Through only taking what we need, we can maintain places where we have little immediate impact. You are not granted any other rights and the Web site owner reserves all other rights.The opinions expressed on this website are not necessarily those of the publisher, Hyden House Ltd, and whilst we take every care in checking the validity of information presented here, we cannot accept any responsibility for its accuracy or any liability for any form of damages incurred by the use of such information.Permaculture is about asking where everything that you use comes from and how it was made. Living this way brings people together rather than driving them apart, and the main reason for this is the wealth of the community is shared equally amongst its contributors, is produced in a way that can continue forever and in doing so expresses a real care for every man, woman and child, and of course the environment as a whole. The growth in human consumption and the accelerating extinction of species make clear the impossibility of continuous growth. Permaculture is not a radical, whacky or strange idea, it is a real practice of intelligent, civilized, ethical and sustainable ideas, built around modern technology, environmental science and morality, that seeks to build a safe, happy and secure world for generations to come.Care of the earth is the most obvious ethical principle guiding sound ecological practice. Earth care can also refer to the earth beneath our feet, a pertinent reminder of the value of protecting the ‘skin’ of the earth. There is no point in designing a sustainable family unit, community, or nation whilst others languish without clean water, clean air, food, shelter, meaningful employment, and social contact.
By finding the right balance in our own lives we provide positive examples for others, so that they can find their own balance. They are therefore shared by many throughout the world. It is their combined presence within a design that has a radical capacity for ecological and social transformation.Imagine the originators of permaculture, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, in the 1970s, seeing the devastat-ing effects of a temperate European agriculture on the fragile soils of an ancient Antipodean landscape. This is what defines permaculture and it is uniquely effective and powerful. are you supporting deforestation?
These principles can be inherent in any perma-culture design, in any climate, and on any scale. It focuses on water cycles, hydrology, geology and climate, and then passes on to list different solutions and always includes cost/effectiveness analysis. People Care asks that our basic needs for food, shelter, education, employment and healthy social relationships are met. There is no time to wait for central government to act, or eventually to react.The last ethic synthesises the first two. The last ethic synthesises the first two. The ‘rule of necessitous use’ and ‘the rule of conservative use’ applies, where we use only what we need, and any surplus is returned to the system, thus eliminating waste and supporting the living systems around us and beyond. It acknowledges that we only have one earth and we have to share it with all living things and future generations. When we view the earth through the Gaia principle, which regards the earth as a living, self-regulating organism, the axiom ‘What we do to the earth we do to ourselves’ becomes apparent. The soil is left untilled to establish its own robust micro-ecology. Key to this is the understanding that up to one third of our ecological footprint is taken up by the food we buy, so even growing a small amount in a city allotment or container gar-den can make a difference. Whilst these permaculture ethics are more like moral values or codes of behaviour, they are not enough on their own.We need the principles of permaculture to provide a set of universally applicable guidelines that can be used in designing sustainable systems. The icon of the pie and a slice of it represents the taking of what we need and sharing what we don’t whilst recognising that there are limits to how much we can give and how much we can take. Sometimes we need to … Ethics are culturally evolved mechanisms that regulate self-interest, giving us a better understanding of good and bad outcomes. This is a decentralised, democratic vision of social transformation where grass-roots initiatives like the Transition Towns movement can begin to plan for a low carbon ‘energy descent’ on a community level.
Key to this is that the land must be biodiverse and stable for future generations.This ethic of Earth Care was the basis of permaculture design, but it was bound to grow and pervade all aspects of permaculture... How can we have an organic agriculture or horticulture and manage our landscapes to sustain themselves over gener-ations on one hand, then consume goods from industries managed in ecologically damaging ways on the other?
Their initial response was to design a permanent agriculture with tree crops and other perennials inhabiting all the niches, from the canopy to the ground cover and below. Did we miss something? Read To find out more, why not also do a 'Full Permaculture Design' course or the shorter 'Introduction To Permaculture course'.