Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in natural ecologies.
Permaculture is sustainable land use design. This is based on ecological and biological principles, often using patterns that occur in nature to maximise effect and minimise work. Permaculture aims to create stable, productive systems that provide for human needs, harmoniously integrating the land with its inhabitants. The ecological processes of plants, animals, their nutrient cycles, climatic factors and weather cycles are all part of the picture. Inhabitants’ needs are provided for using proven technologies for food, energy, shelter and infrastructure. Elements in a system are viewed in relationship to other elements, where the outputs of one element become the inputs of another. Within a Permaculture system, work is minimised, “wastes” become resources, productivity and yields increase, and environments are restored. Permaculture principles can be applied to any environment, at any scale from dense urban settlements to individual homes, from farms to entire regions.
Permaculture resources – Tool Box
Video below – This video explores the connection between indigenous cultures and ecologically engineered technologies and their applications for integrated food production and sustainable wastewater and stormwater treatment.
Edible landscape at the home garden of Eric Toensmeier featuring tropical plants grown in a hot, protected microclimate. Update in late summer when plants are getting nice and big.
A digital short about the goings on at CRMPI (Blog) and Ecosystems Design. If Jerome can create this abundance at 7000 ft in dry Colorado, imagine what it’d be like under better conditions.
visiting Brian Kerkvliet, of Inspiration Farm in Bellingham, Washington. Brian has soil that is about three feet deep. On top of that he uses permaculture techniques to reduce his irrigation needs. He has not watered this patch all year. Filmed in august of 2010.
Permaculture – a future of possibility: Lama Foundation, located in the Mountains of New Mexico
While Permaculture teacher Geoff Lawton was in Vietnam he discovered a 300 year old “Food Forest” built on 2 acres of land and still functioning well. It has been in the same family for 28 generations later.
The Farm is a spiritual intentional community in Summertown, Tennessee, based on principles of nonviolence and respect for the Earth. The Farm was founded in 1971 http://www.thefarm.org/
Common Vision joined forces with three classes at Merritt to transform a steep hillside into a permaculture food forest with 108 fruit trees! Before trees were planted a team of pickaxers and shovelers built swales, long on-contour ditches, designed to harvest 1000’s of gallons of rainwater and store it deep in the hillside.
The Food Forest Story’ tells the compelling story of 2 young baby-boomers who travelled the world questing for a sustainable way for humans to live on the planet.
interview with Scott Kellogg, co-author of Toolbox for Sustainable City Living: A Do-It-Ourselves Guide, co-founder of the Rhizome Collective of Austin, Texas
The Rhizome Collective is a consensus-run 501c3 nonprofit organization that has operated a center for community organizing and urban sustainability in an East Austin warehouse since 2000.
VT 4 Evolution 