Permaculture (as used today)
-Design approach founded on patterns and relationships of nature
and the ethics of sustainable societies.
-Based on indigenous knowledge from cultures.
Sustainable Revolution
-Uses permaculture framework to identify locally based projects and networks that are
cultivating beneficial relationships between humans and the natural world
Permaculture (originally used)
- theory of permanent agriculture,
- traced to Australians Bill Mollison & David Holmgren.
- Developed the concept while studying perennial farming (life cycle of more than 2 years) practices that are modeled on nature’s patterns.
- Coined term in 1970’s.
Permaculture design initiative results
- restoring degraded landscapes,
- reversing desertification,
- creating self-sustaining food systems.
How does permaculture mitigate climate change?
- directly drawing carbon out of the atmosphere through healthy soil building cycles,
- no-plow farming methods
- tree planting.
Goal of Indigenous Permaculture
-establish a local, organic food source for residents,
-inspired by indigenous peoples’
understanding of how to live in place.
Primary principle of permaculture
Observation!
Indigenous Science
- practices based on a deep integration with the local ecology and
- an awareness of natural patterns and relationships.
Cultural Hegemony
the domination of the global imagination by an *ideology that describes the social, political, and economic status quo as inevitable and beneficial for everyone (rather than the 1%)
Focus of Regenerative Design
-focus not on each separate element -*focus on relationships created among different elements by the way they are placed together*; the whole being greater than the sum of its parts
Fractal
- geometric pattern,
- repeated (either exactly or with slight variations) at
- ever-smaller scales to produce
- irregular shapes and structures.
- If you zoomed in on a single part of the fractal you would see the same pattern as the whole repeated to infinity
node
center of human activity;
- each node can be seen as an information fractal,
- featuring patterns that encode a great deal of knowledge and observation.
edge effect
the edge where 2 elements meet -
- key to regenerative design,
- because of cycling of materials and information, allowing for more synergy
Synergy
the interaction of multiple elements in a system to produce an effect different from or greater than the sum of their individual effects
Focus of Permaculture
- small scale,
- energy and
- labor efficient,
- Systems that use biological resources instead of fossil fuels.
- Designs stress ecological connections and closed loops of energy and materials
Key to efficient permaculture design
-observation and the replication of natural ecosystems
polyculture
-agriculture using multiple crops in the same space, -in imitation of the diversity of natural ecosystems, -avoiding large strands of single crops
Closed Loop Energy System
Materials that would go to waste are re-used
aquaculture
aquafarming; farming of aquatic organisms aka growing fish
hydroponics
growing plants in water
Aquaponics
- water from the fish tanks is fed into a system of pipes,
- where bacteria converts the waste products in the water to nitrites and
- nitrates, are then used as nutrients by the plants.
- Any remaining water filters back into the system.
Benefits of Aquaponics
- it reduces water loss
- the extra nutrients allow plants to grow up to four times faster
Sustainability
meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future to meet its own needs.
stock
an inventory or supply or accumulation of a part of system
ex. population, fresh water resources, endangered species, attention span
