By Anna Zisa
Interestingly, I’ve realized how more and more often, when the word “Permaculture” comes up in a conversation, people are more familiar with it than they used too a few years ago. And that’s exactly how paradigms start shifting, with new vocabularies, new understandings and thereby new realities. New words, new worlds! Here is a short opening of the door to the vast world of Permaculture.
There are plenty definitions out there, and here is one more! Permaculture refers to the design system of ecological human habitats and food production systems.
Stemming from massive landscape degradation, David Holmgren and Bill Mollison, both Australian ecologists coined the word Permaculture in the mid 1970′s. The word arises from two phrases, referring either to agriculture or culture – permanent agriculture or permanent culture.
It is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems that have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.
Permaculture differs from other alternative approaches to agriculture in the sense that it is primarily considered a design system and that it works with a set of ethics. The ethics are Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share making of Permaculture not only a production system but rather a land use and community planning philosophy. It is an approach to living that strives to integrate land use and community buildings, including the microclimate, annual and perennial plants, animals, soils and water into stable productive communities or in a sense “closed ” ecosystems.
In Permaculture design, the careful observation of patterns in natural landscapes is emphasized. Through the study of relationships that occur in natural ecosystems, Permaculture design aims at placing elements of agricultural systems and human habitats in specific locations so that useful connections and synergies between components are maximized. Focusing on beneficial associations among elements rather than focusing on each separate element, Permaculture allows for minimizing waste, human labor, and inputs from outside the system such as energy, water, fertilizers and pesticides while at the same time restoring damaged land.
Stemming from massive landscape degradation, David Holmgren and Bill Mollison, both Australian ecologists coined the word Permaculture in the mid 1970′s. The word arises from two phrases, referring either to agriculture or culture – permanent agriculture or permanent culture.
It is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems that have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.
Permaculture differs from other alternative approaches to agriculture in the sense that it is primarily considered a design system and that it works with a set of ethics. The ethics are Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share making of Permaculture not only a production system but rather a land use and community planning philosophy. It is an approach to living that strives to integrate land use and community buildings, including the microclimate, annual and perennial plants, animals, soils and water into stable productive communities or in a sense “closed ” ecosystems.
In Permaculture design, the careful observation of patterns in natural landscapes is emphasized. Through the study of relationships that occur in natural ecosystems, Permaculture design aims at placing elements of agricultural systems and human habitats in specific locations so that useful connections and synergies between components are maximized. Focusing on beneficial associations among elements rather than focusing on each separate element, Permaculture allows for minimizing waste, human labor, and inputs from outside the system such as energy, water, fertilizers and pesticides while at the same time restoring damaged land.

Permaculture design uses a set of principles which D. Holmgren defines as “thinking tools that when used together allow us to creatively redesign our environment and our behavior in a world of less energy and resources”. Here is a diagram I made summarizing Bill Mollison and D. Holmgren Permaculture principles that have become impregnated in many peoples’ cognition resulting in the envisioning and development of harmonious homesteads, ecovillages, transition towns and many other productive living systems.
To learn more about Permaculture, join us in one of our Permaculture Design Courses in Spain, Portugal or India! Check our Course Locations and Dates for more info.
To learn more about Permaculture, join us in one of our Permaculture Design Courses in Spain, Portugal or India! Check our Course Locations and Dates for more info.