks implementation in Vietnam for 3 months at the Forestry Science Institute Vietnam project site outside Dong Xoai in Binh Phuoc Province. I returned hom and worked on a silvipastural project, Dalpura Farm in Moriac,Vic. In 2007 I headed to NZ to attend my second PDC at Taranaki. I also spent some time at Rainbow Valley Farm at Matakana. 2008 saw me take a posting in Japan at Mt Fuji Eco Park, Yamanashi Ken for 3 months where I helped implement Permaculture systems. While still overseas I took some time to look at subsistance farming methods in Thailand for 3 months. With a real urge to do more I returned home to save for and extended trip the India. I invested in a laser level and some light weight resources; computer, projector, files and a 500cc Royal Enfield motorcycle, which I stripped and rebuilt and hit the road looking for opportunities to promote Permaculture. What was meant to be work turned into a spiritual journey as well. After 9 months visa restrictions kept me from staying so I returned home. I April 2009 I traveled to Afghanistan for 1 month to do consultancy for Permaculture Afghanistan at Mahboba's Promise project site in Kabul. Later in 2009 I got a position in Malaysia implementing grey water treatment using Flow Form at Tanjung Sutera Resort at Kota Tingy for 1 month.

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Wanting to get involved in anyway I could and funding myself to do so I had found very little support or long term opportunities that could sustain my thirst for knowledge or engage in my skills so I have saved hard and have now purchased my own farm. I have been fortunate to be in a position to fast track my dream and purchase a property here in Tasmania to start an educational community project based on Permaculture and sustainable agriculture. My main field of experience and interest is earthworks and I have purposely sought a dryish property to demonstrate water harvest and storage in the landscape. 
Tiger Hill Permaculture is a 70 acre farm set amongst crown land and mixed forestry 10km from Buckland village, 45min north east of Hobart airport, 20km west of Orford. At present the site is in its initial design phase and I am taking time to observe seasonal changes, gather resources and prepare to implement earthworks for 1 hectare of forestry to act as wind breaks through pasture areas. I am in the process of getting approvals for primary producer as well as forestry planning with the assistance of Tim Winton of Permaforest P/L and will be setting up about 8 hectares in total over the coming years. As well as forestry, some soil rejuvenation will commence this year with some deep ripping and sowing of some nitrogen fixing pasture crops.


In the future I plan to run workshops and courses on a wide range of subject matter but at present I am seeking expressions of interest of those who may want to get involved at the early stages of implementing a Permaculture project. This would include basic machinery understanding/operation, surveying for water harvesting earthworks, keyline systems, managing earthmoving contractors, forestry preparation, forestry implementation and forestry management. The plan thus far is to create the earthworks in Jan-Feb and plant the forestry (about 600 trees)in Apr-Mar 2011.