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Perma (Permanent) Culture: The Prime Directive of Permaculture

This document provides an overview of permaculture, including its core principles and ethics. It discusses how permaculture aims to create sustainable systems that work with nature rather than against it. The document outlines some of the key ethics of permaculture, including caring for the earth, caring for people, and setting limits to population and consumption. It also summarizes several of the design principles of permaculture, such as using biological resources efficiently and observing natural patterns.

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87 views

Perma (Permanent) Culture: The Prime Directive of Permaculture

This document provides an overview of permaculture, including its core principles and ethics. It discusses how permaculture aims to create sustainable systems that work with nature rather than against it. The document outlines some of the key ethics of permaculture, including caring for the earth, caring for people, and setting limits to population and consumption. It also summarizes several of the design principles of permaculture, such as using biological resources efficiently and observing natural patterns.

Uploaded by

bulut83
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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PERMA (PERMANENT) CULTURE

Permaculture is about relationships that we can create between minerals, plants, animals and humans by the way we place them in the landscape. The aim is to create natural systems that do not exploit or pollute, and are therefore sustainable in the long term. (Bill Mollison) The Prime Directive of Permaculture (Permanent- Latin: per- throughout + English: cultivation, tillage; from Old French; from Latin: cultura, from ultuscultivation, from Germanic: skel- to cut)

The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children

The Ethics of Permaculture


Permaculture is unique among alternative farming systems (e.g. organic, sustainable, eco-agriculture, biodynamic) in that it works with a set of ethics that suggest we think and act responsibly in relation to each other and the earth. The ethics of Permaculture provide a sense of place in the larger scheme of things, and serve as a guidepost to right livelihood in concert with the global community and the environment, rather than individualism and indifference. Care of the Earth includes all living and non-living things- plants, animals, land, water, air. Care of People promotes self-reliance and community responsibility- access to resources necessary for existence. Setting Limits to Population and Consumption gives away surplus- contribution of surplus time, labor, money, information, and energy to achieve the aims of earth and people care. Permaculture also acknowledges a basic life ethic, which recognizes the intrinsic worth of every living thing. A tree has value in itself. Even if it presents no commercial value to humans. That the tree is alive and functioning is worthwhile. It is doing its part in nature: recycling litter, producing oxygen, sequestering carbon dioxide, sheltering animals, building soils and so on.

The Life Ethic Thesis

Living organisms are not only means but ends. In addition to their instrumental value to humans and other living organisms, they have an intrinsic worth.

Nothing in Nature Grows Forever


Continuation of life depends on the maintenance of the global biogeochemical cycles of essential elements, in particular, C, O, N, S and P.

The probability of extinction of populations of a species is greatest when the density is very high or very low.

The chance that a species has to survive and reproduce is dependant primarily upon one or two key factors in the complex web of relationships of the organism to its environment.

The Overrun Thesis

The Overrun Thesis


Our ability to change the face of the Earth increases at a faster rate than our ability to foresee the consequences of change.

Strategies of an Alternative Global Nation

Do we want this?

Or do we want this?

Can We Close the Circle?

Or Have We Peaked Too Soon?

Yield
System Yield is the sum total of surplus energy produced, stored, conserved, reused, or converted by the design. Energy is in surplus once the system itself has available all its needs for growth, reproduction, and maintenance. Unused surplus results in pollution and more work. The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children. Cooperation, not competition, is the very basis of future survival and of existing life systems.

Permaculture Competencies
Primitive living skills Settlement, village life-ways and folkways Map building and modeling Permaculture principles Concepts and themes in design The local ecosystem Forms of eco-gardening and farming Broad scale, bioregional site design The application of specific methods, laws and principles to design Pattern understanding and observation skills Climatic factors Plants and trees and their energy interactions Water: collection, storage, purification Soils Earth-working and earth resources Zone and sector analysis Food forests and small animal husbandry Cropping and large animal husbandry Harvest and utility forests Natural forests

Aquaculture Planning the homestead Green structures, ecological building practices Craftwork and chores Equipment, tools, bio-fuels and vehicles Renewable energy, system design and implementation Energy conservation Biological waste management and recycling Strategies for different climates Urban and suburban strategies Small farm and garden management and marketing Strategies of an alternative global nation Political, social, economic issues and solutions Designing public policy Land and forest restoration Human settlement and local ecology Site selection, mapping and modeling Dividing, distributing, apportioning land Practical work on design

The Principles of Permaculture Design


Whereas Permaculture ethics are more akin to broad moral values and codes of behavior, the principles of Permaculture provide a set of universally applicable guidelines which can be used in designing sustainable habitats. Distilled from multiple disciplines- ecology, energy conservation, landscape design, and environmental science- these principles are inherent in any Permaculture design, in any climate, and at any scale.
Relative location Each element performs multiple functions Each function is supported by many elements Energy efficient planning Using biological resources Energy cycling Small-scale intensive systems Natural plant succession and stacking Polyculture and diversity of species Increasing edge within a system Observe and replicate natural patterns Pay attention to scale Attitude

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