As a permaculture teacher one of the very first things I want to offer my students is a conceptual way to understand what permaculture is made up of. I want to answer the question, likely not yet asked, of ‘how do we make organisational sense of all this content that is being or about to be taught in a Permaculture Design Certificate?’. Permaculture is a vast field of knowledge, there […]
Introduction Permaculture design is essentially a multi-faceted, integrated and ecologically harmonious method of designing human-centred landscapes. By human-centred what is meant is that an ideal permaculture design is able to supply many of the needs of a human family or community within it’s localised environment in as efficient and sustainable a manner as possible. Integrated design refers to the inter-connectivity of elements within a system. Basically we work to align […]
In 2016, artist Mary Mattingly was working on a permaculture project called Concrete Plant Park, intended to re-establish salt marshes along the South Bronx riverbanks in order to revitalize the abandoned site. However, the project hit a road block when it came to the development of a community garden. The laws and policies established by the City of New York, to be enforced on public properties, demand that no citizens […]
Climate change is giving us more to worry about than just rising seas, scientists claim. Greenland’s glaciers are melting fast, pouring ice into the Arctic Ocean – and according to a new study, this influx of freshwater from the melting ice could lead to a disruption of a major ocean current system. The consequence of this disruption could be devastating, drying out the narrow section of land from Mauritania to […]
Even though use of fossil fuel leads to emission of harmful gases, which cause such negative environmental effects as receding of glaciers, loss of biodiversity, climate change, rise in sea level, etc., fossil fuel still remains a primary energy source with a contribution of around 80%, in which transport sector takes share of 58%. Many alternative fuel sources, however, exist including biofuel. Biofuels are liquid or gaseous fuels produced from […]
When you think of charcoal, you might think of a barbecue or the stigma of air pollution associated with industrial fuel. Both of these assumptions are fair. Charcoal does come with a history of air pollution and long-term health problems for people who come in close contact with the substance too often. What most people don’t know is that there are many types of charcoal and not all are bad. […]
Every year millions of acres of forest are cut down to make room for ever-growing herds of livestock. Our industrial diet is centered on the consumption of meat. The combination of these two issues brings us face to face with a serious problem. We are destroying our forests and some of the most pristine ecosystems on earth just so that we can enjoy a nightly steak. What if we could […]
Every year it becomes more and more apparent how much influence humanity has on the climate. While there are a few holdouts, most people are in agreement that we are the direct cause of the increase in global temperature. Everyone knows the cause, right? It’s all the CO2 we are putting into the air, from the cars on the road to the factories spewing out greenhouse gases. However, there is […]
Rain is one of the leading causes of soil erosion. The problem isn’t with rain itself, but rather with bad land management practices and farming practices that aren’t designed to take advantage of rainfall in a holistic manner. The best place to store water is in the landscape itself, and through the process of design, water can be effectively stored in the landscape for increased fertility, longer growing season, and […]
One of my favorite aspects of permaculture, though I think it is often forgotten, is the lean towards using land that human have already tarnished as opposed to natural settings in no need of our interference. It’s only logical that, with established nature being much more sustainable on its own, our input into these proven systems is likely to be more detrimental than advantageous, in the global perspective of things. […]
In recent years, permaculture has influenced thousands of people to begin to search for more sustainable ways to live in harmony and community with the natural world and the community of people around them. More than just a simple collection of organic farming tools and methods, the permaculture movement rests on three main ethics that question the organization and logic of our industrial civilizational paradigm and help us to reimagine […]
More than half of the world’s population may be facing serious daily water shortages by 2025 if we keep up our current patterns of consumption. Scientists around the world are warning global policy makers about this impending crisis, hoping to avoid the potential catastrophe. “What’s happening bit by bit is that water scarcity is becoming increasingly common around the world, no matter where you look – as country after country […]
