What is Permaculture? Permaculture originated as an environmental solution to industrial agriculture but it has evolved into a set of tools for sharing resources, caring for others and acknowledging those who came before. Kirsten Bradley explains more. l l e y l S h e S a m u e © P h o t o s Permaculture is, in many ways, simply a goal: a goal of living in functional, meaningful relation to our ecosystems, with reciprocity at the core of that relationship; a goal of living in a connected, meaningful way that benefits land, waters, life and community, as well as meeting our own needs for a fulfilling life. By ecosystem, I mean where you are right now, not just your nearest forest, river or wild place. Your ecosystem doesn’t stop at the forest’s edge. You are part of your ecosystem – not separate from it. Your ecosystem is all around you: right up to your front step, into your kitchen, even inside you. All this is part of your local ecosystem. And it is all part of your duty of care, as a resident of that ecosystem and as a part of nature. Because you are very much a part of nature. Nature is not ‘over there’ somewhere. Sure, that bit of nature over there might be greener and prettier than where you’re sitting, but you are interacting with and making an impact on multiple living things, both micro and macro, in this exact moment. And how you show up in your ecosystem matters. Better yet, the animals known as humans – that’s you and me – can play an important role in creating abundance within our ecosystems. You are a part of nature just as much as the fruit trees, the forests and the fish swimming upriver. You could be forgiven for thinking that our species is only destructive – there’s overwhelming evidence of the harm we can do all around us… but it’s also true that you can participate in your ecosystem in a way that tends seeds and people, nourishes plants, pollinators and relationships, and builds soil and community. So, how can you tend some of these ecosystemic relationships of yours, both known and unknown, with the choices you make and the actions you take on the daily? Is it possible to live in a way that considers your responsibilities to your ecosystem and your community, while building connection and meaning in your own life, all while going about the normal daily stuff in this busy world of ours? Well, yes. There are many ways and many knowledge systems that have been doing exactly this for as long as there have been people. There are also newer frameworks; though, of course, the new ways are always drawing on and standing on the shoulders of the old ways. Some of these knowledge-ways are vast, embodied in country, culture and people. Some of the newer, far simpler frameworks have been written down, so that anyone can try them out. Permaculture is just one of the recent frameworks, but we love it because it’s simple, flexible and easily incorporated into everyday life, so you can start using it right now. At Milkwood, we see permaculture as a way of consciously designing, bit by bit, how we meet our responsibilities to our ecosystems and to ourselves. How we eat, the choices we make, how we use energy and how we use our privilege. How we help out, how we advocate, how we garden, how we love. And how we aim to live as meaningfully as we can, both in our personal actions and by getting involved in urgent system change to create communities, societies and governments that prioritise care over profit – for the benefit of people, ecosystem and planet. Like any community-held knowledge base, permaculture is always evolving, especially as it’s a design system, a teaching system and a set of thinking tools for daily use. At Milkwood, we have adapted it in our own ways, as others do in their own, and our book† builds on our approach. Where’s the Word ‘Permaculture’ from? Rewind a bit: the 1970s was a time when climate change was a relatively new topic of conversation, the downsides of industrial agriculture went largely unquestioned, and Silent Spring, Rachel Carson’s classic book explaining the toxic legacy of pesticides in our ecosystems, had not long been written. The damage that we were doing to our world and its peoples in the name of progress, through capitalism and colonisation, and the realisation that the promise of endless plains and untamed wilderness ripe for the taking was a destructive, catastrophic myth were only beginning to dawn, especially in western countries. In this context, the term permaculture (permanent agriculture, permanent culture) was coined by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in lutruwita/Tasmania. At the time, Mollison and Holmgren were both thinking deeply about what a grassroots, principles-based, holistic system for designing agriculture and what human habitats could look like; a system that was based on regeneration rather than extraction. Believe it or not, this was quite an unusual concept at a time when much of the developed world was doubling down on the promise of endless growth. This design system needed to be grassroots enough to be used by just about anyone, with design principles that could hold true across different ecosystems and landscapes, and be used to design both human habitats and actual regenerative agricultural systems (as opposed to ones that were simply less destructive). And so, drawing on many diverse influences and their own learning, Mollison and Holmgren defined the design system that they called permaculture. issue 118 winter 2023 |  5