Glacial Lakes Permaculture

Glacial Lakes Permaculture believes that good Permaculture design can solve many of the world's most pressing problems and needs, whether it be in the area of home food production, small-scale energy, or more broadly as it applies to relocalization.

Our Work

Glacial Lakes Permaculture offers a variety of services to individuals and organizations, including educational programming, design, and consulting.  Please visit our Services page for details.

Who We Are

An experienced permaculture teacher and designer, Karl J. Schmidt is founder of Glacial Lakes Permaculture, an organization and demonstration site dedicated to permaculture education, design, research, and consulting.  Karl earned his first Permaculture Design Certificate in Australia from Bill Mollison, the co-founder of the worldwide permaculture movement, and Geoff Lawton, director of the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia.  He has also done permaculture design training (including a second PDC) in Brazil with André Jaeger Soares and Lucy Legan at IPEC (Instituto de Permacultura e Ecovila do Cerrado).  Karl has visited and studied most of the major permaculture design sites in Australia, and has many years of teaching, research and field experience, both within and outside academia.

In addition to many talks, workshops, and public presentations on permaculture and related topics (such as Peak Oil and Transition), he has developed and teaches an annual All-Seasons Permaculture Design Course in South Dakota.  He has guest-lectured on permaculture in the US, Australia, and Poland.  Karl is a member of the Worldwide Permaculture Network and Transition South Dakota.  He is also an Extension Master Gardener. 

Karl has designed his own five-acre cold temperate climate permaculture site on the northern plains of the US, and has worked with various clients on designs.  Since 2007, he has been collaborating with the Ecocentre ICPPC in Poland on various educational projects, including the development of a small permaculture forest garden.

Early in his career, Karl did cartography and air photo interpretation for Martel Laboratories, a private mapping firm in St. Petersburg, Florida.  His projects focused on the US National Wetlands Inventory.

Karl holds a BA in Geography, an MA in International Affairs (with an emphasis on international economic development), and a PhD in History.  He is an experienced teacher, having taught at the college- and university-level for 20 years.