Summer 2009

What is permaculture anyway?

About Permaculture

First identified and named as such by Australian farmers Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s, permaculture is basically a set of practices guided by a set of principles. Its pratitioners' goal is to design truly sustainable human habitats by closely observing and applying nature's patterns.

"Permaculture is the art and science of designing human beings' place in the environment. Permaculture design teaches you to understand and mirror the patterns found in healthy natural environments. You can then build profitable, productive, sustainable, cultivated ecosystems, which include people, and have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems.

Permaculture designs range from households to major agricultural enterprises and even entire bioregions. Permaculture integrates disciplines relating to food, shelter, energy, water, trees/plants, wildlife, livestock, weather, waste management, economics and social sciences. These integrated designs create systems capable of yielding far more than the output of conventional systems. Permaculture can reclaim devastated lands, roll back deserts, build just social/economic systems, and design planet-based livelihoods.

Most design systems are defined by a "market driven" ethic. Such designs are subservient to the conclusions of a short term cost/benefit analysis, discounting or ignoring such factors as environmental degradation or destruction of human community. Permaculture departs from any other design system in that it is guided by a common sense ethical system. This system forms the criteria for design decisions. The difference is in the ethic:

Earth Care People Care Surpluses distributed in accordance with the first two ethics--Fair Share.

Briefly, when a design component isn't ecologically sound, community-building, and careful in its use of resources, then it's pretty unlikely that it will work out in the long run. This ethic is the basis of sustainability and also makes excellent, long-term business sense. Systems designed with these ethics are ecologically sound, economically stable, community building, and don't leave future generations with a cleanup bill for today's enterprise." --David Blume, International Institute for Ecological Agriculture

Knowledgerush has a good basic page with resources for further information here

Interview with Kat Steele of the Urban Permaculture Guild and David Blume on KPFA radio's Terra Verde program... listen

Editor's note: of particular interest in this interview is David Blume's description of permaculture's relationship to anti-capitalism. The permaculture revolution posits not a confrontation, but a growing withdrawal of support from capitalism and its replacement with the more sustainable principles embodied in permaculture.