The Sustainable Revolution -Part 2

The Sustainable Revolution

This paper was originally presented at the World Social Forum in Caracas at the University of Venezuela on January 25th,2006

Introduction

PERMACULTURE

Originally drawn from the concept of permanent agriculture.

Permaculture concept co-originator, Bill Mollison states:

"Without permanent agriculture, civilisation cannot sustain itself."

Now, in recent years, because Permaculture concerns itself with people, their buildings and the way they organise themselves, we expand this concept to include all other forms of sustainable methodology, and thus permanent agriculture becomes permanent (sustainable) culture. With the recent publication of the other Permaculture concept co- originator David Holmgren's groundbreaking philosophical work, "Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability", the definition and indeed, the ethical praxis of Permaculture assumes additional dimensions from what it has been associated with previously.

Thus, Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.

Permacuture design is a system of assembling conceptual, material and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all its forms.

The philosophy behind permaculture is one of working with, rather than against nature

- of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless action

- of looking at systems in all of their functions rather than asking only one yield of them

- and of allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolutions.

The Prime Directive of Permaculture

is that:

The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children.

The Principle of Cooperation

is fundamental in Permaculture Design for Cooperation, not competition, is the very basis of existing life systems and of future survival

The Ethical Basis of Permaculture

1. CARE OF THE EARTH: Provision for all life systems to continue and thrive

2. CARE OF ALL SPECIES: Provision for all species and people to access (in a sustainable manner) those resources necessary to their existence

3. SETTING LIMITS TO OUR POPULATION AND OUR CONSUMPTION: By governing our own needs, we can set resources aside to further the first two principles

Geoff Lawton, who heads Permaculture International further elaborates upon this ethical praxis by stating:

If we need to state a set of ethics on natural systems, then let it be thus:

- Implacable and uncompromising opposition to further disturbance of any remaining natural forests, especially where most species are still in balance;

- Vigorous rehabilitation of degraded and damaged natural systems returning them to stable states;

- Establishment of plant systems for our own use on the least amount of land we can use for our existence; and

- Establishment of plant and animal refuges for rare or threatened species.

Permaculture as a design system deals primarily with the third statement above, but all people who act responsibly in fact subscribe to the first and second statements. We believe we should use all the species we need or can find to use in our own settlement designs, providing they are not locally rampant and invasive.

Part 2

The Permaculture Principles and Revolutionary Transformation

Before we get into an analysis of the twelve principles of Permaculture, allow me to introduce a simple chart of comparisons between the old dynamic of the Industrial culture and the emerging new paradigm of the Sustainable culture, as exemplified by Permaculture.

First we state the characteristic, then the tendency of each:

Energy Base> Industrial- Non-renewable, Sustainable- Renewable

Material Flows> Industrial- Linear, Sustainable- Cyclical

Natural Assets> Industrial- Consumption, Sustainable- Storage

Organisation> Industrial- Centralised, Sustainable- Distributed Network

Scale> Industrial- Large, Sustainable- Small

Movement> Industrial- Fast, Sustainable- Slow

Feedback> Industrial-Positive, Sustainable- Negative

Focus> Industrial- Centre, Sustainable- Edge

Activity> Industrial-Episodic Change, Sustainable- Rhythmic Stability

Thinking> Industrial- Reductionist, Sustainable- Holistic

Gender> Industrial- Masculine, Sustainable- Feminine

The Permaculture Principles

Observe and Interact

Catch and Store Energy

Obtain A Yield

Apply Self Regulation and Accept Feedback

Use and Value Renewable Resources

Produce No Waste

Design From Patterns to Details

Integrate rather Than Segregate

Use Small and Slow Solutions

Use and Value Diversity

Use Edges and Value the Marginal

Creatively Use and Respond to Change

In examining these principles, I'll first state the principle and relate the
proverb(s) that qualify it.

Then I'll examine what it means and how it corresponds to full spectrum
sustainability.

5) Use and Value Renewable Resources

Let Nature Take Its Course

reminds us that human intervention and complication of processes can make things worse and that we should respect and value the wisdom in biological systems and processes

The primary reason why fossil fuels remain more attractive to capitalists is because of their high and regular flow rates. Renewable energies tend to be of a more erratic, irregular flow in nature. The wind doesn't blow, the lack of rain decreases the flow of water, cloudy days diminish the quality of sunshine, etc. What this unpredictable nature of renewable energy does provide us with, is a negative feedback mechanism that forces us to appreciate the true value of the work that goes into capturing and storing energy. This prevents us from using energy in a lazy, wasteful fashion, and instils in us a conservation ethic that a society facing fossil fuel decline shall find indispensable. The best place to situate renewable energy systems is where nature has already done the hard work of providing the physical infrastructure necessary that requires low emergy input, such as in hydro and tidal applications. Renewable energy systems requiring greater input can still be feasible if the remoteness or uniqueness of the habitat reduces the feasibility of alternative options. Solar power in very sunny, dry but remote climates such as deserts, or panels on urban rooftops provide us with examples of such strategies.

Perceiving energy as captured and stored as opposed to its use in just a raw form is also advantageous. As nature's most efficient vessels for capturing and storing energy, trees embody the advantage of utilising energy in slightly different ways:

-trees provide wood for decentralised production of transport fuels using intermediate technologies (wood gas and methanol)

-they provide structural timber products, fibre and wood chemical products to replace energy intensive concrete, metal and synthetic materials for building

-forests produce non-timber products like honey, natural medicines and mushrooms as well as providing valuable environmental services

-wood producing forests can grow sustainably on poor land unsuitable for food production15

Similarly we can think of living organisms and forces in terms of their contribution to useful energy purposes. For example, we can view grazing animals as mowers, plants as water and nutrient pumps, shelter and living fences. Living soil can be considered a filter, purifier and storage unit for water and nutrients. Waterways and wetlands can be thought about in terms of their self purifying water storage capacities.

6) Produce No Waste

A Stitch in Time Saves Nine

reminds us of the value of timely maintenance in preventing waste and work involved in major repair and restoration efforts

and Waste Not, Want Not

reminds us that it is easy to be wasteful when there is an abundance but that this waste can be the cause of later hardship

"Governments do not generally support major social changes away from addictive consumption, even though the social and environmental benefits would be great, because the growth economy is inextricably tied (ie; addicted) to dysfunctional over-consumption"16

There has got to be a conscious effort made by people to examine the way they conduct themselves in their everyday lives, in order to realise that imperialism embodies much more than the physical plunder of human and material resources. People have got to begin to recognize that oligarchies demonstrate their power and control by operating just as deeply and pervasively on the psychological level, through their control and manipulation of culture. Many poor people suffer far more misery than they need to, because they have been socially conditioned to live wasteful lifestyles. Even when there is little to go around, resources are not necessarily used in the most effective manner. For example, junk food or red meat is bought instead of grains and legumes that shall provide more food and nutrition for the same cost. This was certainly not the case in traditional societies.

Again, the nature of how we focus our perception on our problems, is of paramount importance. An aspect of the first principle, “the problem is the solution” becomes an effective strategy once our perspective about the role of pests and waste is turned around to be seen as opportunities to reuse, recycle and use as captured energy.

Let us consider the garbage problem. Through composting all organic waste, we can create captured energy that can be stored in living soils as processed humus and siphon off released methane to be used for on site purposes of running machinery that runs the compost operation (loading, chipping or shredding, stacking, turning and removal for final application.)

The need to actively resist capitalism's pervasive industrial practice of creating built in obsolescence in products should be addressed at the government level. If necessary, by dint of public pressure, so that regulations prohibiting poor quality, un-recyclable merchandise and over-packaged products is implemented. Large businesses have to be forced to take responsibility for the entire chain of custody of their products, ie; the environmental recycling or proper disposal of them, as well as their production. A tax should be levied on small business to finance a service that would do the same. If uncompostable packaging is outlawed, then widely dispersed containers in urban areas for compostables can be put out, with fines that would be paid as community labour, for those who don't get with the program and continue to litter, including rich, fat cats. In rural areas, regional depots and education campaigns outlining the principles of self-regulation can be initiated. The garbage problem should become a solution towards creating a system of self-reliant food production that provides a resolution to the question of food sovereignty. Over time, as people increase their faith in this system and their participation, collection and maintenance costs decrease, as returns from value added products and increases in agricultural and energy production increases, supporting economic and environmental stability and expanded capacity. Building codes and manufacturing regulations must reflect a resolve to design with the concept of effective maintenance in mind so that the lifetime of structures and products is extended long enough to enable time and resources (in a world of declining resources) for their replacement. The local, regional and national pride that would accompany the achievement of such self-regulation would also constitute an unquantifiable benefit. Our ancestors were able to do this, and so should we be able to.

7) Design From Patterns to Details

Can't See the Wood for the Trees

reminds us that details tend to distract our awareness of the nature of the system; the closer we get the less we are able to comprehend the larger picture

Most traditional societies possessed the talent to read the landscape through a recognition of patterns in nature. This capacity has diminished to non existence in modern societies, deriving from our alienation to nature, due to the effects of technology and the social conditioning of mindless consumerism imposed by Capitalist dictate. There could hardly be a talent more valuable in permaculture design than the ability to distinguish recurring patterns in the natural landscape.

Sometimes top-down thinking can also help us to decipher patterns that may be too subtle to detect up close. Monitoring an area over a long period of time or making use of long known indigenous knowledge of the region can help us avoid false conclusions about an area based upon patterns only recently observed of the landscape. For example, massive floods that happen only once every one hundred years will require a deeper look into patterns readable in the landscape, than a quick, superficial inspection would reveal.

"Knowing that "wherever (and whenever) in the universe available energy and matter are abundant, self organisation leads to increasing activity and structure"17 tips us off to where most human land use and settlement are likely to have been located- near concentrations of fertility and harvestable resources. Self organised wild landscapes, sometimes complimented by indigenous land use should be regarded as models of efficient, sustainable land use to base future designs upon. Patterns of vegetation reflect efficient energy capture and storage.

For example, forest systems are effective with their multi layered patterns. These ecosystems :

-are dominated by large trees which grow tall through competition for light

-include understory species that can use the filtered light and stable microclimates created under the canopy

-have diverse habitats for both small and large animals

-are very effective at holding soil against landslips and other forms of instability18

Major water catchment systems will cover most of the landscape and include different types of ecosystems. Their patterns reflect the flow and form of energy. They are like the blood filled veins of the land, and thus, life concentrates around them. There are pertinent observations that we can make about the nature of catchment systems.

Such as:

-What happens in the headwaters shall affect the entire river system.

-The health of the river system reflects the health of the whole catchment.

-Headwaters are pure, but infertile, estuaries are fertile but can accumulate toxins.

-Forested headwaters will protect steep upper slopes from erosion while protecting the lowlands from floods, siltation and salinity.

Other catchment design strategies that can take advantage of water flows are keyline designs that create swales and channel water along the contours of land in order to slow it down so that it can be cycled through plants and soil to trap more nutrient and store more water. Roof catchment on buildings, especially in urban areas, to store and use for garden and cleaning purposes. Management of invasive riparian species, as a recognition that they represent successional adaptations to systems with greater energy in run-off and nutrients.

"The Land Systems" concept is based on seeing "an area or group of areas throughout which there is a recurring pattern of topography, soils and vegetation"19 This larger view of the land as a region can help to define the natural characteristics of habitats that have been changed dramatically, as in the case of industrial or urban development, so that mistakes made from a limited appraisal of the land can be avoided.

Permaculture site design itself is based upon the efficiency of the shape of the radiating nuclei of the cell. With a focused centre, the household, from which emanates control and management, zones radiate out, from gardens to orchards to livestock to food forests, decreasing in intensive human use to integrate more gradually with natural systems. This system encourages small scale, nucleated development mimicking the efficiency of cellular growth. It compliments distinct systems that reflect the specific nature of the site and provides a focal point for zones and sectors. The sector design allows us to design for the influence of wild energies that may affect the site such as those of wind, water, sun aspect and micro-climates that are created, due to topography. Apart from this type of mental map, aerial photos, overlays, scale plans, models and topographical maps can help us to qualify the design as well as flow charts to explore complex development processes and works.

Learning to link cause and effect in processes that impact the land and express themselves in recognizable patterns is a definite advantage in creating sustainable design.

8) Integrate rather Than Segregate

Many Hands Make Light Work

reminds us of the intangible benefits from collective rather than solitary action as well as the more general synergistic nature of integrated systems in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts

The rapid expansion of global capitalism in recent years has eliminated the easy profits taken previously from raw resource extraction and placed more of an emphasis on the exploitation of human capital. This too, however, has its limits, and economic collapses in Southeast Asia, the former Soviet Union, Mexico and Argentina all reflect the failure of Neo-liberal Capitalism's competition ethic to come to terms with a world of diminishing resources. More than ever, global society needs to shift its ethical code of values to a perspective that recognizes the inter-dependence of all living beings and forces as being part of one family, the family of Earth, and thus as participants in mutual relationships. Co-operative and symbiotic relationships shall be more adaptive in a future of declining fossil fuel use than competitive relationships defined by conflictive struggle.

The two key themes in permaculture design to bear in mind, when contemplating a shift in ethical praxis, are these:

-each element performs many functions

-each important function is supported by many elements

These are guiding concepts in creating designs of the homestead, the community, the region and even the nation, to consider carefully. For example, communities that are diverse in function and appearance are often regarded as highly productive and sustaining, but without mutualistic co-operation and agreement upon land use between neighbours, conflicts soon arise due to the competing individualistic goals of private owners who have no inclination to regard the overall characteristics and social dynamics of the community. The forester sees the rancher as creating an unnecessary fire hazard from his grassy pastures and the rancher sees the forester as wasting land that could be used for growing pastures as feed instead of trees that may have little immediate return.20 Both are governed by self absorbed and limited perspectives that make no attempt to integrate holistic function at the community level. Without a design that integrates the elements of the community so that they function to support each other, efficiency is lost to conflict and a great deal of waste is often created because the lack of support between elements in the system of community creates extra work and frequently the need for external inputs from outside of the community. On the other hand, too much similarity in skills, age, needs and personalities in a community creates imbalance and tends to promote competition and conflict.

Characteristics of a sustainable community in a future of declining energy use might logically be:

-local and bioregional political and economic structures with natural geographic barriers once again forming borders between regions

-cross fertilisation of biogenetic, racial, cultural and intellectual human qualities, bestowing a hybrid vigour

-accessibility and low dependence on expensive and centralised technology

-capable of being developed by incremental steps with feedback and refinement

-models of common ownership and redevelopment management for the farmland commons21

9) Use Small and Slow Solutions

The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Fall

is a reminder of one of the disadvantages of size and excessive growth.

and Slow and Steady Wins The Race

encourages patience while reflecting a common truth in nature and society

"World affairs are now dominated by enormous government and corporate institutions, operating at scales that affect global climate, but driven by an intelligence and planning horizon which is shorter than individual humans are capable of. This mismatch of scale and lifespan is close to the heart of the unsustainability of industrial culture."22

Cellular design indicates that functions are most efficient at the smallest possible scale, and that replication and diversification are the most effective mechanisms for growth to support larger scale functions. In permaculture design we promote concepts that emphasize alternatives to large, top heavy means of production and lifestyle like small scale and consolidation of functions.

Examples are:

-stacking of plants to make full use of soil, water and sunlight in small areas

-multi-purpose buildings and integrated land uses that pack more functions onto less land

-production of perishable foods from gardens adjacent to housing

-low and medium density village housing patterns

-local economic currency exchange systems

-bicycle transport

we support technologies that are:

-small scale

-simple to apply and maintain

-are labour intensive rather than capital or energy intensive

-using local resources

-supporting local markets23

If we look at the difference between slow growth strategies and industrial fast growth methods in agriculture and forestry, considering all of the factors involved and not just a contrived and distorted bottom line, we discover a wide distinction on many levels.

When produce is grown in biologically active, mineral balanced soils the nutritional quality is high, the firmness is intact, the flavours are deep and rich and the keeping qualities are long.

Industrially grown produce includes such adverse effects such as:

-minerals are at a low level and unbalanced, leading to poor flavour, keeping qualities and nutritional values

-very high water content (designed to inflate weight and thus price) which further dilutes flavour and nutritional qualities

-excessive uptake of synthetic nutrients, especially nitrogen and potassium, which leads to un-metabolised nitrates in the product, that have been revealed by medical studies to be carcinogenic

Likewise as carpenters know, fast growing trees produce timber that is:

-non-durable for outdoor purposes

-poor in strength and toughness

-small in cross-section

-prone to high shrinkage, and therefore deformation and cracking

-plain and featureless

Three factors allow the big corps to get away with this:

-continued harvesting of old growth forests

-industrial substitution with high emergy materials like steel, aluminium, concrete and plastics

-industrial (high energy) processing of wood into products like laminates, finger-jointing and reconstituted fibre boards to improve performance24

Even human nutrition is affected by ideas of growing fast and big. Feeding children concentrated, processed foods that are too quickly absorbed by the body which causes fast but unbalanced growth is proving to translate into degenerative diseases later in life.

10) Use and Value Diversity

Don't Put All Your Eggs in One Basket

embodies the commonsense understanding that diversity provides insurance against the vagaries of nature and everyday life

Diversity can be seen as a result of the balance and tension in nature between variety and possibility on the one hand, and productivity and power on the other. Diversity between cultivated systems and within species reflects the unique nature of site, situation and cultural or social context.25

One way of classifying plants defines them as either generalist or specialist. Generalists thrive in a variety of conditions and can sustain themselves from a variety of nutritional sources. They make good pioneers, transforming and improving the environment for the more sensitive specialists who are like the special skills people who are very efficient within a specific context but not particularly flexible or adaptable.

Concerning diversity in design work, Bill Mollison suggests that it is the number of functional connections between species, rather than the number of species , which makes for stability.26

Plantations planted by direct seeding produce healthier and better quality timber because through the thinning process, the greater diversity leaves us only the best. This proliferation of diversity, followed by culling, is a fundamental pattern of nature.

In terms of social interaction, the sharing of experiences between indigenous peoples with a tradition of place can provide an understanding of diversity within basic patterns of commonality. This provides a counterpoint to the modern global culture of "no place" uniformity.

The uniqueness of this time in history requires us to design self-reliant systems in a time of approaching energy descent. We shall have to proceed without knowing what lies ahead and how our designs will work. This is because of:

-a lack of local traditional models

-the inherent complexity and individuality of integrated systems designed for energy descent

-novel factors such as availability or presence of new species, knowledge or technologies

-natural co-evolutionary forces that only operate once systems are established27

Thus the impetus to experiment with diversity may mean more work and failure but also ensures us that we shall find new solutions we could never have otherwise conceived

11) Use Edges and Value the Marginal

Don't Think You Are on the Right Track Just Because it is A Well Beaten Path

reminds us that the most common, obvious and popular is not necessarily the most significant or influential

"The amount of Structural Edge in a landscape can be seen as a "leading indicator" of biological and resource diversity and, eventually, economic productivity"28

Utilisation of edge habitats or the margin of systems is an important application in Permaculture design. In fact, creation of edge habitats is a common function of design work. This is because when two different ecosystems interact, on their edges, there is an overlap that combines the diversity of both. This creates a hybridised habitat that frequently supports entirely new species with greater requirements than either of the single habitats can provide. Using zone and sector site design we can create intermediary zones of interaction between different systems within the design and foster the development of more specialised species such as important food or medicinal species that require an environment of greater diversity to thrive.

Examining the margin in modern globalised society we discover new possibilities emerging

-in the fields of the arts, with the ability for self production

-social activism with the tool of the internet to help create international solidarity

-skilled craftspeople and innovative technicians29

that never existed before because the support of major social infrastructures was needed. The blossoming of diversity of cultural expression that has emerged in recent years is not due to the initiatives of global capitalism (which actually seeks to control and diminish these expressions of social evolution), but is a production from the margins of society. The individual autonomy always present in the margins has migrated towards the centre as a paradigm shift begins.

12) Creatively Use and Respond to Change

Vision is Not Seeing Things As They Are But As They Will Be

emphasizes that understanding change is much more than the projection of statistical trend lines. It also makes a cyclical link between this last design principle about change and the first about observation

"A contextual and systemic sense of the dynamic balance between stability and change contributes to design that is evolutionary rather than random"30

One of the ways in which we respond to change is by re-examining our assumptions when the context of a situation changes the dynamic of the design. For example, in an earlier principle we spoke of saving energy by constructing with more durable materials to last for longer maintenance periods. In a tropical environment, the dynamic changes our priority to favour more frequent replacement by renewable materials because of:

-rapid decay of most materials

-a high level of natural disasters

-availability of rapidly grown renewable materials (eg. bamboo)

-availability of cheap labour

-largely outdoor lifestyle31

It is worth knowing the classic ecological succession of plants in developing ecosystems based on patterns of change:

Upon disturbance, bare ground is colonized by herbaceous plants

• followed by grassland
• to pioneer shrubs and bushes
• to fast growing forest trees
• to long lived trees that form a stable climax ecology.
• The characteristics of the system change from
• low biomass
• to high biomass, low soil humus
• to high soil humus, low resilience to disturbance
• to high resilience, low diversity
• to high diversity predominance of competitive relationships to predominance of co-operative and symbiotic relationships.

From this we can see that:

-most crop agriculture is analogous to the herbaceous stage in that it involves the rapid growth of annual plants over bare ground

-pastures grazed by animals are a managed version of grasslands

-marginal and abandoned land is usually covered by pioneer shrubs and fast growing trees32

Another understanding of change in early humans was the comprehension of pulsing ecosystem change. Periodically, in between long intervals of time, natural catastrophes like fire or floods would ravage a system and expose nutrients which presented opportunities for short term but bountiful harvests. People began to initiate their own pulsing strategies, like the use of fire to expose nutrients. The key was to move on to other locations, to allow nature over a slow period of time to replenish the depleted soil from the pulse crop. Considering the increasingly ferocious nature of climatic events caused by global warming, an awareness of pulse ecology is valuable.

Even more valuable is an awareness of the 4 phase model of ecosystem change.

The 4 phases are:

Conservation- long lived, steady state climax, where there is a high degree of interconnection between system elements, a large amount of stored biological capital and little leakage of nutrients

Release- the pulse of disturbance, typically very short in duration

Re-organisation- the most unstable phase, when open niches, soluble nutrients and energy are available to be tapped or lost.

Exploitation- fast growing pioneer species colonize the opportunities, catch and store energy quickly, and establish patterns for the more gradual build up of biomass and greater connectedness, leading toward a new conservation phase

The Re-organisation phase provides for the maximum opportunity of development or loss

The spectrum of plant, animal and human diversity allows us the potential to conserve and create new, selected diversity to suit emerging conditions. If we develop more open, flexible and interactive processes for planning design and management, we're more likely to see the benefits from both wild nature and human evolution.33

Conclusion

Creating a system of values that provides us with an ability to read and understand the ecological principles employed by nature, which creates self regulating, sustainable, interdependent and completely integrated eco-systems, from the smallest micro level to the largest macro level, is necessary for our continued survival as a species. Without such a system, we cannot sustain ourselves much further into the future. The current, operative paradigm of industrial capitalism, expressed most brutally in the form of neo-liberal capitalism, cannot be made sustainable without a dramatic deconstruction of its most fundamental values. In other words, we truly need a real revolution in the way we, as living beings, and components within a vast, living ecosphere, (that we otherwise call planet Earth,) perceive and interact with our world. Socialism can provide us with a just and sustainable social structure as a foundation upon which we can build such a new system of values. But without the tools of perception, infused by an ecological wisdom such as that provided by a system such as the principles of permaculture, we shall struggle in vain to create the holistic new paradigm that can be our only salvation.

Footnotes:

15) “Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability”, by David Holmgren, Chelsea Green, 2003 , p. 97

16) Ibid, p. 113

17) Ibid, p. 130

18) Ibid, p. 132

19) Ibid, p. 148

20) Ibid, p. 165

21) Ibid, p. 172

22) Ibid, p. 192

23) Ibid, p. 183

24) Ibid, p. 194

25) Ibid, p. 203

26) Ibid, p. 213

27) Ibid, p. 214

28) Ibid, p. 228

29) Ibid, p. 236

30) Ibid, p. 239

31) Ibid, p. 243

32) Ibid, p. 245

33) Ibid, p. 254