Permaculture is a philosophical approach to the design of productive systems modelled upon the harmony seen in natural systems. Permaculture designs aim to create resilient and healthy systems that harmonise with the patterns expressed in nature. Elements of that systems are positioned to take advantage of their natural functions and aligned in ways to create synergy.
The term permaculture, meaning "permanent agriculture" was coined in the 1970's by two Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren working jointly at the Environmental Design School in Tasmania on developing a systems-thinking approach to developing a model of sustainable agriculture. The original focus of permaculture was developing a beneficial assembly of plants and animals in relation to human settlements, mostly aimed towards household and community self-reliance, and perhaps as a "commercial endeavour" only arising from a surplus from the system. This original focus has broadened to encompass more aspects of social permaculture, business structures, strategies to acquire land and as a systems thinking tool that can applied to strengthen a wide variety of endeavours.
Permaculture is a design system that encompasses both "permanent agriculture" and "permanent culture." It recognizes, first, that all living systems are organized around energy flows. It teaches people to analyse existing energy flows (sun, rain, money, human energy) through such a system (a garden, a household, a business). Then it teaches them to position and interconnect all the elements in the system (whether existing or desired) in beneficial relationship to each other and to those energy flows. When correctly designed such a system will, like a natural ecosystem, become increasingly diverse and self-sustaining.
All permaculture design is based on three ethics: Care of the Earth (because all living things have intrinsic worth); care of the people; and reinvest all surplus, whether it be information, money, or labour, to support the first two ethics.
A distinctive feature of permaculture designs is that each element included in a system has multiple benefits, that each resource is supplied in multiple ways for resiliency and that each element is inter-connected with other elements. In this way a permaculture design imitates some of the functional complexity found within a natural ecosystem and by so doing becomes more stables, requires less input and has a more diverse output that conventional agricultural systems.
The term permaculture, meaning "permanent agriculture" was coined in the 1970's by two Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren working jointly at the Environmental Design School in Tasmania on developing a systems-thinking approach to developing a model of sustainable agriculture. The original focus of permaculture was developing a beneficial assembly of plants and animals in relation to human settlements, mostly aimed towards household and community self-reliance, and perhaps as a "commercial endeavour" only arising from a surplus from the system. This original focus has broadened to encompass more aspects of social permaculture, business structures, strategies to acquire land and as a systems thinking tool that can applied to strengthen a wide variety of endeavours.
Permaculture is a design system that encompasses both "permanent agriculture" and "permanent culture." It recognizes, first, that all living systems are organized around energy flows. It teaches people to analyse existing energy flows (sun, rain, money, human energy) through such a system (a garden, a household, a business). Then it teaches them to position and interconnect all the elements in the system (whether existing or desired) in beneficial relationship to each other and to those energy flows. When correctly designed such a system will, like a natural ecosystem, become increasingly diverse and self-sustaining.
All permaculture design is based on three ethics: Care of the Earth (because all living things have intrinsic worth); care of the people; and reinvest all surplus, whether it be information, money, or labour, to support the first two ethics.
A distinctive feature of permaculture designs is that each element included in a system has multiple benefits, that each resource is supplied in multiple ways for resiliency and that each element is inter-connected with other elements. In this way a permaculture design imitates some of the functional complexity found within a natural ecosystem and by so doing becomes more stables, requires less input and has a more diverse output that conventional agricultural systems.