Permaculture
What is Permaculture?
"Permaculture is a design system for creating sustainable human environments. The word itself is a contraction not only of 'permanent agriculture', but also 'permanent culture' as cultures cannot survive long without a sustainable agricultural base and land use ethic. On one level permaculture deals with plants, animals, buildings and infrastructures. However, perma-culture is not about these elements themselves, but rather about the relationships we can create between them by the way we place them in the landscape."
-Bill Mollison, Introduction to Permaculture
Permaculture is a wide and varied subject that can be explained in many ways, complex and simple. In the most simple terms, permaculture is about beneficial relationships and land care ethics; taking care of the earth to take care of the people.
In more complex terms, permaculture is a method of observing and designing an environment to cycle and recycle external inputs (eg. rain, sun, people, etc.) as many times as possible before they leave the system.
Permaculture contains a vast set of techniques and strategies that accomplish these ends, ranging from 'guild planting' to 'sheet composting' and many others that may be used whole or as part of a larger evolving design.