In under three decades, permaculture has developed from its modest and relatively inconspicuous beginnings in Australia in the late 1970s into a thriving global movement.
The simple question that Bill Mollison and David Holmgren posed when they founded permaculture was, "How can we meet human needs by modeling human developments after natural systems, rather than destroying natural systems?" They did this after observing the devastating effects that agriculture and human settlements were having on the ecology of their native land. Today, communities and practitioners of permaculture are expanding and proliferating all over the world as a result of this fundamental search.
At its core, permaculture is an interdisciplinary and diverse movement. It makes extensive use of both conventional wisdom and modern scientific understanding in an effort to reintegrate human culture into the framework of living ecosystems. Moreover, permaculture is highly contextual. The geography, environment, climate, culture, economy, and needs and goals of the local human community must all be firmly ingrained into permaculture designs for them to be successful.
Despite the fact that it is exceedingly challenging to succinctly explain a movement as vast and diverse as permaculture, there are a number of often used formulations put forth by numerous influential figures in the permaculture movement:
“The conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystemswhich have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems.”
— Bill Mollison
“Consciously designed ecosystems, which mimic patterns and relationships found in nature,while yielding an abundance of food, fiber, and energy for provision of local needs.”
— David Holmgren
“Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integrationof landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.”
— Geoff Lawton
“A set of techniques and principles for designing sustainable human settlements.”
— Toby Hemenway
“The Regeneration of people and place.”
— Penny Livingston-Stark
Scope of the Work
The phrases "permanent agriculture" and "culture" were initially combined to form the term "permaculture" by Mollison and Holmgren. This language invention represented the initial desire to develop an alternative agricultural system that would be long-term resilient and mostly composed of perennial species, similar to a forest system.
However, as their ideas developed, Mollison and Holmgren pushed for a different, slightly more radical definition: permaculture = permanent + culture. This adjustment reflected the realization that if we are to truly alter the catastrophic course that we are on, much more than agricultural practices need to change. The fundamental human tendencies that have led us to the current point of crisis must be changed if true sustainability is to be achieved. Therefore, permaculture calls for a cultural change that affects not only how we feed ourselves (agricultural), but also our housing, transportation, economics, social structure, education, energy, health, and even the fundamental way in which we interpret our relationship to the world around us (i.e. spirituality).
The permaculture flower created by David Holmgren may best exemplify this permaculture's broad, integrative, and revolutionary vision. A set of ethics and design concepts that are applicable to many other fields form the basis of permaculture. Starting modest, permaculture spreads to include the demands of the larger community and nature. Permaculture can take many various forms, including in gardens, community groups, energy systems, water systems, etc. Despite the fact that permaculture cannot be boiled down to a single expression, it is the system that links all of these elements together.
Permaculture can be practiced in a variety of settings, including small systems on balconies, in homes, or in city yards, as well as acreages, farms, ecovillages, communities, municipalities, and beyond. There is no one permaculture design or system template, and there is no one way a permaculture system should appear. The system's location and the specific results or yields that are intended from it are carefully observed to inform the design. Beauty is a significant factor for the majority of permaculture practitioners and is one yield that is built into the system. A particular design's aesthetics are as varied and distinctive as the designer's inventiveness.
Ethics
Mollison and Holmgren first offered three guiding moral standards for the permaculture movement at the very beginning of its development:
* CARE OF THE EARTH ~ CARE OF PEOPLE ~ SHARING THE SURPLUS *
Earth Care, biodiversity and natural systems should serve as the foundation for all human endeavors. We need to actively work toward regeneration and repair where harm has already been done to the planet's living and non-living systems. Permaculture designs may replenish water supplies, rebuild soil, offer habitat for a variety of species, and foster a healthy environment for living.
People Care, Humans are another species that has requirements, and any permaculture design must take these needs into account. The People Care ethic suggests that we should integrate human needs into the operation and health of the larger ecosystem rather than upholding the conventional distinction between humans and environment. A multitude of human requirements, including those for food, water, energy, medicine, building materials, aesthetics, community, and more, will often be met by permaculture systems.
Sharing the Surplus proposes that we cannot deny other people and other species' needs by our own excessive consumption, as opposed to a paradigm of hoarding. Indeed, when others may prosper, we will live a fuller and more meaningful life. This is a call to live in proper relationships and with balance as well as an ethic of social and ecological justice. Good designs will eventually produce a surplus that may be distributed to others (whether it be biomass, food, water, knowledge, money, etc.).
These three ethical tenets are shared by permaculture projects all throughout the world, despite how varied the many permaculture manifestations are. These three ethical principles can serve as the yardstick to determine whether a certain landscape design, garden, community, or other initiative is actually permaculture. Is the given design in accordance with the three ethical principles? If they are, we can confidently refer to it as permaculture.
Design Principles
Even if permaculture has an ethical basis and a comprehensive, integrative vision of sustainability, it goes further than that. The design ideas and techniques offered by the permaculture philosophy provide a toolkit for developing resilient and regenerative systems. It is a very practical and concrete philosophy. The best explanation of these design tenets and tactics may be found in Bill Mollison's Permaculture: A Designer's Manual. Design principles are thought of as guiding tools rather than dogmatic templates and give the how-to of the design process.
The permaculture flower shown above is an example of how the design methods and concepts may be used in a variety of fields. However, for the sake of this study, we will focus mostly on how they might be used to create outdoor living spaces and landscapes.
SOME OF THE KEY PERMACULTURE DESIGN PRINCIPLES AND STRATEGIES INCLUDE:
PROTRACTED AND CONSCIOUS OBSERVATION AS COMPARED TO PROTRACTED AND CONSCIOUS WORK.
A crucial step in planning to make any modifications is to gain a complete understanding of the design site, including its history, terrain, functioning ecology, soil conditions, sunlight patterns, water movement, human participation in the area, wildlife patterns, etc. This is sometimes known as "sector analysis." A multitude of design problems may emerge if the site is not properly understood.
START SMALL. MAKE THE LEAST CHANGE FOR THE GREATEST EFFECT.
The finest permaculture designs start off small and scale up after receiving approval or input from the design system itself. Practically speaking, we should make tiny mistakes and learn from them rather than big ones. This saves money, time, and effort. Sometimes a small-scale, less expensive modification or intervention will yield better outcomes than a larger, more expensive one.
OBTAIN A YIELD.
A system has theoretically infinite yields. Technically speaking, a yield is any developed system product that can satisfy a demand, whether it be for a living thing or not. While certain yields can be enjoyed by the system's participants, others must be reinvested in the system (for example, biomass into soil). Food, water, energy, medicine, fiber, construction materials, biodiversity, soil, biomass, etc. are some examples of potential material yields from a system, but non-material harvests may include beauty, knowledge, wisdom, solitude, recreation, community, income, etc. A well-designed system will eventually produce a surplus since nature is inherently more productive over time (for example, cleared land eventually yields a forest).
STACKING FUNCTIONS #1
Every component of the design should have many purposes. All objects in nature have multiple functions; they are entangled in a web of connections and provide a range of services to the ecosystem in which they live. Similarly, every component of a permaculture design has a variety of functions and yields. A carefully designed and strategically positioned tree can serve a variety of purposes, including supplying food, shade, cooling, biomass, beauty, building materials, a structure for other plants to climb, habitat for numerous species, recreation, and many others. Plants that give biomass, beauty, food, habitat, and privacy can be used to make a fence. A water cistern can serve as both a structure and a heat storage unit for a greenhouse.
STACKING FUNCTIONS #2
There should be several elements in the system that can perform each function. This idea basically involves building redundancy into the system to make it more resilient and less brittle. In addition to the conventional water sources we have at our disposal, we may use a range of tactics to meet the water needs of the system, including the utilization of household grey water, rooftop catchment, high soil organic matter, and landscape contours like swales or ponds. Various food producing techniques, such as annual vegetable beds, edible perennials, edible woodland gardens, mushroom cultivation, and small livestock like bees, rabbits, or chickens, may be used to support the essential component of food production. In short, don’t put all your eggs in one basket!
STACKING FUNCTIONS #3
Stack the components both in time and in horizontal and vertical space. We want to be able to grow as much as we can vertically, especially on smaller urban lots, to increase the yields of food and other products as well as the amount of bio-mass we can produce. Escalier fruit trees, wall-mounted systems, multi-layered growing spaces, and green roofs are a few examples of this. Similar to this, we will arrange the area along temporal axes, making sure that perennial systems evolve into a stage of succession in which they are at their most productive, that annual vegetable systems are planted in succession, and that there are younger plants ready to replace older ones. A permaculture system that uses edible forest gardens is
ENERGISE DIVERSITY. RESILIENCY IS CREATED BY DIFFERENT ELEMENTS WITH DIFFERENT FUNCTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS.
The majority of natural systems are extremely diverse, and they gain their resilience from the numerous synergistic interactions that take place between various species. In human groups, we may see this same dynamic at work. Communities that are resilient and highly functional are built where there are people with a variety of viewpoints, talents, resources, and interests who can work together well. It requires a great deal of skill, perseverance, and work to incorporate a variety of features and relationships into a landscape, and it is not an exact science. Even while this is the aim, some of it is experimental, and we will never reach the level of grace and effectiveness seen in nature's own patterns.
CATCH AND STORE ENERGY. CYCLE RESOURCES THROUGH THE SYSTEM.
Our universe is filled with energy, which is constantly moving through all matter and all living things, including us. A permaculture design aims to capture as much energy as possible, recirculate it as many times as possible before it finally flows outward (possibly through plants, thermal mass, and possibly simple technologies such as cold frames, solar greenhouses, and more complex technologies such as photovoltaic panels). We can picture a tree as the embodiment of the sun's energy. The tree's leaves can be used to feed a cow or a goat, the manure can be converted into biogas, the digester's slurry can be used to make worm compost, any extra worms may be used to feed fish, the compost can be used to grow plants, etc. A portion of the initial energy stored in the tree's leaves is cycled once again with each transaction. The system is animated by energy, and as it develops, it will eventually be able to capture and cycle an increasing amount of energy.
USE LOCAL, ON-SITE RESOURCES AND BIOLOGICAL RESOURCES.
Our goal is to use as little outside input into the system as possible. This includes recycling and reusing materials like scrap metal, tires, and bricks, growing our own fertilizers (special plants that increase soil fertility, such as legumes and other "dynamic accumulators"), and using living systems, such as "rock and reed beds" to treat household grey water. The majority of systems will initially need some external inputs, although this should lessen over time. We have an excess of "waste materials" in metropolitan areas that we may collect and employ in our system.
PRODUCE NO WASTE. POLLUTION IS AN UNUSED RESOURCE.
Waste is a characteristically human behavior. The output of one organism in a natural system produces sustenance for another. A permaculture design aims to match the demands of one element in the system with the yields from that part. The majority of the organic waste produced on the property can be simply absorbed back into the system to nourish the soil, which in turn will feed the plants, animals, and ultimately us. Instead of using a scarce and priceless resource like potable water to flush human wastes ("away"), some permaculture designs will take safe and suitable ways to utilize human wastes (urine, feces, hair, etc.).
RELATIVE SPACE. FORMATE FUNCTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN VARIOUS DESIGN ELEMENTS. DO NOT SEGREGATE; INTEGRATE.
The core of the permaculture design method is this. We want to choose and situate all of the pieces so that they are providing useful services to one another, as opposed to being a collection of unrelated elements with no functional connection. The important components of water, soil, energy, plants, animals, fungi, suitable technologies, and humans must all be taken into account in this regard. For instance, we have a tree, a garden, a pond, a greenhouse, and a chicken coop on our land, all of which serve only a few purposes for one another. The tree can cool the house, shade the greenhouse, provide forage for the chickens, and provide biomass for the garden; the greenhouse can help heat the house, clean household grey water, and deliver it to the pond; the chickens can weed the garden and keep the slugs at bay in a mobile pen (a "chicken tractor"); and the pond can be a source of nutrients and irrigation for the garden, as well as a source of beauty for the people in the house.
LAW OF RETURN: WE MUST RETURN WITH EVERYTHING WE TAKE. NOT MORE BIOMASS (CARBON) THAN CAN BE FIXED WITHIN THE SOLAR BUDGET SHOULD BE EXPORTED.
We must make sure that a system's internal demands are being satisfied in order to ensure that it can thrive. If we continuously harvest all of the biomass, the soil will eventually lose its complex microbial life and its fertility. While human systems take carbon from the soil and biomass, causing an excess of carbon in the atmosphere, natural systems accumulate carbon over time.
MAXIMIZE EDGE.
Ecologically speaking, a "edge" is a dynamic location where two distinct ecosystems converge, such as a meadow and a forest, mountains and the ocean, or grasslands and foothills. The greatest biological diversity and production are typically found along these edges. It is not surprising that the majority of early human settlements were located near borders because these areas had a very high resource availability. Our creations can imitate these ecological margins while also enhancing biodiversity, productivity, and aesthetic appeal. Permaculture designs can also produce social edges, or areas where lively human interactions can take place. This may be an edible woodland garden in the front yard that prompts inquiries from neighbors, piques their interest, and creates opportunities for cooperation.
“THE PROBLEM IS THE SOLUTION.”
A "problem" is frequently perceived by us as only being bad or detrimental to our environment or community. Permaculture would have us reframe this idea, arguing that if the problem is acknowledged, there may even be some opportunity or even some treasure hidden inside it. The area that is always wet or frequently floods might be begging for a pond, and our grumpy old neighbor might be sitting on a wealth of experience, wisdom, or energy that we just haven't yet figured out how to tap into. An old tree stump that continues to sucker up can be considered a biomass factory for the compost pile.
PLAN FOR DECREASING INTERVENTION OVER TIME
– “THE DESIGNER BECOMES THE RECLINER”.
The famous quote from Bill Mollison goes, "Work can be considered a failure of design." All systems need some effort, but well-designed systems will demand less because they adhere to nature's laws rather than our own imposed ones. Any landscape will continually make an effort to return to its original state. We are taking a lot of the work out of the equation by developing a system that replicates that natural state and still produces the yields we require. In fact, our greatest contribution to the system may be to collect those yields and to take in the beauty and biodiversity of the world around us.
Permaculture Education
The 72-hour Permaculture Design Certificate program, or PDC, is the standard educational unit for permaculture. This training follows the internationally recognized permaculture curriculum that was established in Australia, but it also changes according to the situation, the teacher, and the culture. In addition to the PDC, there are other initial 1- to 3-day seminars on permaculture as well as, occasionally, longer-term internships, teacher trainings, and diploma programs.
Mollison and Holmgren wanted the permaculture idea to be spread all over the world from the very beginning. After completing their own PDC, engaging in some permaculture design and installation work, and helping other more seasoned instructors in their courses, they encouraged students to pursue careers as teachers.
A fundamentally democratic movement is permaculture. Nobody has a set curriculum or strict authority over someone can proclaim themselves a permaculture instructor. As people and groups look to take charge of their own lives and promote positive change, this is a developing community that is taking on many different forms all around the world. People unite to support and learn from one another at regional, national, and international permaculture convergences and gatherings.