Permaculture

What is Permaculture?

Permaculture is the art and science of designing systems that promote sustainable, multi-generational health and well-being. Looking to nature as our greatest teacher, the patterns that we find there show us how energy is most efficiently captured and used to create states of beauty and abundance.

Permaculture is about creating and transforming existing spaces into highly productive systems that address the entire spectrum of human needs: physical, psychological, and spiritual – producing healthy food, clean water, sustainable energy, contact/participation with nature and beauty, tight-knit, resilient communities (based on mutually beneficial relationships), and the profound satisfaction that comes from knowing that you will leave behind something of real value for future generations.

There are many differences between a Permaculture-type system and most of the modern agricultural or energy production systems that are used today. These modern systems require a lot of energy input and are typically large in size. They are unsustainable, inefficient and fragile. They simply cannot and will not go on as they are.

Permaculture, on the other hand, stresses permanency. It means permanent culture or permanent agriculture.

It is a design framework guided by a set of ethics and principles.

The Ethics:

1) Care of the Earth

2) Care of People

3) Reinvestment of Surplus

The Principles:

1) Observe and Interact

2) Catch and Store Energy

3) Obtain a Yield

4) Apply Self-Regulation and Accept Feedback

5) Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services

6) Produce No Waste

7) Design from Patterns to Details

8) Integrate rather than Segregate

9) Use Small and Slow Solutions

10) Use and Value Diversity

11) Use Edges and Value the Marginal

12) Creatively Use and Respond to Change

Permaculture is not dogmatic – it is not a list of specific do’s and don’ts – it is more of a basic set of guidelines that can be applied in an infinite number of ways, in a infinite number of environments. From small apartments in big cities to large farms and everything in between, these principles set the groundwork for creating sustainable health and well-being.