About the Humboldt Permaculture Guild

Our mission : To promote permaculture in the redwood bioregion

Why permaculture?

Permaculture provides an accessible and empowering framework for individual and cultural change in the face of environmental challenges. Our focus is on resiliency, adaptation, basic needs fulfillment (food, water, shelter, community), natural patterns/systems/relationships, and providing models for others to follow.

Who we are

The Humboldt Permaculture Guild (HPG) is a group of food producers, business owners, builders, educators, and permaculture designers. We all share a belief in resilient communities, regenerative lifestyles, educating the community, stewardship of natural systems, local seed development, natural building and conserving water and energy use.

We aim to…

  • Provide platforms for networking

  • Foster social gatherings and events

  • Develop and maintain a flexible and productive Guild structure

  • Collaborate with complementary groups

  • Assist in designing and implementing permaculture initiatives

  • and especially educate and mobilize the community to these ends

Close up photo of Mullein in Humboldt County, CA

Our Board

  • Photo of Brook Douglass, Humboldt Permaculture Guild board member

    Brooke Douglass

    Brooke is a New York transplant who came to Humboldt County to further her degree in Environmental Science. While in school, she worked closely with many local non-profits focusing on issues such as climate and food sovereignty. In the five years she has lived in Humboldt, she established a career working in conservation protecting California's Coast. With her professional and guild work, she hopes to serve the community and strengthen our relationship with nature.

  • Photo of Levon Durr, owner of Fungia Farms in Humboldt County, CA

    Levon Durr

    Levon Durr has been a certified Permaculture Designer and teacher since 1998. He has been a teacher at numerous permaculture design courses, sharing his skills in wild food harvesting, gardening, natural building, and seed-saving. Levon offers permaculture site assessments and design. He is currently the Humboldt Permaculture president and owner of Fungaia Farm.  At Fungaia Farm, the focus is on healing the earth through mycoremediation and education, and edible mushroom production. You can reach Levon at levonriver@gmail.com

  • Photo of Niki Gribi, board member of Humboldt Permaculture Guild

    Niki Gribi

    Niki Gribi has an academic background in finance and economics and more than 20 years of experience working with non-profit organizations, including Habitat for Humanity, California Certified Organic Farmers, EcoFarm, the Watershed Stewards Program, and Food for People. She has been an outdoor educator, a market farmer, a program coordinator, an event planner, a communications specialist, and a fruit tree pruner, as well as a parent and gardener. Niki is a long-time advocate for strong local food systems and is also currently serving as Board Treasurer for the North Coast Growers Association.

  • Holly Hilgenberg in front of her Stained Ghost art installation at Breathing Bridges in Del Norte County, CA

    Holly Hilgenberg

    Holly Hilgenberg is a writer, artist, community builder and creative communications practitioner whose love of nature is central to her work. Holly has practiced herbalism, gardening and permaculture for more than a decade, learning through self study, workshops and programs including Earth Activist Training’s Permaculture Design Course. She was an active member of Cooperation Humboldt’s Food team and served on the editorial team for the 2021 Community Food Guide. She weaves art and nature together in her work as Community Director for the Del Norte-based non-profit DiRT & Glitter, in creating art that incorporates natural materials and processes, and in crafting and facilitating community offerings that explore creativity within the experience of nature immersion and working with elements of nature. You can learn more about her work at stainedghost.com.

  • Photo of Kayla Weiss, Humboldt Permaculture Guild board member

    Kayla Weiss

    Kayla Weiss is a Certified Permaculture Designer and former farmworker with a BS in Landscape Architecture from Rutgers University. Kayla has been working for Caltrans as a full-time Landscape Associate since 2023, where she collaborates with transportation engineers, stormwater specialists, environmental scientists, botanists, and construction professionals to provide planting & erosion control plans for state roadway projects. Kayla's work experience includes landscape design + maintenance, sustainable floristry + floriculture, herbalism, and all aspects of CSA/market farming - from her home state of New Jersey, to here in northern California. Passionate about community-building, food sovereignty, ancestral skills, and the intersection of landscape architecture + agroecology, Kayla is excited to bring her perspective & collaboration efforts to support the Humboldt Permaculture Guild and its mission. kweiss4295@gmail.com

Contact us

Interested in working together? Fill out some info and we will be in touch shortly. We can’t wait to hear from you!

We can also be reached directly at:

info@humboldtpermaculture.org