What is Permaculture?
What is Permaculture?
- An ecological science - the study of nature and natural systems
- A design system for self-reliant living
- Everything is connected to everything else
- Integration
of water, people, animals, land, plants, technologies , and community
productive and beautiful environments. - Build harmony, through cooperation with an attitude of Positivism
- Global grass roots movement applicable on all
scales and in all situations.
Goals
- Long term self-reliance
- consider seven generations
A generation is the average time interval between the
birth of parents and the birth of their offspring. - Work with nature rather than against it
- Think globally act locally
- Plan for small scale energy efficient systems - intensive rather than extensive
- Eat a bio-regional diet-bring food growing to the cities
- Hold water and fertility as high on the land as possible
- The problem is the solution- - turn constraints into resources
- Reforest - restore earth fertility
- Emphasize native plants
- Increase sum of
yields
a.) Succession, natural ecosystems change over time giving rise to
different plants and animals
b.) Stocking, find the balance of various elements keeping one from
overpowering the other(s), number of elements in a guild
c.) Stacking, multi-level functions for each element - Invent and re-invent - close the loops
- Whatever we take, we must return:
One calorie in/ One calorie out = sustainability
input = output=energy cycling
The user must pay (ie: recycling, tree tax, seed collecting, composting, energy) - Start
small and making lots of little mistakes.
The earth, Gaia, is the super client - Permaculture
starts at your doorstep and is a way of life.
he work of the permaculture designer is to maximise useful energy storages in any system on which they are working, be it house, urban property, rural lands, or gardens.