The term “permaculture” was coined by a man who traveled the world to help impoverished communities, particularly in the global south. Instead of imposing his ideas on the people he worked with, he asked them how they used to do things before colonial history destroyed their traditional systems and turned them into something else.
Historically, there have been two different approaches to meeting human needs. The first approach involves leaving the entire ecosystem intact and tweaking it to better meet human needs while still maintaining an ecosystem, making it infinitely sustainable and allowing room for biodiversity. The benefit of this approach is that it can meet human needs with a small amount of work, typically a few hours or up to two dozen hours per week. However, the disadvantage is that it is labor-inefficient, requiring more hands on the land.
The second approach involves destroying the entire ecosystem and using that freed-up energy to grow food. This approach is not sustainable because once the stored-up energy is gone, the system is dead, and it becomes dependent on fertilizers and chemicals. The benefit of this approach is that it is labor-efficient, allowing a small number of unskilled laborers to produce a large excess, creating a wealthy privileged class.
The Spread of Unsustainable Practices
The first societies that started using the second approach had extra food to create an army and a warrior class. Because this system would collapse, they had a need to impose it on other people. This way of doing things became like an infectious cultural disease that spread, with the Romans being particularly effective at converting much of Europe from permaculture-like systems into their unsustainable approach.
During the colonial era, European superpowers went around the world doing the same thing, turning sustainable systems into unsustainable ones to harvest energy and create a surplus to make themselves wealthier. As a result, the ecosystems, economies, and traditional food systems of those places have been completely destroyed, leaving the people living in poverty.
The Permaculture Solution
The permaculture approach seeks to:
- 🌿 Recreate the sustainable systems that people had before they were destroyed
- 🌍 Leave ecosystems intact while tweaking them to meet human needs
- 🤝 Require more hands-on labor but provide long-term sustainability
Some interesting facts about permaculture:
- 📚 The term “permaculture” was coined by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s
- 🌾 Permaculture principles can be applied to agriculture, architecture, and community design
- 🌳 Permaculture systems often incorporate perennial plants, which require less maintenance and provide long-term yields
By adopting permaculture practices, we can work towards creating a more sustainable future that meets human needs while preserving the environment and biodiversity.