Zen and permaculture design (book)

Zen in the Art of Permaculture Design

Do you wish to creatively engage with the wickedly complex problems of today, while not adding to the mess? Do you want to consciously act with clarity and grace whilst living on a thriving planet? Do you want a fair society, where people care for each other, their children and grandchildren? Stefan Geyer shows how permaculture, infused by insights from the Zen tradition, can be a modern method of liberation from our society’s present woes.
Permaculture is a new regenerative culture, and permaculture design is the method to get there. It offers emancipation and emboldens us to think in joyfully expansive, daringly experimental and creatively caring new ways. This book is full of inspiration that you can carry with you anywhere. Each page explores a permaculture idea or theme. These are not the last word on the subject but catalysts for new thought.

Discover the PIRN facebook page

Permaculture International Research Network Facebook page

Regular readers of The Digest will enjoy The PIRN Facebook page. Discover how trees talk to each other, be inspired by someone baking bread, see how the charity IED helps farmers in Senegal, read new research on carbon dioxide exchange in plant communities, and learn about Italy's new law to reduce food waste. The page is dedicated to supporting a vibrant, diverse International Permaculture Research Network. Another great resource brought to you by the Research Team at the Permaculture Association Britain!

Editors wanted for new journal

Editors required for new permaculture journal 

As part of The Permaculture International Research Network, we are developing a new online journal, Permaculture Research.  It will be an interdisciplinary, peer reviewed journal that publishes high quality research on all aspects of permaculture. To strengthen our editorial team, we are seeking Assistant Editors from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Follow the link to find out more.

Permaculture your life (book)

How to Permaculture Your Life: Strategies, Skills and Techniques for the Transition to a Greener World by Ross Mars 

This book is a great resource for everyone interested in Transition, permaculture and more self-reliant and satisfying lifestyles. It is packed with information on permaculture design principles, soil building, nutrient-dense food growing, including top plant and tree selections for all climatic zones. Coverage extends to rainwater harvesting and irrigation, human waste management, and strategies for rural properties plus a unique focus on applying permaculture to small urban spaces. Also covered are hand tools, food preservation, energy production, and low-carbon housing and a plethora of nearly forgotten skills such as soap making, basket weaving, seed saving, and rope and candle making, and more

Permaculture as ecological management tool (#journal)

Incorporating permaculture and strategic management for sustainable ecological resource management

 Conventional sustainable resource management systems are based on neoclassical economics that ignore nature's pattern and therefore are not capable of sustainable management of resources. Environmentalists are lately advocating incorporation of Permaculture as holistic approach based on ethics, equitable interaction with eco-systems to obtain sustainability. The paper uses Permaculture to develop a pragmatic tool for policy development. This tool augments management tasks by integrating recording of natural assets, monitoring of key performance indicators and integration of sectorial policies in real time, bringing out policy as a truly live document. The tool enhances the edifice process, balancing short term viewpoints and long term development to secure renewability of natural resources.

Bio-integrated farming (book)

The Bio-Integrated Farm: A Revolutionary Permaculture-Based System Using Greenhouses, Ponds, Compost Piles, Aquaponics, Chickens, and More 

The Bio-Integrated Farm is a must-read, twenty-first-century manual for managing natural resources and brings system farming and permaculture to a whole new level. Jadrnicek’s groundbreaking insights into permaculture go beyond the term’s philosophical foundation to create hardworking farm-scale designs. Jadrnicek’s components serve at least seven functions. With every additional function that a component performs, the design becomes more advanced and saves even more energy. A bio-integrated greenhouse, for example, doesn’t just extend the season for growing vegetables; it also serves as a rainwater collector, a pond site, an aquaponics system, and a heat generator.

 

Permaculture in landscape architecture (thesis)

An Instructional Module on Permaculture Design Theory for Landscape Architecture Students 

Permaculture offers a unique set of design principles that are very implementable into the design process and could be of great interest to landscape architects. The purpose of this study was to develop and implement an instructional module for landscape architecture students at Utah State University for two consecutive years. Project-based learning was implemented in order to help students better understand permaculture design theory. Effectiveness of the module was measured through an evaluation of post-module survey responses and student design projects. Results from the second year of teaching showed an increase from the first year in student interest, understanding, and desire to learn more about permaculture design theory.

Permaculture in urban Alaska (book chapter)

Applying Permaculture in Alaska: The Williams Street Farmhouse

Saskia Essinger and Matt Oster turned the small barren lot surrounding their home into an urban oasis in the challenging climatic conditions of Anchorage, Alaska. They utilized permaculture principles to design a beautiful, low maintenance garden that provides much of their vegetables and fruits throughout the year. Their garden was so successful that they undertook a challenge to eat entirely local for a year, with a significant proportion coming from their own property, proving that an all-Alaskan diet is possible.

Permaculture digital books service

Permaculture Digital Books for Institutions

Our friends at Permanent Publications (Permaculture magazine) have made 10 of their titles available to promote permaculture to institutions globally (libraries and universities). We would like to encourage academics to persuade their universities and favoured libraries to purchase at least one! Institutions around the world can now buy digital versions of these books, and all their members get access to those digital versions for free. This platform is free to trial for institutions for the next week or so, so they can see how searchable the product is.

PIRN website goes live!

Permaculture International Research Network website now live!

In order to further knowledge and understanding of permaculture in all its aspects, researchers and practitioners need to work closely together and learn from each other. PIRN will facilitate this by:

• Promoting knowledge exchange,
• Providing peer group support,
• Giving access to journals, books and literature reviews,
• Developing collaborative action research projects, and
• Creating a place to access research and to share findings.

PIRN is the world’s first such network. PIRN was launched at the International Permaculture Conference in London, September 2015. We are delighted to announce that the PIRN website is now live.

Permaculture Research Handbook (online)

The Permaculture Research Handbook

The Permaculture Research Handbook is aimed at those with some knowledge of permaculture but no research background who want to undertake a permaculture research project, whether as diploma apprentices, undergraduates, volunteers, or just for fun. The Handbook uses the SADIMETS model of seven straightforward steps (survey, analyse, design, implement and maintain, evaluate, tweak, and share) to guide the reader through the research process, from the first project idea to a published final report. 7 experienced permaculture designers and researchers collaborated to produce the handbook. It is free to download.

Permaculture International Research Network launched!

The Permaculture International Research Network (PIRN) is launched! 

This week The Permaculture Association is launching what we believe is the world's first Permaculture International Research Network. Our first e-bulletin is going out to around 400 permaculture researchers on Friday 18th July 2014. PIRN has three initial activities; an e-bulletin issued six times a year, a facebook page, and the international soil trials. Currently the network is in beta stage; the full launch will take place in September 2015 at The International Permaculture Convergence in London. Anyone involved in permaculture research can join in the conversation on the facebook page; but if you want to actually join PIRN (its free!) and receive the e-bulletin, please e-mail: pirn@permaculture.org.uk

Healing the world with permaculture (#journal)

Feeding and healing the world: through regenerative agriculture and permaculture.

The study of soil is a mature science, whereas related practical methods of regenerative agriculture and permaculture are not. However, despite a paucity of detailed peer reviewed research published on these topics, there is overwhelming evidence both that the methods work and they may offer the means to address a number of prevailing environmental challenges. What is lacking is a proper scientific study, made in hand with actual development projects. By elucidating the scientific basis of these remarkable phenomena, we may obtain the means for solving some of the otherwise insurmountable problems confronting humanity, simply by observing, and working with, the patterns and forces of nature. This article is intended as a call to arms to make serious investment in researching and actualising these methods on a global scale. Permaculture and regenerative agriculture offer potentially the means to provide food and materials on the small scale, and may provide a crucial strategy in achieving a measured descent in our use of energy and other resources, rather than an abrupt collapse of civilization.

Intro to system science and permaculture (online)

Thinking Systematically: Achieving Sustainable Systems

A simple introduction to systems science and its links to permaculture:

• Systems science provides a means of analyzing and understanding complex processes based on a few basic principles
• Complex systems behave in complex ways and may change over time
• When problems emerge there is an underlying positive feedback loop that may not be evident
• Such problems cannot be solved using linear causality thinking
• True sustainability involves whole systems thinking and design
• Permaculture is the application of systems thinking to the design of living arrangements

Permaculture activist magazine

Permaculture Activist Magazine

I'm not sure how well known this American magazine is amongst Digest users so I thought I'd give it a little plug. The August issue is on experimentation in permaculture and the copy deadline is 1st June so you still have time to submit an article if this inspires you. 

The magazine aims to supply information that enables people everywhere to provide for their own & their communities' needs for food, energy, shelter, & to design decent lives without exploitation or pollution & from the smallest practical area of land.

Permaculture learning as community of practice (#journal)

Learning in the Permaculture Community of Practice in England: An Analysis of the Relationship between Core Practices and Boundary Processes

This article utilizes the Communities of Practice (CoP) framework to examine learning processes among a group of permaculture practitioners in England. The research found that permaculture practitioners are informally bound together by shared values, expertise and passion for the joint enterprise of permaculture, thus corresponding to a CoP. It found that core practices (situated learning, mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoire) are strong but also that boundary processes are active, enabling learning and interaction to take place with other learning systems, although this tends to be restricted to those with similar perspectives. This, and the strong cohesion and identity of the CoP, leads to some insularity. This research shows that the potential for the permaculture CoP to integrate with the conventional Agricultural Knowledge System is limited due to its insularity and self-reliance, in that the Permaculture Association fulfils the role of information provision and network facilitation.

Drivers of environmental change (report)

World in Transition – A Social Contract for Sustainability

In this report, the German Advisory council on Global Change explains the reasons for the desperate need for a post-fossil economic strategy, yet it also concludes that the transition to sustainability is achievable, and presents ten concrete packages of measures to accelerate the imperative restructuring. If the transformation really is to succeed, we have to enter into a social contract for innovation, in the form of a new kind of discourse between governments and citizens, both within and beyond the boundaries of the nation state. Factsheet 5 includes detailed descriptions of 'Drivers of Transformation', such as permaculture activists and transition towners. 

SWOT analysis of rice-duck farming (#journal)

Theory and reality of integrated rice–duck farming in Asian developing countries: A systematic review and SWOT analysis

Integrated rice–duck farming, in which ducks feed on insects and weeds in paddies and fertilise rice plants, has been a flagship of Asian sustainable-agriculture movements. Nevertheless, IRDF is not spreading rapidly enough to become a successful alternative agriculture. This paper undertakes a systematic review of experimental IRDF studies to identify the strengths and weaknesses of, opportunities for and threats to IRDF. The most recognisable empirical strength of IRDF is the synergy of rice and ducks. It was found that the establishment of organic food certification systems provides an opportunity for IRDF to grow. On the other hand, labour-intensiveness was found the greatest weakness of IRDF. In order to make IRDF economically more feasible, the non-market ecological benefits of IRDF should be internalised through appropriate policy instruments.

 

Developing a small permaculture farm (#journal)

Into milk wood

One couple's vision, to develop a working small-scale farm based on permaculture principles, involved a pretty big leap of faith and some major upskilling. Just goes to show that multimedia artists can do anything.

Future direction for the permaculture concept (#journal)

Towards Sustainable Agricultural Stewardship: Evolution and Future Directions of the Permaculture Concept

This paper traces the origins of the concept of permaculture and discusses the sustainability of permaculture itself as a form of alternative agriculture. It is argued that future permaculture movements should focus on revitalising the communitarian spirit of traditional farming villages instead of building intentional communal communities. The paper also calls for more aggressive environmental-policy measures that support permaculture and internalise the non-market value of reduced fossil-fuel energy consumption and waste recycling.