Rob Hopkins

Rob Hopkins is an activist and writer on environmental issues based in Totnes England He is best known as the founder and figurehead of the Transition movement which he initiated in 2005 Hopkins has written six books on environmentalism and activism According to Bill McKibben theres no one on earth whos just done more environmental stuff and inspired more doing than Rob Hopkins Born in Chiswick London Hopkins grew up in London until the age of 12 when he moved to Wiltshire attending St Johns School before then moving to Bristol where he went to the Bristol Waldorf School for two years followed by Henbury School to earm his A Level This was followed by an art foundation course at Bower Ashton Art College also in Bristol From 1988 he spent two and a half years living at Istituto Lama Tsong Khapa a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Tuscany Italy working as the house manager He then spent a year travelling in India Pakistan including a visit to the Hunza Valley China Tibet Hong Kong and then back to India where he met Emma who has been his partner since then They settled in Bristol where Rob earned a degree in Environmental Quality Resource Management at the University of the West of England and also undertook his Permaculture Design Course Hopkins holds a first class Honours degree in environmental quality and resource management from the University of the West of England 19931996 a Master of Science in social research 2007 and a doctorate at Plymouth University 2011 on the subject of transition Localisation and Resilience at the Local Level The Case of Transition Town Totnes He is a visiting fellow at Plymouth University and in July 2013 was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of the West of England The 4 October 2016 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Namur Ireland 19962005 In 1996 Rob and his family moved to southwest Ireland to West Cork He initially worked with An Taisce West Cork writing and illustrating a booklet called Woodlands for West Cork He began teaching permaculture initially as short courses and building up to running full design courses initially as an evening class Together with another family he and Emma set up Baile Dulra Teoranta a charity with the intention of creating an ecovillage project In 1999 with another family they bought The Hollies a farm near Castletown Enniskeane After a few years they were granted planning permission for an ecovillage development In 2001 he started and taught the Practical Sustainability course at Kinsale Further Education College initially as a oneyear course and later as the first twoyear Permaculture course in the world Between 2003 and 2005 its students built the Wooden O Theatre an amphitheatre using local materials The Hollies Centre for Sustainability ran a series of courses in natural building and built two new cob houses using local materials In October 2004 Rob and Emmas house was destroyed in a fire Source Article Rob Hopkins from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30