From Mon May 24 16:31:57 1999 Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 08:10:11 -0700 From: Jeff Owens Reply-To: To: Subject: [ecopath] What is Permaculture (long) Angel wrote: >hi, i'm one of those new members. got a question though, being new. >what is permaculture? Angel, here are some definitions of Permaculture. My definition is slightly different and tries to explain why there are so many different definitions around, but we don't need to go into that. ---- By: Deborah L. Butler What is Permaculture? The word is a contraction of "permanent agriculture" (and to some extent "permanent culture"), and was coined by an Australian named Bill Mollison, who along with a considerably less gregarious colleague more or less (re-)invented the ideas it embodies. The manner of action of permaculture is to observe and learn from the natural systems that we are a part of and apply those learnings to our creating of systems. "Protracted and thoughtful observation before (instead of) protracted and thoughtless labor" is another way of putting's a way of thinking, rather than a specific technique, tradition or method. The envirolink library says: "Summary: Permaculture enables people to establish productive environments providing for food, energy, shelter, material and non-material needs. Long Description: Permaculture is a practical concept applicable from the balcony to the farm, from the city to the wilderness. It enables people to establish productive environments providing for food, energy, shelter, material and non-material needs, as well as providing the social and economic infrastructures that support them. Permaculture means thinking carefully about our environment, our use of resources and how we supply our needs. It aims to create systems that will sustain not only for the present, but for future generations. Permaculture encourages the individual to be resourceful and self reliant, and become a conscious part of the solution to the many problems which face us, both locally and globally. " ---- From. Rene and Lorraine van Raders Malanda, Beautiful Far North Queensland, Australia. One of the beauties (and weaknesses perhaps) is that pc can be defined in so many different ways. It seems to mean different things to different people. As has been pointed out when talking to others about pc it is important to frame your information so that it can fit in with the others perception of the world. Here's our viewpoint on the subject in no particular order of importance. Pc presents a vast range of possibilities and techniques (some contradictory) leaving it up to the individual to choose the best solution for his/her particular situation. One fundamental being that every situation is unique thus every design should be unique (taking into account what the land/situation has to offer and what the people want and can provide). Pc is a design system, but also a new way of thinking and looking at the world. To a very great extent it is not prescriptive, but helps you to ask the right questions so that you can choose yourself from the infinite ethical solutions. Which brings us back to the simple ethics of earth and people care.. if we live by these ethics are we doing permaculture? I think in one sense we are, but without a pdc experience many people are still very restricted in their thinking and knowledge. We don't think it is necessary for everyone to live a perfect lifestyle for sustainability, but if every individual would become conscious of his/her impact and start to make positive changes that is enough... the world would get better and better every day! If permaculture is design and planning how can it be impractical. Part of the design process is surely to make it practical. Permaculture isn't about everyone returning to a farming/gardening subsistence (Bill Mollison stated that only one gardener per hundred people was needed to provide all the food needs... even if this is overstated the principle is clear). Permaculture is not about being poor... it is looking at ways to subvert the grip of the money system, but at the same time can work within it. A farm design would usually involve a transition period to maintain profitability and practicality! Permaculture designs ideally design for profitability. Let us know how permaculture is seen to be impractical and we'd love to comment further. 1. Energy usage and the definition of sustainability 2. Natural systems and the holistic view. A historical view of the world help here. 3. Cycles and closed loops. Community and a forest make good examples. I suppose economics could fit here also." from Jeff Owen's original query. ---- BY DAN HEMENWAY Permaculture emulates ecosystem design principles to design provision of human needs and amenities: food, water, shelter, energy, income, community, aesthetics, etc. By applying ecosystem design principles, permaculture designs achieve the same efficiency and elegance that enables mature ecosystems to thrive and make maximum use of available resources in the face of often adverse and sometimes calamitous circumstances. Permaculture also contains an ethical component--permaculture designers do not prioritize between profit, people, and the Earth. As part of the Earth, the well being of people is intimately involved with the health of the planet. Because environmental destruction is virtually ubiquitous, permaculture designs invariably include activities that restore natural systems. However in permaculture design, the restoration is always an aspect of self-serving human activity. Besides its design philosophy and ethics, permaculture has accumulated a large tool box of basic strategies and particularly appropriate technologies. Design Principles 1) Restraint. Conservation. Do only what is necessary. Seek the maximum benefit for minimum change. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." 2) Stacking functions. Achieve multiple benefits from every action and design element. 3) Repeating functions. Secure necessary resources (both regulatory and material) in more than one fashion. Design for smooth shifts from one resource to another as circumstances require. Design multiple pathways for every essential flow. 4) Design on appropriate scale. Scale is inappropriate if a screw up will cause a catastrophe. Murphy is everywhere. When mistakes can be regarded as educational and even entertaining, scale is appropriate. However, scale can be so small as to be trivial or insufficient to persist in the face of pressures from the larger context. 5) Focus design activity at edges, interfaces. Energy flows across a gradient. Amplify edges to increase energy flow. Restrict edge to minimize energy transfer. Introduce edge species or other elements to regulate and harness edge transactions. 6) Encourage functional diversity. Functional diversity differs from raw diversity. A great many design elements may contribute instability or may simply fail to function as a dynamic system (be dead). Carefully matched and well-designed elements however, that form many useful connections among them, need not be numerous. It is the number of useful connections among elements that defines functional diversity. A system with highly integrated functional diversity becomes alive and spontaneously develops additional functional connections. It becomes increasingly stable and efficient and begins to look after itself. 7) Reciprocity. Everything works both ways. All gains have costs and many problems present opportunities. Awareness of reciprocity permits design to account for it. 8) The Law of Gifts. Every element in the universe receives input from other elements and transforms that input according to its own nature. In functional systems, the transformation includes delivery of the changed input to the right place at the right time, to benefit other elements in the system. The competent designer must be acutely aware of the transformational nature of elements--how they affect what they encounter--and the needs of elements--to design patterns where the waste or disturbance created by one element is resource or benefit to others. These principles apply in all spheres of design:biological, physical, and social (including economic). Permaculture Economics Economic arrangements are of vital concern in permaculture. Much of contemporary economic activity is based on the economics of scarcity. In this economic values system, players seek to control resources so that they are unavailable, or scarce, to others who may need or desire them. This resource advantage results in control, to various extents, over those who want the resources that have been made scarce. Such conditions result in scarcity psychology. Insecurity that there will not be enough to go around feeds a desire to control as much valued resource as possible and thus exert economic control over others who wish to use the resource or to have access to it. This drives the scramble to accumulate resources far beyond one's need. Astonishingly, economics of scarcity have led to the ownership of nearly everything on the planet and the assumption that it is natural for people to own everything. In the economics of scarcity, generally the scarer something becomes, the more economic value it accrues. Abundant resources have little value. Their usefulness may be ignored, as in the case of kudzu, or the resource may be wantonly utilized, as is being done with forests. In the case of forests, wholesale destruction for short term gain makes residual forests scarce, therefore of greater economic value. The continued existence of forests is not a concern to investors, who take their profit principally in money that can be invested elsewhere when forests run out. Money provides as a symbol of economic power and those who can command the most money (by controlling a large share of vital or highly desired resources) reinvest that money to control a still larger share. This cancerous consumption, manipulation, and control of the environmental context in which we live causes most of the environmental crises we confront today. Capitalism, socialism and communism are but variants of this control game. Bouncing from one system label to another will not address underlying problems of scarcity economics. The economics of scarcity is self-fulfilling. Permaculture provides a context wherein the economics of abundance can prosper. Fortunately, the economics of abundance can begin to function within existing systems, although legal structures may make this more or less likely in various countries. The economics of abundance rests on the belief that a great deal of resource is available if one is willing to accept what the universe offers in a particular place and time. The economics of abundance also embodies ethical strategies for the genuine scarcity that does exist in certain cases from time to time. Then, our responsibility is to protect scarce resources from any exploitation and to try to nourish their recovery. The scarce resource becomes sacred in a highly specific way, placing limits on its economic uses. Obviously, in most societies, mixtures of the economic philosophies of scarcity and abundance co-exist, often even in the same persons. Where belief in abundance is the main view, abundance tends to manifest. Scarcity economics produce scarcity. Absolute scarcity can exist under either situation. When that happens, human conflict is unavoidable and we may consume one another until the pressure on the environment is eliminated. SNIP Here we go into application of this info in practical ways to sop up the abundant benefits that rampant kudzu presents. ----- By James Mumm Permaculture, the contraction of permanent agriculture as well as permanent culture, is a design system for constructing sustainable human settlements that focus on the functional connections between species, and between humans and their environment. Permaculture design incorporates utilitarian, intrinsic and cooperative values of biodiversity. To a permaculturist, indigenous ecosystem integrity and species richness are secondary to the functional relationships between species in a consciously designed system. Deliberate attention is paid to minimizing energy budgets and building small-scale intensive systems because of their manageability and efficiency. Permaculture designs can be implemented in virtually any environment, from desert to city, and with people of limited resources. As such, permaculture offers a cooperative means of subsistence that integrates humans with their environment to create a sustainable human and non-human ecology. What is Permaculture? Permaculture is tightly linked to the concept of biodiversity. Biodiversity is a human concept which relates to the assessment of all life on earth. Although it contains many ambiguities, biodiversity is useful way of conceiving life on all of its levels -- from genes to biomes. An explanation of biodiversity requires a thorough examination of the values and context in which it is applied. Permaculture also benefits from a holistic explanation. "Permaculture is a design system for creating sustainable human environments," states Bill Mollison, who co-founded the permaculture movement in 1974 with David Holmgren (Mollison and Slay). Permaculture itself is a combination of permanent and agriculture, as well as permanent and culture. This dual definition reflects permaculture's emphasis on constructing a diverse and cooperative environments within the context of sustainable human settlements. According to the Permaculture International webpage, 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 integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way." (Permaculture International) (Figure 1) Mollison deliberately emphasizes permaculture as a philosophy of design. The key is to use the inherent qualities of plants and animals in combination with landscapes and structures to create enduring and productive environments in both urban and rural areas. Deliberate attention is paid to minimizing energy budgets and small-scale intensive systems because of their manageability and efficiency. As a cultivated ecology, a well designed permaculture will produce more food than is found in nature. According to Mollison, "Although the yield of a monocultural system will probably be greater for a particular crop than the yield of any one species in a permaculture system, the sum of yields in a mixed system will be larger." In most cases more food is grown than can possibly be consumed on the site by either humans or animals. Over 12,000 people across the world have competed certified Permaculture Design Courses, and their work can be found on every continent and in every ecosystem where it is remotely possible to grow vegetation. Crops include any subsistence or energy product that is useful for humans or animals. (Mollison and Slay) Permaculture is predicated on maximizing functional diversity. Every element of a species assembly should support at least two other elements and be supported itself by two elements. One interesting example is using flat slats for the floor of an animal pen to allow manure to fall into a pond below, providing valuable nutrients to fish and plants. This type of design teaches that functional interactions are critical in species assemblies and human habitats. As a design system, permaculture focuses on conserving and restoring the earth in a way that also allows humans to live in harmony with their environment. Deliberate attention is paid to the minimizing the energy budget of a design. Energy needs should be provided by the system itself. Constructing a design that integrates sun, wind, and land resources with species and habitats results in an energy efficient design. Non-sustainable agriculture requires an immense amount of non-renewable resources and energy inputs in the forms of water, fertilizer, and labor. Permaculture strives toward energy efficient and closed-loop designs. "I'm lazy," quips Mollison in his video Global Gardener, "that's why we put the garden next to the kitchen. I can throw my scraps out the window." (Mollison) (Figure 2) Small-scale intensive systems means that the land will be used efficiently and carefully managed, producing a wealth of resources. This is not a return to peasant agriculture and drudgery, rather permaculture designs are built to require a minimal amount of energy input, as in the animal pen example above. Labor and other material inputs are reduced as the functional connections in the system increase. (Figure 3) The concept of biodiversity is tightly linked to permaculture design through the conscious attempt to increase functional diversity in species assemblies and in the emphasis placed on the construction of energy efficient ecosystems. According to Maddy, a permaculture activist, "Biodiversity is a key principle in permaculture design and influences all aspects of permaculture thinking." (Maddy) Such a recognition of biodiversity is reflected in the intentional design of permaculture sites. Careful attention is paid to the construction of functionally useful species assemblies.