The HCC is the amount of humans that can be supported indefinitely in a given environment without permanently damaging the ecosystems upon which we depend . Researchers argue that traditional agriculture methods, specifically polycultures and local varieties, have comparatively greater biological diversity and annual yield stability to modern industrial farming methods . Traditional agriculture favors polycultures that facilitate nutrient cycling among plants and other inter-plant supporting services and local varieties that better withstand local environmental conditions . Researchers hypothesize that comparatively resilient nature of traditional agriculture reduces financial risk and lessens environmental impact . Sustainable agroecosystems build upon traditional agriculture’s localized context, including cultivated seed varieties passed down from generations, and techniques, like the use of polycultures to increase biodiversity and limit resource input . Perhaps most significantly though, those who partake in sustainable agroecology maintain a perspective that traditional farmers have and is opposite to mainstream farming – that resources are limited . Ethnobotany has also been foundational to community development and food sovereignty programs world-wide. In the grassroots activism sector, ethnobotany was foundational to permaculture, plastic square flower bucket as early pioneers Bill Mollison and Dave Holmgren drew upon the practices of Aboriginal Australians and Native Americans. In the institutionalized activism sector, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ,
The World Wide Fund for Nature , and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew jointly formed the People and Plants Initiative in which traditional knowledge was applied in conservation, rural development, and other domains relating to wild plant use and resource management. In programs under this initiative, the value of plants in a local setting, the scarcity of the valued plants, and the cultural factors underpinning control of access to land or resources are determined and used to generate a “green social security” for local inhabitants in a global economy without collapsing the local ecology .Permaculture is a social movement and design ideology that applies the concept of structural and functional permanence to agriculture . Permaculture founder Bill Mollison first described permaculture as “an ecological design practice that aims to integrate landscape and people to provide for their own food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way” . Permaculture has since explored social systems necessary for sustainable human settlements such as alternative economic systems and other social infrastructures. At the foundation of permaculture methods are ethics and principles for a “conscious” design practice . Conscious design denotes the intention of designing for self-reliance and functionality of the all-encompassing ecosystem. The ethics and principles have significant social implications for participants who structure their identities, work, and personal lives around them, which are reflected in their guiding pictorials and narratives. Permaculture pictorials and narratives have a shared theme of coupled human and natural systems in which agriculture functions. A popular permaculture mandala depicts a ring of systems centered around or supporting human activity, lush with productive foliage and food, set within the natural environment to emphasize that humansystems are a part of the natural environment .
The shown humansupporting systems mimic nature and attempt to include technologies that are not resource-intensive. An “autonomous” home has a green roof, a small wind turbine, a small solar array, and a rain barrel. A classroom of children is small and personal, with multiple instructors for few children, and features ecological educational content. A green cityscape has people commuting by bus and bicycle but not by car. On the street there are recycling centers, window and greenspace gardens, and solar panels on roofs. A farmer’s market is shown as a place for a thriving local economy, where farmers and patrons of many cultures gather and buy or sell fresh local food and products. A community garden has a gardener in a wheelchair working at a raised bed, demonstrating the importance of creating community facilities services that are accessible to everyone’s needs. At the center of the human systems are the core permaculture ethics: earth care, fair share, and people care. Between the human systems, around the human system ring, and framing the natural systems containing the human systems, are principles and values that drive the permaculture design of sustainable agriculture to obtain these coupled natural and human systems, including: everything cycles; use local and biological resources; maximize diversity; build in multiple back up and support systems; work with nature, not against it; and multiple functions for all elements.
In her 1994 novel Fifth Sacred Thing, Starhawk described San Francisco in 2049 as a sustainable human settlement following an earlier environmental collapse , reflecting permaculture values and ethics. In this work, a resident of a newly ecotopian San Francisco reflects on the seemingly bountiful nature of her home: “You’d think we had plenty of everything, plenty of land, plenty of water. Whereas we’ve simply learned how not to waste, how to use and reuse every drop, how to feed chickens on weeds and ducks on snails and let worms eat the garbage.” In reality, the agroecosystem aspect of permaculture is typically a practice of grassroots communities of amateur gardeners and professional farmers. These communities build local food cooperatives and farmers’ markets , create infrastructure and norms for social learning , and even introduce alternative currencies or time exchange programs to open participation opportunities to anyone and everyone .Needs Analysis. A needs analysis forms a subset of the requirements for a permaculture system. This section focuses on user-imposed requirements for the permaculture system. Users of a permaculture system could be an individual, family, or a group. No matter the user, the requirements for the context in which the system will exist must also be determined so that the design is not rejected based on a technicality. Client Interview. A client interview is necessary when a permaculture designer or student has been commissioned or has volunteered to create a permaculture design for someone else, including an organization. A permaculture designer interviews their client or a representative of the clients to determine what it is they want from their permaculture system. The designer’s goal is to thoroughly understand the client’s vision so that she can produce something the client needs and wants. Designer Reflection. When the designer is creating a permaculture system for herself, she should engage in an activity similar to a client interview to determine the human-imposed needs of the design. She should systematically define her vision and goals for her permaculture system, so she can systematically engage in the remainder of the permaculture process. Opting for an open ended, spontaneous implementation of a permaculture system, instead of defining concrete goals for a personal use permaculture system, leads to designs that are overly complex and lack cohesion. Such unplanned implementations risk wasting resources such as time, money, and ecosystem services. Site Analysis. A site analysis uses observation of the site and environmental data research to form a site survey report, which includes a base map and a sector map . The base map represents a blueprint of the site. While the information on a base map may differ between projects, it typically shows existing man-made structures , existing plants , and topography. The sector map features phenomena that occur at the site that should be kept in mind when designing. For example, a sector map may specify zones of activity , good and bad views, prevailing seasonal winds, areas of erosion and flooding, seasonal sunlight exposure, and similar items.Design. This is the point when a designer switches from understanding to creating. A designer ensures that design elements are placed in such a way that “each serves the needs and accepts the products of other elements” . “The problem is the solution” is one of three proclaimed cornerstone principles to permaculture design by Bill Mollison , plastic plant pot representing the adage that the solution to a problem lies within the problem itself. Determining how to address a problem and turn it into a solution requires the designer to engage in functional design. For a design to be functional “every component … should function in many ways and every essential function should be supported by many components” . Such a design is generated broadly then refined down to the details. This is known as the principle “design from patterns to detail” . While the detailed, implementable design may change over time with respect to implementation concerns, the broad-scale design establishes the overall vision of the client. Broad-scale versus Implementable Design. A broad-scale design specifies design elements and their functionality at a high-level. For example, a rain water collection tank will feed a fruit-tree polyculture, but the type and size of the water tank nor the plants in the polyculture will be specified. In contrast, implementable designs are typically complete with plant lists and other specifications like measurements for berms and swales . Implementation. Implementation is the point in which a permaculture design is translated from paper into the environment.
For a permaculture system to be manifestedas it was designed, the implementer needs to understand the intimate details of how the elements of the design work together or needs a thorough set of instructions of how to implement it. Some designs will provide instructions for implementation order like, for example, planting pioneer crops to prepare the soil for what is to come next. However, no design tells one how to, for example, put a particular plant in the ground because basic gardening skills of the implementer are assumed. Both a high-level understanding of how to implement components of a design and a low-level understanding of how to install the design is critical for the design come to fruition.Maintenance is a continual process after the design is implemented and includes harvesting. In practice, maintenance is the cyclical manifestation of the permaculture process. In permaculture, the beneficiary of the agroecosystem is typically the maintainer. It requires on going assessment to identify problem points and re-design then implement solutions. Re-designs are typically informal and often experimental. Amateur gardeners and small-scale farmers are easily drawn to permaculture, but for those who do not have experience growing plants the barrier to entry is quite high. In his 2015 talk at the Permaculture Voices 2 conference, a nationally focused permaculture conference held in March 2015, permaculture educator Dave Boehnlein argued that two of the primary barriers to entry for newcomers are a $1500 introductory course and Mollison’s Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual , which he referred to as a “500-page bible of dry information” . From its beginning, the Permaculture Social Movement has supported a two-phase model for the introduction of newcomers and their maturation into full participants of local communities of practice. Since 1981 , the primary way of introducing newcomers into a permaculture community of practice was through a didactic Permaculture Design Certificate Course , after which they engaged in an apprenticeship to become full participants of the community . A PDC provided the newcomer with a comprehensive view of the ethics and design principles of permaculture, and the apprenticeship provided the opportunity for newcomers to form the skill required to be a competent member of the community. Wenger argues that communities of practice evaluate competence to determine if a newcomer should be considered a full participant. Wenger further explains that communities define competence through a joint understanding of what the community is about and hold each other accountable to contributing to it. The joint understanding and expectation to contribute to the community evolves from the mutual engagement in building the community. A particular repertoire of language, routines, tools, etc. is formed in the community, and a competent member should have access to it and use it properly. How competence is evaluated varies greatly between communities of practices and is often not a formal process. Instead, competence may be measured informally during interaction with a person and is subject to influence by reputation among the community. For many permaculture communities today, the two-phase model of completing a PDC followed by apprenticeship is no longer the typical way newcomers are introduced to permaculture. Instead, many newcomers do not engage in an apprenticeship after completing a PDC. Some PDC instructors set the expectation that completing a PDC is enough to engage in permaculture as a full participant.