Brief Worldview of Permaculture (what does it do and where?)
The planet is in crisis, the global ecological, food and water systems are all failing. Climate change is accelerating; Permaculture design offers positive solutions today. There are now 750,000 graduates of this course worldwide with over 400,000 projects in 120 countries. Permaculture design consultants are now recognized by the United Nations aid organizations and employed in both emergency and development aid projects.
Permaculture consultants are now used in regional development for environmentally sustainable design criteria demanded by local and national governments worldwide.
What does this course do for you?
Participants will gain a thorough understanding of sustainable land use design from the urban apartment to broad bio-regional catchments, eco-village design, effective and ethical financial systems, patterns in nature and their uses, climate factors, proven strategies for domestic food and water security, forests and how they work, large and small scale water catchments and treatment, proven design strategies from the sub arctic to the equatorial regions, effective aid work, education, effective earth works and repairs, dry lands and desert understanding and self sufficiency anywhere, and access to global networks.
This course is for full-time designers, working in groups or in teams. The function of a designer is to know where things are to be placed and, in particular, why they are to be placed there. A good designer relies on the number of elements available, information about elements, ability to use that information harmoniously, and the degree of success in comprehension. It is not necessary to know how to build or level or engineer or even garden. The designer should know when his job begins and ends, and where the role of a supervisor begins. Reading is necessary after the course ends, but essential planning data is given.
1. Identify resources and elements in landscape
2. General discussion of topography and placement of design elements
3. The art of creative problem solving
A. GENERAL INTRODUCTION:
Today professionals and students in business, government, education, healthcare, building, economics, technology, and environmental sciences are being called upon to ‘design’ sustainable programs and activities.
Through systems science we have learned that actions taken today can affect the viability of living systems to support human activity and evolution for many generations to come. Sustainability is a concept introduced to communicate the imperative for humanity to develop in our built environment those conditions that will sustain the structures, functions, and processes inextricably linked with capacities for life.
The challenge we face in this new era of sustainability is a realization that the goals and needs for developing sustainable conditions in our social environment are complex, diverse, and at times counter to the dynamics of ecological systems.
In recent years ecology has been called upon to include the studies of how humans interrelate with ecological processes, within ecosystems. Although humans are part of the natural ecosystem when we speak of human ecology, the relationships between humanity and the environment, it is helpful to think of the ‘environment’ as the social system. What are the relationships and interactions within this ecosystem? What are the relationships and interactions between the social system and ecological environment (this includes air, soil, water, physical living and nonliving structures)? How do the interactions between systems, affect the global ecosystem?
The most fundamental means we have as a society in transforming human ecology is through modeling and designing in our social environment those conditions that will influence sustainable interactions and relationships within the global ecological system. “The social system is a central concept in human ecology because human activities that impact the global ecosystem are strongly influenced by the society in which people live”. Currently, social system designs create fragmentation, and counter productive relationships with ecological environments and dynamic processes. Such design in social organizations directs human activity towards unsustainable patterns of behavior and living conditions that create imbalances in both social and environmental ecologies. We must learn anew how to ‘design’ within our social environment, viable, sustainable, and regenerative system conditions.
Humanity has the cognitive capacity to learn, envision and project through design to application, intended future outcomes. Until now this capacity has been utilized for economic prosperity which has created many complex structures, and processes within the social environment that impede our capacity for sustainable development. Many people are being called upon to design and develop within the socio-economic environment the means for sustainable development. But along with the awareness of the need for transformation, is a growing realization that the environment in which we have learned to interpret information, develop skills and apply knowledge, to date have shaped our capacity to understand systems and their functioning process in our own lives.
Survival in our culture has been inextricably linked with our socio-economic environment. It is within this environment, that our observations and understanding of ‘how life works’ has been maintained for generations. The social environment was not developed with an understanding of ecological structures and functions for building and sustaining those capacities inherent in succession, and regeneration. Fragmented from this understanding, humanity misuses ecological resources, which support processes for succession, regeneration, and evolution. All natural resources are moved or converted from the ecosystem to support the socio-economic system. Human constructions have been conceived and designed as though our function and survival is not only separate from the ecological systems, but unaccountable to sustaining those capacities in which we depend.
Socio-Economic Design
Conventional economic design, and production methodologies that serve one purpose such as economic wealth/ profit, results in a one way relationship in which commodities are being developed at increasing levels of resource use and energy consumption. If surplus does not go into replenishment of those same resources being used or consumed in the production process, and the resources are not being accounted for by the same valuation method as the commodities they were converted into; there is a one way valuation and accountability that hides resource depletion. Resource depletion within social, environmental, and human equity has become inherent in current social design.
Ecological Design
On the other hand ecological design, functions and self-organizes to create system-efficiencies, regenerative capacity, and succession. Yields and surplus are returned to the system in order to strengthen and optimize the developmental capacity of the elements or parts within the system. As the parts, (i.e. elements of a system) are able to develop and function to their fullest potential, and form capacity building relationships, there is an emergence of a viable and abundant eco (life)-system. Production and Consumption within ecological design is not the means to an end, but are instead part of an ongoing process of fortification. All resources, including waste are considered potential building blocks to be utilized to regenerate the systems’ form, feedback, and functional health.
The most comprehensive source for transformative design in the human social environment begins with learning how to design Permaculture systems within any context of social, environmental, or economic organization.
The Permaculture Design methodology teaches students to learn through careful observation, and develop the ability to think through the cycles, functions, structures and dynamic principles of ecological systems.
The Permaculture Design process takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding ecology, systems, and sociology. This is integrated with specializations in appropriate technologies, eco-engineering, design & building, physical-chemical-biologies, renewable energies, and economics. In order to create, in human design, the structure, conditions, and capacities for sustenance that will be sustainable over time, we must allow for a more ecologically stable and viable human culture to evolve.
Learning Objectives: The aim is for you to understand the concepts of ecology, bioregions, the basic design methodologies, ethics and principles of Permaculture. Awareness of ecological and organic food growing systems and the many uses of appropriate technology as the foundation of a viable self-reliant lifestyle will be stressed, along with related issues pertinent to a thorough understanding of the basic issues (for ex: biotechnology and its repercussions) circulating today. The idea of understanding the local history and settlement patterns of a particular site and how this must be reflected in a design will also be discussed. By merging the skills of the first two epochs we bring to this section of the course a basic feeling for land-use ethic, hand skills, observational awareness, and the tools needed for a self-reliant, ecologically-based lifestyle.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubLijPHh4KA&hl=en_US&fs=1&]