World-renowned environmental scientist and activist Dr David Suzuki said, “What permaculturists are doing is the most important activity that any group is doing on the planet”.

The goal of permaculture is to cooperate with nature in order to create sustainable biosystems for human living. Permaculture comes from ‘permanent culture’. The practical goal is the creation of sustainable biosystems that provide for their own needs and recycle their waste. The term refers to a set of design principles developed by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren and launched with their classic book “Permaculture One” in 1978.

Permaculture is a design philosophy encompassing diverse but inter-related fields, including gardening and horticulture, architecture, ecology, community design and systems theory. Basically, the principles are about finding the right way to work with the local environment to create sustainable living. Permaculture does not avoid or shun all technology, but makes efficient use of knowledge to create a productive surrounding flora, fauna and community system based on the principles of nature. This is not as hard as it sounds – nature is very powerful and within a few years, even living in an apartment, people can create remarkably productive local biosystems. But permaculture does involve giving up a lot of modern ways of thinking and behaving.

Bill Mollison developed his ideas after spending long periods studying rainforest systems in Australia. Bill realised that plants naturally grouped themselves in mutually beneficial communities and he transplanted this idea into a permaculture’s approach to agriculture and community design. Permaculture is about arranging the right elements together in a system so that they sustain and support each other for long-term productive living.

Permaculture has grown widespread and enthusiastic interest worldwide. For example, the Vietnamese government have adopted the principles into their agricultural policy and distributed translated copies of the permaculture design book to their farmers. After a little reading, observation and of course time, most people could set up their own Permaculture garden, but to really get the full benefits of this amazing system, it’s better to enlist the help of a professional permaculture consultant get things right initially.

And the good news is you can start right now – start right under your nose, your room, your back doorstep – start observing and cooperating with nature.

We run an Introduction to Permaculture Workshop for people wanting to set up a permaculture garden. Our next workshop is on Sunday 1 July. To join our next workshop, check out our What’s On? calendar for details.