Permaculture is a term introduced in the 1970’s, but is being talked about more and more. I think we are going to hear even more about it in the coming months and years.
I recently posted about the term ‘organic’ being rendered irrelevant by large scale agriculture and food companies, and permaculture may soon replace this term.
Permaculture is not so much a set of rules as it is a philosophy. It’s about doing things in a way that are low impact to the environment as well as minimizing inputs and outputs. Inputs and outputs are minimized by reusing waste as much as possible and designing systems that are self-sustaining and don’t require inputs of energy, chemicals or natural resources.
For many of us this is nothing new. It’s how we have been gardening and living our lives for a long time now. It is however useful to have a term and a way to formalize and discuss it. In this way we can all improve the way we do things, and help each other at the same time.
Expect to hear this word a lot more on this blog! If you’re interested in a longer and more detailed discussion of these principles, Wikipedia has an article on it here.
I like the idea of the inclusion of fungi as pushed my Paul Stamets. Not much luck yet…