The Vale da Lama Internship Course is a 10-week residential program that picks up where the popular PDC (Permaculture Design Course) leaves off, providing skills, hands-on experience and in-depth knowledge for continuing permaculture work in your own projects.

Throughout the program the learning consists of a combination of in-depth theoretical information on the subjects, hands on activities and practical design work.

The course subjects include:

Design skills and techniques

Water Conservation

Soils and Food Production

Food forest maintenance

Holistic Management & grazing planning


Eco-construction (light)

Urban Permaculture

Community and Transition

Teacher training

with specific topics like aquaponics, animal husbandry, home gardening, rainwater harvesting, mushroom cultivation, etc.


The course contains a design challenge continuing throughout the course and one day per week of work on the farm projects and maintenance jobs.

The main tutor, Lesley Martin, one of Portugal's most experienced permaculture teachers, has been teaching permaculture courses in Britain and Portugal for more than 14 years.

Specific topics will be lead by other local teachers and specialists in their fields, including Nuno Mamede, Pedro Prata, Sergio and Carmen Maraschin, Maria Rute, Helder Valente and others..

Venue information:

Permaculture Institute of Vale da Lama is located in the South West coast of the Algarve in Portugal. The farm has 42 ha of formerly intensively farmed land with gardens, orchards, food forests and pasture, now being healed and tended to by practicing permaculture and regenerative agriculture.