00221 Permaculture principles

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction. — E.F. Schumacher

Permaculture is a holistic discipline that provides tools to design more sustainable human lifestyles and systems that incorporate the three permaculture ethics:

Care for people.
Care for the planet.
Care for the future through the acceptance of voluntary limits and fair distribution of surplus

(See 00211 Ethics for a more in depth examination of the ethics of permaculture.)

These three ethics inform all of our permaculture design work. Taken together, they offer a secular ethical framework that transcends the traditional divisions/categories of human organization.

Permaculture has universal applicability. It works for people in cities and for people in rural areas and all points in between. It is useful for people with acreages, small city lots, or who live in high-rise apartments.

This is not a top-down enterprise. It can’t be imposed by the government or an international bureaucracy. It can only grow from the ground up, in ways that mimic the natural creation.

A pasture does not transform itself to a mature forest overnight — that transformation does not occur in one grand revolutionary change. By a process of natural succession, a prairie can evolve into a forest and then evolve back to a prairie. Each change is part of a process that grows organically from the previous and is a response to the ever-changing aspects of the biosphere that are larger than any given place.

Rational and Objective, Artistic and Intuitive

Permaculture is rational. It involves all that we know about all that is. It begins with long and thoughtful observation. We take our knowledge and observations and work out plans to live more in accordance with the permaculture ethics.

It is also intuitive and artistic, in that since there is so much we don’t know, the application of permaculture in real life inevitably involves judgment calls in which intuition plays a role.

Permaculture teaching is a decentralized system.

Permaculture does not have a pope. It is a decentralized system of grassroots education that continues to evolve as the planetary situation develops. It originates in the work of Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. The movement is very loosely organized around a series of permaculture teaching lineages that mostly derive from people trained by Mollison in the late 1970s and early 1980s who went on to develop and train other permaculture teachers.

The iPermie permaculture lineage comes through my teacher, Dan Hemenway, who was one of the first practitioners authorized to offer permaculture training in North America by Bill Mollison. I have been influenced by the work of permaculturist and polymath Vinay Gupta of the UK. This formal training is an overlay on me, Bobby Max Waldrop — who comes to permaculture as a redneck from the Red River region of southwest Oklahoma, a man with an education, an attitude, and an internet connection.

Permaculture is a human cultural artifact.

It derives from our observations of nature and our perceptions and understanding of the history of our species. It attempts to describe natural processes in human terms. I say “attempt” because anything we can formulate verbally about natural processes will be inherently incomplete.

The plan is that as we learn how the natural systems work, or perhaps rather, “how the systems appear to work from our viewing platforms,” we will make intelligent, conscious interventions that will bring to fruition a beneficial future consistent with the permaculture ethics.

Permaculture and music theory.

So as it turns out, permaculture is like music theory, which is a set of principles derived from observations of what constitutes “beautiful music” in various cultures. There is no original Board of Musical Theory that developed the rules about part writing and parallel fifths and etc. that we learn about when we study music. In other words, first we sang and then we attempted an explanation of why what we sang sounded beautiful. That explanation is what we know as music theory.

We study music theory because it works.

I began piano lessons at age six in 1958. I didn’t actually study much music theory beyond the basics until 1994, when I enrolled at Oklahoma City University’s school of music. After studying musical theory, I became a much better musician, because I understood more about why the music that I thought was beautiful sounded the way that it did. I learned of its characteristics, structure, acoustics, dynamics, forms, and much more. I learned enough to know that the rules of music theory while normative, are not absolutes. There can be discernment in making exceptions to the normative rules of music theory.

In 1994, I was already a musician. I had been playing the piano for 36 years and the organ for 32 years. Through the study of musical theory, I was able to take those years of experience and understand them as newly as if I had been given a different set of ears and eyes. I remember my theory teacher, Professor Payne, telling us that music theory would change the way we listen to music forever and that if we didn’t want that, we should get out of the class immediately. In other words, if a student was truly satisfied with his or her previous “listening” to music, they might be upset when music theory turns that upside down and gives them an entirely new way to hear and understand music.

Permaculture and “sustainable living.”

When I came to the formal study of permaculture in 2005, I already had 30 years of experience in trying to live a more simple, sustainable, and frugal life. In 1975 I bought my first issue of Mother Earth News, browsed the Whole Earth Catalog and started reading Co-Evolution Quarterly. I bought a hand crank grain mill at a flea market early in the 1980s and used it to grind grain to make flour to bake bread. Dumpster diving, organic gardening, alternative energies . . . poverty gave me opportunities to learn more about frugal and alternative living.

I was lucky that I had friends who knew about being poor and they taught me what they knew. So I learned how to make sourdough bread, because I didn’t have any money to buy yeast. It was a learning and friendship community of mutual support and care.

When I came to the formal study of permaculture, I found tools and concepts that helped me take my life’s experiences to a new level, going forward as a matter of conscious design. Hit or miss is a fine thing, as long as there is excess money and time and resources to make up for all the misses. As the money, time, and resources dwindle, however, it becomes ever more important to look before you leap, to think before you act, and to learn patience.

To take this back to permaculture —

We observed what worked in nature.
We observed how humanity harmed the ecology.

From these observations and much work, we developed permaculture design to explain how we could —

avoid further harm,
heal existing harm, and
take us forward into a future that would not include a catastrophic die-off of the human race and the consequent devastation to the planetary environment.

We study permaculture because it works.

Whatever experience in simple, frugal, and sustainable living that people bring to their permaculture learning community will be enhanced and strengthened and enriched by what they learn here about permaculture design.

Permaculture Principles:

We should first ask — why do we need or want a list of permaculture principles?

We are human beings.

We like to categorize things.

We like to make lists of things we have categorized.

Permaculture principles help us study and evaluate our observations of reality and facilitate making good design decisions.

In other words, if we categorize principles, make lists and study them, everyone does not have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to turning our observations into designs.

A list is never a complete expression of reality. It’s like a map in that regard. Lists can be helpful for us as long as we always remember their inherent limitations.

Below you will find four different lists of permaculture principles. The number of principles in these lists ranges from three to 34. None of these lists are necessarily “the list.” No one carved them in granite and brought them down from a mountaintop. Because there isn’t a permaculture pope, and there are different teaching styles and emphases, not everybody gives the same list of principles, strategies, and techniques, although all such lists are similar.

One person may say X is a principle, while another teacher will call it a strategy, and a third will speak of something else. Our human categories don’t necessarily fit exactly onto natural processes. Nature is not organized into neat and discrete little boxes.

So there’s a certain messiness our categories and lists. Life is that way. Since permaculture derives from life, you'll find some of that life messiness in permaculture too.

As a matter of practical design work, we use our lists of permaculture ethics, principles, strategies, techniques, tools, and tactics to turn our observations and evaluations into concrete plans for action and implementation to meet our goals in ways that are consistent with the permaculture ethics.

Permaculture principles help us solve problems.

Scott Pittman’s List

Scott Pittman is one of the first generation of permaculture teachers in the United States and is the founder of the Permaculture Institute in New Mexico. He has the most succinct list, identifying three fundamental permaculture principles:

Everything connects to everything else (the holistic principle).
Many elements support every function. (principle of redundancy).
Every element should serve many functions (principle of stacked functions).

Dan Hemenway’s List

Dan Hemenway is another one of the first generation of permaculture teachers in the United States. He describes four disciplines and 12 principles of permaculture in his article “Living Lovingly,” which was originally published in 1982 in the International Permaculture Species Yearbook. After 20 years of further work and reflection, he revised it considerably and published it online at http://www.barkingfrogspermaculture.org/livinglovingly.pdf. (The list that follows is his. The commentary here is mine.)

Disciplines

Observe. Long and thoughtful observation is the beginning (and the continuation and integral to the implementation) of permaculture design. We must know the place where we begin, and the place we want to go, so we can make good design decisions on how to get there.
Trust yourself. We live in an era which exalts the “expert” and devalues the individual person. Yet, all too often experts speak as the voice of powerful interests who seek to preserve the Excess Consumption System Design patterns that destroy the earth and disempower human communities. An “expert” at most is an information resource, never an “authority.” You are the primary authority on your own life.
Respect and honor every being and situation as a unique part of Creation. The Excess Consumption System Design pattern values people only for their ability to consume and ranks things on their consumable value to human beings. Permaculture honors everyone as unique persons and all things and creatures as unique aspects of creation.
See everything as part of a whole. The default design of the world assigns everything and everyone to a category and gives meaning to people and things only insofar as they fit into a neat category. The real world is a whole system, however, everything works together. Permaculture seeks to develop designs that mimic nature, including its ability to work together.

Principles

As we evaluate our observations, and make our design decisions, we do so in accordance with principles like these.

If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. Do only what is necessary. Conserve. We never do anything just for the sake of doing something or to appear busy. We do things — make changes in the way we live — only after a design process which identifies what is necessary and then designs the minimum way to get there. In other words, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. If something breaks, be smart in your fixing.

Many hands make light work. Never do anything for only one reason (stack functions) This is a principle of energy conservation. The Permaculture Design Manual refers to this as “stacking functions.” It’s about doing more with less.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Be redundant. Meet needs in multiple ways. If something is important, like fertility, backup systems are necessary. In my garden I apply compost, I mulch, I sometimes use compost teas, and I plant nitrogen fixing plants.

Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Design, and act, on an appropriate scale. Actions and systems should be appropriate to the scale of the situation. We wouldn’t build a large nuclear reactor to provide electrical power to an isolated home.

A well-beaten path does not always mark the right road. Work with edges. Human settlements love to cluster at edges and boundaries — alongside rivers, on the coasts, in valleys in the mountains, at places where two or more ecosystems meld together. Edges are places where energies and goods transfer

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Everything (almost) potentially has value to something/someone else. In a forest, the waste of one element is food for another. The surplus of one is the necessary of another. This works according to its own rhythms without the intervention of a gardener. I suppose that there are some exceptions to this, like the neutron bomb. There aren’t many.

No one is an island. Everything needs something else. None of the elements of biological nature — people, birds, animals, worms, plants — can exist in isolation. All living beings are part of intricate communities of support, care, and challenge.

Variety is the spice of life. Promote and preserve diversity. In permaculture, diversity refers to the beneficial connections that characterize a system, not a mere numerical diversity.

One thing leads to another. No condition, action, or inaction is without consequence. You can never do just one thing (or just one inaction). You can try. You will fail. As pebbles in a pond set up a pattern of outgoing waves, so do the actions and inactions of your life have impacts for beyond what you can see or even understand.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Energy follows the pattern. A pattern is a guide. If you want to make a dress, you use a dress pattern. You don’t use a pattern for a shoe or a hat. In permaculture, we look for the patterns that produce the circumstances that need to change. Then we consider how to change the patterns to get different results.

What goes around comes around. Everything works both ways. A window that lets light in will let heat out. It lets heat in, depending on the season. Thus, we must always be wary of consequences, intended or unintended.

Love will find a way. It is the harmony between giving and receiving. What goes around, always comes around. We can’t receive if we don’t give. If we give, we must receive. It’s the way things are structured.

David Holmgren’s List

David Holmgren is one of the cofounders of permaculture design. In his book, Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability, Holmgren identifies 12 principles:

Observe and interact.
Catch and store energy.
Obtain a yield.
Apply self regulation and accept feedback.
Use and value renewable resources and services.
Produce no waste.
Design from patterns to details.
Integrate rather than segregate.
Use small and slow solutions.
Use and value diversity.
Use edges and value the marginal.
Creatively use and respond to change.

Bill Mollison’s List

His is the longest list of them all, compiled from the Permaculture Design Manual. He says that these are “universally applicable guidelines” to be used in design.

Relative Location: Components placed in a system are viewed relatively, not in isolation.
Functional Relationship between components: Everything is connected to everything else.
Recognize functional relationships between elements: Every function is supported by many elements.
Redundancy: Good design ensures that all important functions can withstand the failure of one or more element. Design backups.
Every element is supported by many functions: Each element we include is a system, chosen and placed so that it performs as many functions as possible.
Local Focus: "Think globally — Act locally" Grow your own food, cooperate with neighbors. Community efficiency not self-sufficiency.
Diversity: As a general rule, as sustainable systems mature they become increasingly diverse in both space and time. What is important is the complexity of the functional relationships that exist between elements not the number of elements.
Use Biological Resources: We know living things reproduce and build up their availability over time, assisted by their interaction with other compatible elements. Use and reserve biological intelligence.
One Calorie In/One Calorie Out: Do not consume or export more biomass than carbon fixed by the solar budget.
Stocking: Finding the balance of various elements to keep one from overpowering another over time. How much of an element needs to be produced in order to fulfill the need of whole system?
Stacking: Multilevel functions for any single element (stacking functions). Multilevel garden design, i.e., trellising, forest garden, vines, ground covers, etc.
Succession: Recognize that certain elements prepare the way for systems to support other elements in the future, i.e., succession planting.
Use Onsite Resources: Determine what resources are available and entering the system on their own and maximize their use.
Edge Effect: Ecotones are the most diverse and fertile area in a system. Two ecosystems come together to form a third which has more diversity than either of the other two, i.e., edges of ponds, forests, meadows, currents etc.
Energy Recycling: Yields from system designed to supply onsite needs and/or needs of a local region.
Small Scale: Intensive Systems start small and create a system that is manageable and produces a high yield.
Make Least Change for the Greatest Effect: The less change that is generated, the less embedded energy is used to endow the system.
Planting Strategy: 1st-natives, 2nd-proven exotics, 3rd — unproven exotics — carefully on small scale with lots of observation.
Work Within Nature: Aiding the natural cycles results in higher yields and less work. A little support goes a long way.
Appropriate Technology: The same principles apply to cooking, lighting, transportation, heating, sewage treatment, water and other utilities.
Law of Return: Whatever we take, we must return Every object must responsibly provide for its replacement.
Stress and Harmony: Stress here may be defined as either prevention of natural function, or of forced function. Harmony may be defined as the integration of chosen and natural functions, and the easy supply of essential needs.
The Problem is the solution: We are the problem, we are the solution. Turn constraints into resources. Mistakes are tools for learning.
The yield of a system is theoretically unlimited: The only limit on the number of uses of a resource possible is the limit of information and imagination of designer.
Dispersal of Yield Over Time: Principal of seven generations. We can use energy to construct these systems, providing that in their lifetime, they store or conserve more energy that we use to construct them or to maintain them.
A Policy of Responsibility (to relinquish power): The role of successful design is to create a self-managed system.
Principle of Disorder: Order and harmony produce energy for other uses. Disorder consumes energy to no useful end. Tidiness is maintained disorder. Chaos has form but is not predictable. The amplification of small fluctuations.
Entropy: In complex systems, disorder is an increasing result. Entropy and life-force are a stable pair that maintain the universe to infinity.
Metastability: For a complex system to remain stable, there must be small pockets of disorder.
Entelechy: Principal of genetic intelligence. I.e., The rose has thorns to protect itself.
Observation: Protracted & thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor.
We are surrounded by insurmountable opportunities.
Wait one year: (See #31, above)
Hold water and fertility as high (in elevation) on the landscape as possible. It’s all downhill from there.