PERMACULTURE
PRINCIPLES & PATHWAYS BEYOND SUSTAINABILITY
David Holmgren 2002
www.holmgren.com.au
Comment by Brian J. Fleay
David Holmgren’s book. Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability, outlines the ecological and systems principles that underlie Permaculture as the concept has evolved over the last 30 years into a world wide movement. Holmgren says he and Bill Mollison, as co-founders of Permaculture, were inspired by Howard T. Odum’s book, Environment, Power, and Society (Wiley-Interscience, 1971) and his subsequent work. I also started in the late 1970s on my journey into ecology and economics from an energy perspective, inspired by Odum’s books, his disciples and others. These principles have embraced new concepts such as ‘chaos theory’, and a dynamic ‘pulsed’ behaviour view of ecosystems away from static ‘climax ecosystem’ concepts.
David accepts the imminent peaking of fossil oil supply. His vision is designing to adapt to the declining viability of our current energy intensive practices – away from monocultures, not just in gardening and agriculture, but also in all other fields as well. He says Permaculture design principles are just as applicable to urban development. Odum’s approach integrates the economic with the environmental using energy flows as a unifying theme. The design principles are based on working with nature’s energy flows, not against them – the latter are always energy intensive processes because they aim to bend natural systems to human will.
Prof. Stuart B. Hill, Social Ecology, University of West Sydney says in his Foreword:
“It is the persistent lack of recognition of the importance of design, of the importance of mutualistic relationships and high biodiversity, and the need to design managed ecosystems based on this awareness that is responsible for so many problems we currently face in natural resource management….”
“This situation is particularly distressing because it can largely be avoided by applying the ‘Permaculture Principles…. Instead of repeatedly wasting expertise, time, energy and resources in efforts to address such problems, at the ‘back-end’ of the system, permaculture enables us to avoid them by focusing on ‘front-end’ imaginative design and redesign initiatives….”
“Areas that immediately come to mind include human settlements and business enterprises, political and economic systems, and the health field, child rearing and learning environments….”
Holmgren’s book is structured around the twelve Permaculture Design Principles outlined below. These provide the framework for elaboration of the theme and provide a practical and readable description of Howard T. Odum’s ideas as they have been applied by Permaculture over the years.
- Observe and Interact. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
- Catch and Store Energy. Make hay while the sun shines.
- Obtain a Yield. You can’t work on an empty stomach.
- Apply Self-regulation and Accept Feedback. The sins of the fathers are visited on the children unto the seventh generation.
- Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services. Let nature take its course.
- Produce no Waste. A stitch in time saves nine. Waste not, want not.
- Design from Patterns to Details. Can’t see the wood for the trees.
- Integrate Rather than Segregate. Many hands make light work
- Use Small and Slow Solutions. The bigger they are the harder they fall. Slow and steady wins the race.
- Use and Value Diversity. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
- Use Edges and Value the Marginal. Don’t think you are on the right track just because it is a well-beaten path.
- Creatively Use and Respond to Change. Vision is not serving things as they are but as they will be.
Farmers in Australia are beginning to embrace Permaculture principles. Our Governor-General, Michael Jeffrey recently said: “I would suggest there is far more to learn from the vast continuum of 60 millennia of indigenous culture. I am suggesting we open the time capsule wider; to learn and to be proud of the totality of our unique Australian history and heritage through linkage. I have used the word linkage deliberately, in suggesting we join the wisdom of the past to the technology of the present to achieve a peaceful and prosperous future together.” Stone age culture still lingers in Australia. We are recognising the need to learn from it.
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