Permaculture

(please find our Permaculture Projects, Services and Workshops below)

Permaculture is based on observation of nature, how life evolves, organizes and sustains itself. From this process it derives design principles and tools which one can apply to any kind of system, let it be a garden, a farm, a career or a social system.
It is a broad-based and holistic approach that has many applications to all aspects of life.
The permaculture journey begins with ethics and design principles and moves through the key domains required to create a sustainable culture.

At the heart of permaculture design and practice is a fundamental set of ‘core values’ or ethics which remain constant whatever a person's situation, whether they are creating systems for town planning or trade; whether the land they care for is only a windowbox or an entire forest. These 'ethics' are often summarised as:

    * Earthcare – recognising that the Earth is the source of all life (and is possibly itself a living entity- see Gaia theory) and that we recognise and respect that the Earth is our valuable home and we are a part of the Earth, not apart from it.

    * Peoplecare – supporting and helping each other to change to ways of living that are not harming ourselves or the planet, and to develop healthy societies.

    * Fairshare (or placing limits on consumption) - ensuring that the Earth's limited resources are utilised in ways that are equitable and wise

The core of permaculture has always been in supplying a design toolkit.
This toolkit helps the designer to model a final design based on an observation of how ecosystems themselves interact.

Permaculture designs evolve over time, and can become extremely complex mosaics of conventional and inventive cultural systems.
While techniques and cultural systems are freely borrowed from organic agriculture, sustainable forestry, horticulture, agroforestry, and the land management systems of indigenous peoples, permaculture's fundamental contribution to the field of ecological design is the development of a concise set of broadly applicable organizing principles that can be transferred through a brief intensive training.

‚Sustainable development to provide for human needs, within ecological limits, requires a cultural revolution greater than any of the tumultuous changes of the last century.
Permaculture design principles can never be a substitute for relevant practical experience and technical knowledge. However, they may provide a framework for continuous generation and evaluation of the site and situation specific solutions necessary to move beyond the limited successes of sustainable development to a reunion of culture and nature.
Permaculture is a dynamic interplay between two phases: on the one hand, sustaining life within the cycle of the seasons, and on the other, conceptual abstaction and emotional intensity of creativity and design. I see the relationship between these two as like the pulsing relationship between stability and change.’
by David Holmgren: ‘Permaculture - Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability’

- find more infos concerning permaculture and links concerning permaculture -