The Green Triangle is a social-profit (nonprofit) education organization based in Cleveland, Ohio. Our mission is to create social, economic, and ecological sustainability through permaculture design principles. In short, we propose a holistic revisioning of urban and suburban land use strategies that will respect and uphold our rich natural systems. This will require not only education, but also implementation and demonstration of a vast new toolset of best practices from sustainable building and renovation, home energy reduction, edible forest gardening, xeriscaping, native plant restoration, bioremediation, storm water management, and more.

Our center of focus is Cleveland’s urban core and its greater metropolitan area. Our small and dedicated team of initial founders and early board members have been meeting for over a year both in private and with local homeowners, farmers, market gardeners, block clubs, other nonprofit organizations, government leaders, and city planners with the goal of pushing a practical agenda for change NOW.

That agenda currently includes forest gardening as the primary solution to many of our present challenges here in the Cleveland area.

Cleveland presently has an approximated 14,000 vacant and abandoned properties. That is over 3,000 acres of land currently held in limbo and requiring over 3 million dollars per year just on the labor to mow. It is a serious issue, not only for the municipal budget, but also for public safety and community pride.

Once set in motion, a wide network of low-to-no-maintenance forest gardens would put that land back in use, providing community resources, green jobs, cleaner air and water, increased biodiversity, and perhaps most importantly, fresh and healthy food on the table.

Permaculture guru Geoff Lawton once said, “All the world’s problems can be solved in the garden.”

Let's start with Cleveland.