Deborah Berman is an environmental health scientist with a background in environmental toxicology, water quality, and alternative dispute resolution. Born and raised in Moscow, Idaho, USA, she lived various other places before returning to the Palouse to settle. One of the places where she lived was Olympia, Washington State, where she was fortunate to be able to attend the International Permaculture Convergence when it was held there in the mid 1980s. It was a life-changing experience.

A self-proclaimed plant-geek, Deborah was for many years co-owner of a nursery which specialized in fruiting plants of all kinds. She is currently working on an offshoot (branch?) of that nursery which specializes in fruit trees suitable for container gardening.

Deborah is a trained mediator and a founding board member and past vice president of the Palouse Center for Conflict Management, a organization which focusses on training mediators, and training people in the techniques of restorative justice (victim/offender mediation).

Deborah is co-owner of one of the oldest suri alpaca farms in North America. She and her farm partner received a SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) Grant from the US Department of Agriculture to research browse polycultures as a possible way to extend the forage season for small ruminants. Based on what they learned from that project, they are in the process of transforming their farm, Lazy M Suris, into the Lazy M Permaculture Oasis, a five acre silvopastoral (agroforestry system combined with managed pastures) site.

Deborah is currently taking a break from that project to teach permaculture and to work on her own site, which will hopefully actually result in her finishing building her house!

When the weather is too bad to be outside, Deborah (when she is not knitting, weaving, or spinning), can be found working on The Monster Book of (Temperate Zone) Silvopastoralism, a guide for developing silvopastoral forage systems for all kinds of livestock, including bees.