Talk:Permaculture/Archive 1

4 Principles

Quercus

Someone made a French page on permaculture, essentially saying it was based on four principles, no ploughing, no weeding, no pesticides, no fertilizers. Is that so ?

Not really. Before everything Permaculture has an ethical basis with three main points: care of the planet, care of people, and distribution of extra-time and resources to help people reach the same goal. So, it is more than a specific way to agricultural systems. It is too a way of life and a social movement. Sure, those four things can be related to this, but not as "principles", but as result of the ethic principles.

The four principles listed here are Fukuoka's principles of 'no work' farming quercus robur 14:27, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

'French permaculture' suggests the work of the late Emilia Hazelip, who believed her 'synergistic agriculture' - similar to the work of Masanobu Fukuoka in Japan - marked the first agricultural revolution since the Neolithic 10,000 years ago, organic (pre-industrial) farming methods in their view are hardly any better than industrial agriculture, having caused soil erosion and salinisation for thousands of years. Hazelip demonstrated in her commercially successful market garden her methods, which were based on keeping the soil wild (hence not digging or ploughing etc.) in order not to disturb the subtle life processes that keep the soil healthy and productive. If you regard the degradation and depletion of cultivated land as the most serious problem facing human life on earth, you would put the principles of Hazelip's approach up there with 'earth care' and 'people care'.

It would be good if this could be integrated into the article- also the Emilia Hazelip article which needs expanding- I don't know enough about her work to do this but did paste her obituary into the 'talk' page some time back for possible use as a basis for an article on her and her work quercus robur 15:32, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Zimbabwe

Haha, Zimbabwe is using permaculture. Hell of an endorsement; could y'all find an example that doesn't involve the populace starting to starve? Please tell me permaculture is either an older or a very recent thing there, because I'd hate to have to connect the dots. --Golbez 09:25, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

your criticism might be unjustified- the permaculture was established by the united nations. Also, there is alot of talk in african publication about sustainability...check out allarfica.com. Nonetheless, its annoying that this iste does not have a link to the actual document it claims the UN produced- everything should be cited. Please fix this

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In terms of the contemporary usage of the term, permaculture is new there. In terms of pre-colonial cultures existing long before the term was coined, such practices are very old there. Research the relevant history and context leading to past and current starvation in Africa. You can then make your own informed judgements as to how contemporary permaculture design may be useful (or not) in addressing the situation. Note also that most permaculture projects are by design small-scale and localized, thus seldom widely known outside the local area in which they are implemented (and thus unlikely to be noticed by national or global 'news' media).

JSchinnerer 07:06, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

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different guy from above

Also the vague part about the tribe in Peru and the base in the US needs to be verified:

"A tribe in Peru has moved from a growing dependency on state support to self-reliance and support for other tribes. A military base in the USA is being transformed into an eco-business park and wildlife haven."

Which tribe? Which base? How was permaculture integrated in, was it the main theme, or just a small consideration?

But, hey, the overall page is WAY ahead of where it was yesterday, three cheers for that :)

findhorn

Why is there a "see also" for Findhorn here? (I hate "see alsos", for just this reason: no context). Rather than a rather unexceptional Scottish village, you probably want Findhorn Foundation? -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 01:02, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Criticisms

This article looks like it's been written by an advocate of permaculture, explaining why they believe in it. That's fine, but if the article goes down that path I think it needs to have a 'Disadvantages' or 'Criticisms' section. After all, permaculture is not the universal principle behind modern agriculture, so there must be some reasons why it's not more widely used.

By all means, research this and write a "Criticisms" section. Sunray 09:26, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

What I think would serve better than theoretical 'pro' and 'con' rhetoric would be to replace rhetoric with a broad variety of specific, existing and on-the-ground examples with links, references, outcomes etc. A bit of research into history and context of agriculture in human cultures will enable you to make your own judgements as to why permaculture is not a basis for 'modern' agriculture. - Marcia Coral

Please elaborate -- you seem to have many unusual opinions about permaculture, and I'd be interested to see how you formed them. In one of your comments below, you expressed your belief that people defined permaculture as "anything good". Is that what you mean -- that you believe that there is "nothing good" in the basis of modern agriculture? Which books on anthropology, history, and agriculture did you read that led you to this conclusion? I believe you should read an introductory book on permaculture, because your definition is pretty far off from what permaculture books claim that it means ... however your analysis of modern agriculture seems accurate to me. Personally, I've read several books that claimed the same thing -- that modern agriculture has proved quite destructive to human societies and the environment ("Guns, Germs, and Steel", "Against the Grain", "Green History of the World", "The Forest People", "Edible Forest Gardens" and several others immediately come to mind) ... which books did you read again? Jrtayloriv (talk) 18:37, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

what do you mean? JSchinnerer 07:14, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I think putting some definitions and limits on what "Permaculture" is is very important. Then practical comparisons (between conventional agriculture and Permaculture) are possible. The broad "principles" - "care of the planet, care of people, and distribution of extra-time and resources to help people reach the same goal" - are way too broad to form, in themselves, any definition of what Permaculture is. Indeed, these principles arguably could apply to the Boy Scouts, certain conceptions of "socialism," the "public radio" movement, a creative plan for retired life, and many other "good things". Unless the actual common practices of Permaculture are pinned down, nothing can be evaluated, and no sense of success or failure of Permaculture, as a system or as a movement, can even be attempted. - Marcia Coral

There are plenty of definitions and limits of what permaculture is. But you probably won't see them if you just keep talking about it without having ever read anything on the subject. Just read enough so that you can come up with a better definition for permaculture than "good things".... Permaculture is a wide ranging field, kind of like the field called "humanities". But just because it has a broad scope, does not mean that it is not defined. It just means applying ecological/biological principles to design living spaces (housing, food, production of tools, etc) in a way to minimize human effort and environmental impact, and maximize human/ecological health and happiness, by using tools such as organic agriculture, reuse/recycling of materials, sustainable architecture and many others.

Since the primary goal of permaculture is to increase ecological/human health, human happiness, and sustainability, and none of these things are measurable from the mechanistic/rationalist scientific standpoint, I highly doubt that you will find a quantitative/objective method to analyze how successful they have been at achieving these goals. But just because you can't measure ecological health or happiness, doesn't mean that ecological health or happiness don't exist ...Jrtayloriv (talk) 00:46, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

but these ARE the principles of permaculture and they act as a way of guiding the decision making process when designing. i think it is important to point out that what differentiates permaculture from the things above is that it is an ecological design system. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.148.40.144 (talk • contribs) 12 Dec 06.

Whether or not a person advocates Permaculture is even beside the point here. Because if it's left as nebulous as a shifting, cottony cloud, then what is there to either advocate, oppose (or criticize)? - Marcia Coral

As I've said above and below. It's only "nebulous" to you, because you haven't done any research on it. I too would think it was "nebulous" if I erroneously believed that it meant "good things". Jrtayloriv (talk) 00:46, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Well it would be nice to put a limit on what permaculture is. However it does not reflect the diversity of things which are characterised as permaculture. Read Permaculture Magazine (the major UK magazine on the topic) and you will see that is a very diverse and poorly defined topic. Quite often things which come under permaculture have nothing to do with agriculture, or even plants. The UK permaculture association also has a similar broad scope. Its been like this since the begining with its dual definition as permanent-agriculture/permanent culture. Some would vigriously defend its broad scope as a holistic set of patterns, and to be holistic it has to cover everything. There was an instance a few years back when Mollision tried to trade mark the term and limit it to what was covered in is books. This was conclusively rejected by the majority of practioners. --Salix alba (talk) 22:20, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Without definition, it's pretty much the same concept as how people often apply the word sustainability. Yes, I, like many others, am attracted to such things. But the following fantasy presents itself as an analogy: a person walks through the door of a large, multi-aisle food market and walks straight up to a cashier's counter and says to the the cashier "I'm here to get some good food. Some good food, please." And the cashier looks the person in the face, not just puzzled but shocked.

I'd ask 'why call all good things "permaculture"'? — why not just call them "good things" or whatever you like, some less selective label than "permaculture"? - Marcia Coral

If you think that people define "permaculture" as "all good things", then you should definitely do a bit of basic research before arguing about it. Which permaculture book did you read that said "We call anything that is good permaculture."? Or have you never read anything on the subject and just feel like arguing about it? Jrtayloriv (talk) 18:16, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

what differentiates permaculture from sustainability is precisely that it is a much less nebulous and clearer concept, providing thinking tools of how to change land use and lifestyle to a be more enviromentally sound. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.148.40.144 (talk • contribs) 12 Dec 06.

Is it the case that Mollison and Holmgren put forward their ideas about an environmentally sound, diverse, tree/shrub-inclusive aqgriculture... and, beyond some fringe interest, got little response from the public or farmers? Hence, someone in this small movement decided that the public needed to 'give a damn' — therefore, promote permanent culture as an argument for why people should give a damn? - Marcia Coral

No -- the reason for the term "permanent culture" came about because they were trying to point out that spraying food with poison and fertilizer, constantly taking "resources" from the land around you and never putting anything back, and repeatedly laboring to perform tasks that are also performed naturally by a healthy ecosystem is silly (it ignores everything coming out of the field of ecology, wastes time and energy, and the idea that infinite growth can occur on a shrinking resource base ignores thermodynamics and common sense), and doomed to fail. They did not see such a culture as permanent. They see it as something that will ultimately collapse, and were looking for a way to design a human culture which could sustain itself permanently --, hence permanent culture. It wasn't that "nobody gave a damn", and it wasn't an "argument for why people should give a damn" per se --more of a shorthand for the argument that I put above, and a way of reminding people that the primary purpose/focus/goal of permaculture is to take reality (i.e. finite resources, everything comes from somewhere and goes somewhere, it's not healthy to eat poison, etc) into account when you are designing communities, if you want them to last. Jrtayloriv (talk) 18:05, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

i think that is a bit ungenerous. i think that it comes from an understanding that change towards a more ecologically sound way of life has to be cultural as well as agricultural. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.148.40.144 (talk • contribs) 12 Dec 06.

I've been thinking abit about this and have put a message on the main permaculture mailing list to ask for some more views. One way of thinking about permaculture is not as an agricultural systems, but more as a method of designing a system, any system. The one response I've got so far was the 12 points of Holmgren.

The story I've heard is that M&H started thinking about what sustainable or permenent agriculture really ment. They then very soon realised that for a truely sustainable system you could not seperate the agriculture from the rest of society: there is very little point in a small fragment (agriculture) of the system being sustainable, when the rest (distribution, trade systems etc.) is not. Probably more idealist than populist. --Salix alba (talk) 15:25, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

You wrote: "M&H started thinking about what sustainable or permenent agriculture really ment. They then very soon realised that for a truely sustainable system you could not seperate the agriculture from the rest of society." Yes, I can understand that point. But it makes "permaculture" synonymous with "sustainability" or "the sustainability movement" or "the green movement" (small-g green, not any particular Green Party).

Also, consider that agriculture is not really a "small" fragment of society, but is one of its largest footings (along with shelter, clothing, transportation, education). And think of what portion of the average person;s income goes to food.

One of the problems that all sustainability reformers face is that today too few people make a solid and deep commitment to any specific aspect of sustainability... so it becomes a hopping around of attention and focus, with little that is concrete being accomplished. So (dread visious circle!) the agricultural community then takes even less notice of permaculture, because too few real-world case examples are developed. - Marcia Coral

In some way "permaculture" is synonymous with "sustainability" or "the green movement", there is a large cross over in the people who practice it with those interested in alternative technology, green building, etc. There even a large number of vetrans of Anti-road protest who have moved to permaculture. Indeed the sub-title of permaculture magazine is Solutions for sustainable living. The difference is perhaphs one of focus, rather than engaging in politics its typically been more a grassroots type of thing: lets get my own house in order, develop solutions as an example to others.

The case of agriculture is a valid cricicism. In the UK there are very few permaculture projects which have attempted broad-scale agriculture. Much of this has to do with the high cost of land in the UK and lack of funds in the movement. A deeper reason for lack of results is that the distribution system is very keyed to monoculture, its easier to sell the crops of a field of potatoes than it is to find buyers of smaller quantities of a diverse range of plants. This reflects back on my earlier point in that you can't just seperate agriculture from the rest of the system, before permaculture can really work in the UK it requires the development of a different distribution model, here is where farmers markets fit in. So apart from a few notably examples permaculture has focused on what people in the UK can do - the back garden. Ben Law is possibly the best UK example of a working permaculture project, he spent 10 years working a small woodland gaining a reasonable income and eventually managed to build a house largely sourced from the woodlands.

To my mind some of the most sucessful PC projects have been in the developing world where land is readily available (ish) and the focus on the projects as been to provide food to feed a comunity.

p.s. Could you sign you posts using ~~~~ so we know who has written what and when, or better get an account, so you become a name not just a number. --Salix alba (talk) 08:49, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Self support by way of a small farm has become an uncommon way of life in much of the developed world. The very great proportion of people buy their food from an established farmer's market, a corner grocery, or a supermarket. It has been that way for a long time, and M&H must have noticed that pretty much from the start. Their recommended practices were supposed to be for the smallholding farmer, because they were criticizing what agriculture had become. It's not that I don't see what these other implications are, for getting the farm products to consumers and for people making alterations of the lifestyles in the cities and suburbs, but still I think Permaculture should be examined in its original terms to see if it really has had much to offer in the revision of agriculture. Is it practicable (e.g., can you harvest the edible products readily and without undue costs)? Is it easier on the environment? Does it yield realistically? I'm not assuming the answers to such questions would be "no". Otherwise, too much "special pleading". - Marcia Coral

I recently followed a Permaculture Design Course (PDC) in sept 2008 given by Bill Mollisson, Geof Lawton and Greg Knibbs. They told us Permaculture IS a trademark that can be used and defended by each student that completed a PDC. The idea behind the trademark is not so much to limit the meaning of the word, as to allow permaculture graduats to expose frauds: people/companies marketing as being permaculture, but clearly not following the design principles or ethics. They also told us the British goverment was not allowed to use the word permaculture as they intended as a result of this. I wouldn't know how to find proof of the trademark, though I can't imagine them lying about this to all their students. The PDC as well as the permaculture diploma are officially registered Australian courses. Only people who finished the PDC AND have the diploma are allowed to teach PDC's and hand out certificates to students themselves. If you don't have the diploma you're allowed to teach, but not to hand out PDC certificates. Diploma holders are registered by the permaculture research institute, so people can look up whether they teach the official thing.

A note on defining permaculture: the problem is that people often confuse the design approach/principles/ethics (permaculture) with the design elements and tools (organic gardening, swales, 'a form of agriculture', perennial gardening). Anything that supports the goals/ethics of permaculture has a place within permaculture practice, but that doesn't make it the definition of permaculture. It would be an ever expanding definition since more and more associations and overlaps between scientific fields - providing new tools - are made constantly. Permaculture is a holistic design approach combining several scientific fields (any relevant) for a specific purpose (the ethics). Emphasis on holistic design and the ethics. It's the ethics that form the basis of permaculture. And to reach these ethics (as far as possible in a given situation) you need to think things through (holistic design). All the rest is _how_ you do it.

Also note that although permaculture originally started out being basically about food and many people think it's coinded from permanent & agriculture, it soon evolved to include more or less everything (housing, transportation, building materials, fuel, etc.). As a designer you include as much as possible. It's therefore officially coined from permanent & culture. Saying that lacks much needed focus is missing the point: the whole idea is that it's holistic. The focus shouldn't be on the coining of the word but on the ethics. Of course research and practice in specific focus areas is needed, and badly so, but that has nothing to do with the name permaculture. Focused research applies to _how_, not to _what_. There's no reason why people couldn't focus on a specific how and describe it as being usable for the what. -- Stefan Dingenouts —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.27.47.245 (talk) 05:49, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

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I too believe the article is too much advocacy and little analysis. And people are missing the point of a criticism / pros'n'cons' section as something bad. Unless you can rise above this childish notion then you can never develop your thinking.

Criticism can be constructive and allow one to see shortcomings and develop ideas further: see devils advocate. As an example of a 'cons'-section or comparison to the status-quo, one could point out that establishing permaculture takes considerable individual time and effort, whereas for conventional agriculture one 'only' needs money and oil - the rest has been made simple. Or the stigma attached to anything alternative, especially around conservative rural areas, or indeed the outright 'hippie' association of many of the ideas in permaculture. These are all quite obvious disadvantages and reasons hampering the growth of permaculture. Issues which the community needs to voice and address, rather than suppress as something embarrassing and 'negative-attitude'.

There is very little distance between advocacy and religious dogma. The absence of an honest criticisms section or pros'n'cons-comparison does indicate a tendency of denial among the writers here. --Miikka Raninen (talk) 09:16, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed is there any statistics and research on the 'success rate' of permaculture? And what were the reasons for success or failure: was there too little effort or knowledge of the land? Did local community not support the endeavor: how did social and economic pressures effect it? Was the climate too harsh or the soil too depleted? Was there too much emphasis on the 'holistic approach' and not on actual work/non-work on restoring the land? Or the point of view too narrow, concentrating on growing only food for humans? ... I mean this is basic elementary quality management stuff here! Has anyone done any yet? --Miikka Raninen (talk) 09:55, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

You must understand that not everyone in the world measures "success" by measuring production. Some people would consider a highly productive field sprayed with poisons and chemical fertilizers and harvested with fossil-fuel powered machines to be completely "unsuccessful", no matter how much it produced. Some people think that some things are equally important, or even more important than production levels (e.g. having food that doesn't give people cancer, providing habitat for other species besides humans, or having the personal freedom that comes from being self-sufficient). For instance, I know very few people who raise free range chickens who would claim that they are able to "produce" more chickens than an industrial chicken operation where people pack tens of thousands of chickens into small cages and clip their beaks off and let them defecate on each other ... of course the industrial operation produces more in less space, but some people believe that there is more to "success" than counting the number of chickens produced. So even if you found numbers that showed that in many cases, industrial agriculture produced more pounds of food per acre, that would not be a criticism of permaculture, because permaculture is not about maximizing the amount of food produced. It is concerned with maximizing the amount of food produced in a way that is sustainable, and creating cultures that DON'T do what you are talking about (measuring success by seeing who has "more"). Jrtayloriv (talk) 18:29, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

You can delete your comment. Your reaction is typical one given by people who really don't want to think about how to develop an idea (like permaculture, which I think is a brilliant idea!) through critical thinking, but rather concentrate on zealous righteousness which leads nowhere. I did not mention production, nor imply that we should measure success solely based on its aggregate. I have been studying organic farming, permaculture, hunter-gatherer cultures and other ways of living for years, decades and am well aware of everything you described and more.

My point still stands - and let me make it even more clear: in order to develop a system (and permaculture lends much from systems thinking) one should try to evaluate the 'success' of the method using quality management cycle - for example, and as you yourself said: does it maximize the food available in a sustainable way? What are the criteria, where is the data and the feedback? The article currently lists anecdotal cases from around the world, rather than any real statistics or studies on the matter.

And the measure of pounds per acre of food is very much a criticism of permaculture IF we find that permaculture cannot supply enough food for the current or future world population, with the effects of soil depletion and global warming for example - OR at the same time do it sustainably (taking into account social, economic sustainability as well AS the ecological one). But you should see that such 'criticism' is actually constructive, good! - because ones found out we can then begin to discuss how we can feed the world - and do it sustainably - these were not golden plates that Mollison wrote in '97 - these are ideas which people are still experimenting with - mostly unsuccessfully (depending on your 'criteria') - and you need to measure those experiments in order to go somewhere with them. To get it right. Otherwise its just a hobby, 'a lifestyle'. Not deadly serious as it should be in the world of today!

Or perhaps you think that there is no room, no need for criticism in your holy testament? And therefore we need no criticism section? --Miikka Raninen (talk) 05:44, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

The question is sources. Unless ideas are backed by reliable sources they are just original research. A year or so ago I spent quite a time trying to find some informed criticism of permaculture, but I did not find very much, hence the rather short section you see today. It would be nice if there was statistics and research on the 'success rate' of permaculture? but I'm not aware on such research. Indeed I think it would be hard to do as the concept of permaculture is so nebulous and there is no one definition of success. I could tell you about the problems of individual projects (time, money, people) but that would be unsource so not suitable for wikipedia.

The Permaculture Papers by Russ Grayson may be a good source in particular The problem of feedback and The effectiveness of Permaculture. --Salix (talk): 08:13, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Your reaction is typical one given by people who really don't want to think about how to develop an idea (like permaculture, which I think is a brilliant idea!) through critical thinking, but rather concentrate on zealous righteousness which leads nowhere. -- No, my response is typical who measure success in multiple ways -- including production. The idea of permaculture has been highly developed, by critically looking at the way that the current world-system works, and applying our scientific knowledge in the fields of ecology, architecture, anthropology, sociology, agriculture, and many other fields. There are plenty of rational, well-reasoned, lucid explanations for both why permaculture is needed, the scientific rationale behind it, and how to effectively implement it.

My point still stands - and let me make it even more clear: in order to develop a system (and permaculture lends much from systems thinking) one should try to evaluate the 'success' of the method using quality management cycle - for example, and as you yourself said: does it maximize the food available in a sustainable way? What are the criteria, where is the data and the feedback? -- There is no way to quantify "sustainability" or "happiness" or "ecological health". So all you can measure using science is the level of food production per acre (which has been done in many cases, and has proved to be equal or more productive in many cases -- see for example "The One Straw Revolution" by Fukuoka). Science is limited to only looking at things quantitatively. And some things cannot be reduced to numbers on a spreadsheet. This does not mean that a person that has been in a healthy ecosystem can recognize how healthy another ecosystem is, or that someone cannot judge whether themselves, their family, and their community are happy. It just means that you are trying to apply a very limited tool (quantitative science) to a situation that it was not meant to be used for.

And the measure of pounds per acre of food is very much a criticism of permaculture IF we find that permaculture cannot supply enough food for the current or future world population, with the effects of soil depletion and global warming for example - OR at the same time do it sustainably (taking into account social, economic sustainability as well AS the ecological one). -- I agree. I think that this is something that definitely needs to be added to the article (as long as it is pointed out that one half of the world's population is currently starving using industrial agriculture, and so is also a criticism of industrial agriculture) . I haven't found any studies that have analyzed this yet from one side or the other. I believe this would be a hard study to perform, because there are so many factors involved. For instance, are you allowing for a society that has drastically cut back on industrial deforestation? If you are, then you are going to have a lot less land turning into desert each year (currently an area about the size of Belgium is turning into non-arable desert each year), and thus more land to grow food. Permaculture can be perfomed in a healthy forest, but industrial agriculture cannot. As another example, if you rip up pavement in cities, this land can be used to grow food. Of course, this sort of thing cannot happen using industrial agriculture, because the pavement is needed to transport materials and personnel to allow factories to produce poisons and tractors and ship grain required to run a modern factory farm. On the other hand, tractors and poison aren't needed for permaculture, so many of the roads and factories and agribusiness offices could go, leaving much land for food production. These are just a few examples of many thousands of things that need to be taken into account if a realistic study were to be done to attempt to judge whether permaculture could support the current population. Permaculture is not just organic farming, it is also about reorganizing human societies and individual behavior to be sustainable. So in order to judge it's potential for success, you have to do so in the context of a world not covered in asphalt and poison, where people are organized in egalitarian communities, and where people consume and waste less than they do today, amongst many other things -- that is, you have to do so in the context of a world where people can actually apply the principles on a large scale. This is why most permaculture practitioners are also working with social and political organizations as well. I think that, once again, you are getting so stuck on production that you are ignoring the many other areas that permaculture covers besides food production. Jrtayloriv (talk) 15:52, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Or perhaps you think that there is no room, no need for criticism in your holy testament? And therefore we need no criticism section?-- First off, please drop the condescending/sarcastic tone. It's not my "holy testament" -- it's just a subject I happen to have done a lot of research on, in addition to doing research on other forms of agricultural/non-agricultural food production. I, personally, would welcome any form of coherent, rational criticism. Just not ignorant criticism, which resort to sarcasm and ad-hominem attacks instead of reason to make a point. Jrtayloriv (talk) 15:44, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

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Suggestions and ideas for a criticism section.

We could approach the difficulties in permaculture or the problems it faces from many points of view, but to look at it as widely as possible, as a holistic process, an alternative way of living, one could ask: if its such a brilliant idea, why isn't everyone in the world a permaculturalist yet?

Permaculture is difficult: you need to know the land, the life forms, the systems in it. Our education system is of no use for this kind of knowledge - even if you have a PhD in ecology you still need to familiarize yourself with the real world, knowledge found in no books (unlike hunter-gatherer who've grown up surrounded by it). Permaculture calls on design, experimenting and observation. It cannot rely on thousands of generations of traditional local knowledge like former human HG-societies did. We cannot imitate HG's because we we're born in that world - and if we try to 'invent' a new way of living - well, our civilization has a bad track record in that.

The transition to permaculture is difficult: for many people in the world, impossible. First of all, in most cases you need to own land. And you need 5-20 years of secondary income in order to experiment and develop that land into a self-sustaining perma-culture (if you manage that). For many that is a daunting investment and risk in a system which really isn't proven and has no guarantee or safety net. You are on your own. Ideally you would have a community supporting you, but that is even more rare and difficult. More likely you actually have to fight for your rights and survival against the rest of the world. Land rights in many counties aren't really rights to your land even if you own them. You have obligations to the industrial system (paying taxes etc.), zoning laws, a government monopoly on expropriation and ultimately violence. Leading an alternative lifestyle, creating an independent community are powerful political and economic actions which the surrounding world will react to.

Permaculture isn't an island: its proponents claims it to be a holistic 'solution' to all our problems, the right way of living, the ethics to be followed - however it doesn't address the social issues nor current reality: the Malthusian catastrophe facing us, the easter-island effect: that perhaps humans aren't very good at ecology, and subject to carrying capacity induced population collapses in most environments. Or the great social tragedies: the tragedy of the commons, our tendency towards racism, violence. The fact that perhaps humans only 'function' normally in a sparsely populated earth in small HG-communities - and anything beyond that creates the leviathan that is civilization.

(so, perhaps permaculture should just be defined as a good way of growing food... rather than a religion?: discuss, its a discussion section!) --Miikka Raninen (talk) 06:58, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Permaculture is NOT a religion. It is a design system, with the three "permaculture ethics" as its base. It is scalable, no matter what scale you are considering. The reason it has not been used more broadly, particularly in agriculture, is because the current dominant mindset is at odds with permaculture's ethics. For example, the current food production/distribution system is based on profit, not even on yield. (So much food is thrown out on a daily basis at home, in grocery stores, in restaurants, etc.) If the systems were to be based in permaculture rather than profit or consumer choice (ex: local, seasonal foods) more of the resources used by the system would be put back into the system itself. Currently, a lot of petroleum goes into transportation and fertilizer, as an example. This creates an external input, which is an expense. A permaculture system would seek to eliminate or at least diminish external inputs, so that it would be a more resilient, closed loop. This is just an example. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.1.59.100 (talk) 13:53, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I came to this article from here: INVASIVE WEEDS. I knew nothing about Permaculture, but the aforementioned article accused Permaculture of promoting weed species such as Aleurites fordii and Gleditsia triacanthos. I came to Wikipedia seeking more information and found a page that is basically extolling the virtues of Permaculture. This suggests to me that the article is presenting a biased (overly favourable) view of Permaculture and needs more balance.

58.108.66.214 (talk) 11:34, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Merge of Zones (Permaculture) article

Someone has placed a tag on the article suggesting merging the permaculture zones article with this. While permaculture zones are an important aspect of permaculture theory and methodology, I would rather add an overview paragraph on permaculture zones with a link to the permaculture zones article. My reason for suggesting this is that articles are most accessible and understandable, IMO, if they are not overly long. Links allow readers to chose additional material that interests them.

Are there other thoughts or concerns? If not, I will proceed with that approach. Sunray 19:21, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Agree with sunray, also, would be nice to have some pictoral representation on the zones article - FrancisTyers 19:26, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I will add a pic shortly, thanks for reminding me! quercus robur 21:10, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages

• There are two or more articles on related subjects that have a large overlap. Wikipedia is not a dictionary; there doesn't need to be a separate entry for every concept in the universe. For example, "Flammable" and "Non-flammable" can both be explained in an article on Flammability.
• If an article is very short and cannot or should not be expanded terribly much, it often makes sense to merge it with an article on a broader topic.
• If a short article requires the background material or context from a broader article in order for readers to understand it.

As stated above: permaculture zones are an important aspect of permaculture theory and methodology . permaculture zones is a short article, its not going to expand any, and it’s a critical part of Permaculture. Yes an illustration would be good, but it needs to be included in the whole. There’s room here for both the text and the illustration.

Permaculture as it now stands is an article with a lot of ideology and very little substance. It talks about tools and Ecological principles, but never names them. A little less about how permaculture is bound to save mankind and a little more about how it can achieve that goal would be a good thing.

Give the reader something to work with, without forcing him/her to go hunting over multiple pages. If this stands as a separate page, then does each area of practical application also get its own page? I think people deserve to come here and see the whole, rather then go from page to page to see the parts. Brimba 20:01, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm guilty of starting the permaculture zones article, I'm the first to admit it could be alot better- at present its really just a cut and paste job from my own book... its my long term intention to develop permaculture subpages on things like ethics, design principles (from Mollison & Holmgren, etc), permaculture design methods, etc, etc, but just havn't seemed to have the time... It would be god to get some other folks who ae au fait with permaculture to giuve the subject some further attention as well quercus robur 21:08, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I was the one who purposed the merge, but I am happy enough to let things sit for a while, so I withdrew the merge template. Maybe there is a better way to go, it would be worth trying.

A lot of stuff on this page is talking way over the heads of anyone not deeply committed to the ideology. That should be cut back, and a good replacement would be something applicable to the real world. If you permaculture is about changing the world, then give people tools to do so. I fear the entire meaning of what permaculture is about, is currently lost in Gobbledygook. That is a great disservice to everyone. Brimba 21:57, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

You could be right- for me the beauty of permaculture is its simplicity: anyone can do it where-ever they are, and its always a shame to me to see such a straightforward concept over-complicated... Heres a website I put together intended to make permaculture simple (obviously its not NPOV!!!) http://www.spiralseed.co.uk/permaculture/ I'm happy for this to be used as source material for improving (and simplifying!) the wiki entry on permaculture quercus robur 22:02, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, it doesn't seem all that bad to me. Perhaps it could be simplified, though as you say. That Spiralseed link is great. I agree it could be a good guideline for rewriting/editing the article. Sunray 05:58, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

overscientification

This seems to be getting worse rather than better. I don't think that knowledge of jargon or concepts should be assumed. For example "nested", "indicies" ... ? I also don't think that scientific proof IS needed in a short introduction to permaculture beyond suggesting reasons why practitioners may think this way. There also seems to be too many confusing references to different people's contribution to the framework of permaculture rather than focusing on where it is now. You can do the two week Permaculture design course without ever hearing of "Yeomans" or "Odum" so perhaps these references should be provided for those people that are interested.

Neutrality

• I applaud everyone's contribution to put permaculture into Wiki. However important permaculture, and associated discussion are, it is also important to be as neutral and rigorous as possible in one's contributions. No claims should be made about energy efficiency, or about what is better or worse (like a chicken house) that cannot be backed up with either references, or empirical evidence. If statements are made about what is better or worse without evidence that this is the case in the literature, then the article will not be neutral. Sholto Maud 13:59, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry if I sound like an anti-social grump, but this weekend has been an almost sleep-free weekend, which can make even saintly individuals cranky, and I am not that saintly to begin with. –oh, and sorry for the length. If something looks too cock-eyed, I’ll try to explain it better once I have had some sleep, which won’t be for another day still.

NPOV complaint one: The chicken house.

The empirical evidence for the chicken house is the Chicken Tractor, a well established and researched permaculture practice in fairly common use. The chicken house concept is simply a variation on the chicken tractor theme. Its already in general use, for the stated reasons. The phrase “Chicken Tractor” gives 17,600 hits on Google.

• I've been falling foul of NPOV on others pagess. I think it is a good rule and has been clearing up my contributions. I'm not sure that the above comment is evidence for why the chicken house is an example of "better design". Better than what? Better than a chicken tractor? Why? 58.105.34.9 20:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• "A classic example of better design is the chicken greenhouse." Is referring too this line here --"In a conventional factory situation all these chicken outputs ….", so its saying that a chicken greenhouse combination is better than a conventional chicken factory, and then goes on to say why. I guess I misunderstood your question before. Brimba 21:26, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• Please continue... What makes them say that a chicken greenhouse combination is better than a conventional chicken factory? I think that the text needs to have this level of detail in it. Sholto Maud 00:47, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

i think this is in the text.

NPOV complaint two: claim that growing trees is more energy efficient

"For example permaculture focuses on maximizing the use of trees (agroforestry) and perennial food crops because they are more energy efficient then traditional seasonal crops. A farmer does not have to exert energy every year replanting them, and this frees up that energy to be used somewhere else."

David Holmgren’s original comment is:

"Similarly, permaculture focuses on a lot more use of trees and perennial crops because of their energetic efficiency, and the fact that you don't need to re-sow them every year, which again requires an investment of resources to make them bearing and productive." [1]

Perhaps it should be reworded to show that it simply reflects Holmgren's personal view.

• Yes. Holmgren's ideas should be acknowledged as his ideas. As it stands the article makes a claim about energetic efficiency without providing a definition. 58.105.34.9 20:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• "because they are more energy efficient then traditional seasonal crops." This one is right there in the text. "-A farmer does not have to exert energy every year replanting them." Brimba 21:26, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• The question for me is how energy efficiency is being defined. Is it defined as $={\frac {energy\;output}{energy\;input}}$ if so, then we need some numbers (with references) on how many joules or calories of energy a farmer exerts each year in terms of input and output. Otherwise one cannot independently verify the claim. If energy efficiency is not defined by the above ratio then it should be specified as to what it is referring to. Sholto Maud 00:11, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Other things that stand out as I look over the article:

In the section: The permaculture design innovation:

My first question concerning this section is: Is this mainstream, or a side tangent? Reading it I feel as though I am being pulled away from the central part of permaculture; i.e., shown something that may not be a “First principal”. IMO someone new to the concept should probably be shown the core, and can explore outlying tangents on their own. Also it talks over the head of the majority of people. I would think that people reading will have their eyes glaze over rather quickly.

"One of the major innovations introduced by Holmgren's permaculture design and planning work was the synthesis of the experimental field physiology of P.A.Yeomans with the Systems Ecology of Howard T. Odum." Who are they and why should a reader care?

• Perhaps there needs to be a section on major influences on permaculture. An important part of understandng the origins of permaculture is a matter of understanding Odum and Yeoman's influence on Holmgren. 58.105.34.9 20:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• Trying to explain every detail, well it’s not possible with the amount of space given. And if you do explain it, then something else has to be jettisoned to make room. I think we only want to hit the main over-riding themes that permaculture is built upon, and leave the intricacies to the reader to follow up on. Brimba 21:26, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

"Yeoman's Keyline principle" needs a simple explanation without forcing the reader to jump pages. "Odum's maximum power principle" same for this.

• These and other aspects highlighted below need to be put in a To Do list. 58.105.34.9 20:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

"Key to the design process are the ideas of useful connections and multiple outputs. In terms of Holmgren's application of H.T.Odum's work, a useful connection is viewed as one that maximises power." Humm need to be in plain English. As is it makes my head hurt just trying to understanmd what is being said. Sorry if I am a simpleton.

"Its output in a year in terms of biomass exceeds the most productive wheat field." Why is this important? I care about biomass, but then I have some background to fall back on, while the average guy off the street will likely just shrug – as stated for the average reader this statement is unlikely to care weight.

• Yes evidence is needed to back up the claim. 58.105.34.9 20:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• My point here is not that there is a need for evidence; it’s that it fails to carry an important idea. What I am trying to say is that the average person will not comprehend its importance. It needs to be expanded upon, and maybe clarified a little. Brimba 21:26, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

"The many connections together contribute to the proliferation of opportunities for amplifier feedbacks to evolve that in turn maximise power flow through the system." Wow, now my head REALLY HURTS.

"During growth and especially after harvesting the system is prone to soil erosion from rain." How does permaculture address this? This could be better handled to show one of permacultures strengths, especially as this is a practical principal that someone can tailor to their own environment, not just on a farm. "Odum's maximum power principle" Again, lacks clarity.

In the section: Permaculture design for ecological-economic ethics:

"the LETS scheme." Needs a simple clarification

"A basic principle is, therefore to "add value" to existing crops. A permaculture design therefore seeks to provide a wide range of solutions by including its main ethics (see above) as an integral part of the final value-added design. Crucially, it seeks to address problems that include the economic question of how to either make money from growing crops or exchanging crops for labour such as the LETS scheme. Each final design therefore should include economic considerations as well as giving equal weight to maintaining ecological balance, making sure that people working on the project's needs are met and that no one is exploited." Not bad, still a little high-brow, but not bad.

In the section; Contemporary controversy: "It is noteworthy that Holmgren's application of H.T.Odum's maximum power principle in permaculture gives priority to low level and smaller scale processes. This is because H.T.Odum's later work emphasised that the higher level transformation processes are just as important as the low level processes in sustainability design (H.T.Odum 2004). The maximum power principle was therefore restated as the maximum empower principle. This considersation is noteworthy because it has resulted in both the recognition that the larger scales of energy quality in organisations - like the nation-state and transnational corporations - play an important regulatory and autocatalytic role in smaller scale organisations. Moreover it appears to demonstrate the need for energy systems language and empower simulation literacy within permaculture and policy design." Four Advil please!!

• Holmgren defers to emergy theory in a number of locations. See 'Energy and Emergy: Revaluing our world', available from Holmgren's home site. Perhaps this section needs to be rewritten. something like "Recent developments in emergy theory challenge the small scale focus of permaculture." 58.105.34.9 20:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• Humm, I guess my point here is two fold. First: And this means what????? To use a common US expression: What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? It seems too far peripheral to by applicable to a one page definition of permaculture.

• This may be the case. But how are we going to determine what is peripheral to permaculture, and who has the authority to say what goes? Isn't permaculture about leveling authority and treating people and concpets with equal value? Sholto Maud 00:17, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

And secondly, it is: If it should be here, it should be in common terms, where as right now it is speaking over most people’s heads. It really needs to be both direct and simple to understand. Brimba 21:26, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

"risk from exploitation by free market economics." Needs to be NPOV

Examples

In the section; Contemporary examples:

Stuff that should be kept, but needs further referencing, could also be expanded with more examples:

Africa "Zimbabwe has sixty schools designed using permaculture, with a national team working within the schools' curriculum development unit. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has produced a report on using permaculture in refugee situations after successful use in camps in Southern Africa and Macedonia."

Peru "A tribe in Peru has moved from a growing dependency on state support to self-reliance and support for other tribes."

USA "A military base in the USA is being transformed into an eco-business park and wildlife haven."Brimba 19:39, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Sholto Maud put the NPOV tag on this article on December 18. He has identified a couple of concerns, above. However, I don't think that a couple of arguable bits in the article make it NPOV overall. I'm removing the tag. If someone wishes to make concise arguments for its retention, please do so. Sunray 02:53, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

The examples apart from the UK are still vague and unreferenced and could do with improvement- I'm not qualified to do this as I only really know about UK permaculture stuff - at the moment I feel that they weaken the article rather than strengthen it- it would be good if somebody knowledgable could flesh these examples out some more and include others as well (esp Australia!!!) quercus robur 18:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

If anyone can find or supply detailed evidence of a successful permaculture site in australia apart from david holmgren's small place.. I would love to SEE the DATA.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.9.224.202 (talk) 12:16, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

H. T. Odum and his place within permaculture.

Carried over from the discussion just above this in: Neutrality

"This may be the case. But how are we going to determine what is peripheral to permaculture, and who has the authority to say what goes? Isn't permaculture about leveling authority and treating people and concpets with equal value? Sholto Maud 00:17, 19 December 2005 (UTC)"

-How is permaculture about treating people and concepts with equal value? Do all concepts have equal value? I don't see how they do. I think permaculture is more about designing effective land use systems in line with its ethics. - tjc

It may well be that “Isn't permaculture about leveling authority and treating people and concpets with equal value?” is correct concerning permaculture; however, it is not correct concerning an encyclopedia.

Here we have a limited amount of space in which to cover any subject. This means taking detailed subjects and presenting the major components/ideas/themes on a single page. I know of no way to create more space, or squeeze more space out of the ether. We have x amount of space, and no more, which in turn means we have to edit.

Now concerning Odum, I think a simple solution can be found. Dr. Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, are regarded as the founding fathers if you will, of permaculture. So we can turn to their writings, web postings, etc, to see what they have to say about Odum and/or his maximum power principle. Holmgren himself, as you have noted is a strong proponent of Odum’s work; however, he also states:

"Energy and Permaculture by David Holmgren Reprinted from The Permaculture Activist #31

Within the permaculture movement, Odum's work has not been widely recognized (and confused with the work of another American ecologist, Eugene Odum) even though it confirms permaculture's concern with sustainable use of natural systems as the foundation of any permanent culture.

Mollison makes only passing reference to Odum in Permaculture: A Designers Manual and goes on to suggest "the concept of entropy does not necessarily apply to living, open earth systems with which we are involved and in which we are immersed" This could be wrongly interpreted as meaning we can design our way out of any problem and that natural systems can sustain the continuous free lunch the affluent world is used to."[2]

Mollison seems silent one way or the other, except for this (not even sure if it’s the same Odum):

TREES: Guardians of the Earth
by Bill Mollison

"Thus, it almost seems as though the purpose of the forest is to give soil time and means to hold fresh water on land. this is, of course, good for the forests themselves, and enables them to draw on water reserves between periods of rain. (Odum, 1974)"

This article was first published in the Permaculture Journal, Issue No. 28, FebApril 1988. It is itself an extract from Chapter Six of Permaculture: A Designer's Handbook, where the complete chapter is titled 'Trees and their Energy Transactions'). [3]

Now there may be more out there that I did not find, and I would be happy to see you post it here. But as far as I can tell, Mollison has shown no interest in the subject at all –and that is extremely significant.. Holmgen is a staunch supporter of Odum’s ideas, and in his writings he has clearly suggested that Odum’s theories are the direction that permaculture should develop in. But as stated above, even he says that it is not part of mainstream permaculture movement at this time.

I did find a good section in the Overstory outlines various permaculture principals that likely should be added to the section; including one of the few references to Keyline/permaculture that I could find.

The Overstory : Farming systems and techniques commonly associated with permaculture include agroforestry, swales, contour plantings, Keyline agriculture (soil and water management), hedgerows and windbreaks, and integrated farming systems such as pond-dike aquaculture, aquaponics, intercropping, and polyculture. [4]

This is good research. Well done. There is a section on Holmgren in Mulligan and Hall's, Ecological Pioneers : A Social History of Australian Ecological Thought and Action in which Holmgren lists his main influences. There are about 4 more other than Odum and Yeomans. If you have a look at Holmgren's design of Fryers Forest ecovilliage you will see that he has made extensive use of Yeoman's Keyline principle. Furthermore, it should be noted that H.T.Odum is considered the "father" of systems ecology which deals with the quantitative treatment of the principles of ecosystem metabolism - therefore any discussion of ecosystem principles and their importance to permaculture design implies that systems ecology and the work of H.T.Odum (and colleagues) is important to permaculture design. You might also like to refer to this [interview] where Holmgren says,

" What we find generally is that using eMergy accounting, permaculture strategies come up trumps as the most environmentally progressive strategy."

and

"One of the influences on permaculture in the beginning was the work of Howard Odum. I dedicated my new book - Permaculture: Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability to his memory."

and

"So I think eMergy accounting is very technically complex, not many people understand it, but it is something that needs to be understood more, if any of this energy-descent stuff is actually going to get to a level of adaptive public discussion and public policy"

and

"systems ecology especially Odum's development of it, provides a big picture, top down view of systems. Whether we're looking at a national economy, an environment or a region, it provides a more holistic framework for understanding what's happening in any scale of human society or nature, rather than a reductionist view which tries to pull things apart into their components, to study the bits, and then reassemble the functioning system."

58.105.34.9 09:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC) Sholto Maud 09:31, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

From what you have stated above, it is clear that Odum’s current connection to permaculture is limited to ORIGINAL RESEARCH on the part of Holmgren, and inspiring Holmgen in the first place. I am not questioning Odom’s work or his significant to the world at large. The sole question for this page of Wikipedia is his DIRECT connection to permaculture TODAY, which as you have shown above is limited to writings of Holmgren, and hence by your own statements can only be regarded as Original Research on the part of Holmgren. Whether it was key in the evolution of permaculture is not a question, its role TODAY is; not the past, and not its potential role in the future, only what is CURRENT TODAY. That is what an encyclopedia is for; speculation needs to go somewhere else.

• I beg to differ. I believe that an encyclopedia entry documents the historical development of ideas and application in practice. It is not original reserach to quote from the literature as I have done. Whether it was key in the evolution of permaculture is a fundamental question for tracing the development of permaculture ideas - nor is it original reserach to give an accurate record of how an idea came about. Hall and Mulligan's book cited above tell how Odum has a DIRECT connection to permaculture. If you read Odum's Environment, power and society, you can see exactly how Mollison applied the system concepts in his Designer's Manual. Sholto Maud 23:01, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

- it seems like you have been really inspired by Holemgren/Odum's work whcih is great. However, an article like this is an introduction to permaculture and as such needs to open the subject broadly to the uninformed reader. This that details that may be important to you could easily go over someone else's head. Permaculture is a slippery subject beacuse it is both simple AND complex. There is a place for depth , but it might not be in a free encyclopaedia- tjc

Odum lived until 2002, giving him plenty of time to comment on, or do work directly concerned with permaculture –he did not. There is no DIRECT connection, as his area of work was not permaculture and therefore his material does not belong in this article.

• As given previously, Holmgren said that Odum and systems ecology were both fundamental for his work in co-establishing the permaculture movement. I don't think you can say there is no "DIRECT" connection. Holmgren's recent book on permaculture principles places emphasis on emergy etc. Holmgren said to me that Odum's energy systems language was the most emancipatory thing that he had ever seen, and he used a simple application in his design of Melliodora. Odum did what he called "ecological engineering", which is "permaculture" by another name. I think if you get caught up in labels, and protecting the territory of "permaculture" you will not see the fundamental patterns that are at play in the work of Holmgren, Odum, MOllison and others. Value the edge, catch and store the information that affords you to see common patterns Sholto Maud 23:01, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Until you can show something more concrete from Mollison or some other generally recongnized authority on Permaculture, in ADDITION to Holmgren, the whole Odum/eMergy accounting connection can only be classified as ORIGINAL RESEARCH from Holmgen. It is not AT THIS TIME something that should occupy a substantial section of this page. Brimba 20:17, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

• Not so. Sholto Maud 23:01, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I think a reference to Odum in the 'The permaculture design innovation' section as a historical precursor is fine. I'd question his mention in the 'Contemporary controversy' section.

In fact at first glance this whole 'Contemporary controversy' section seems a bit out of place. Certaily there is very little talk in the UK permaculutre comunity on The maximum Power Principle and no one mentions Odum.

i agree. it's quite hard to understand. it's all very well having good ideas, but what's the point if no one undertands what you're talking about? Surely there needs to be more reference to grass roots activities and empowerment rather than pure intellectual ideas.

Talk today is more about Peak Oil, challanges are often economic - going mainstream. In some sense this the clash, which Odum indetifies, between the small scale permaculture and the greater world. It is notable the the permaculture zone system stops at Zone 5: the wilderness. Where is Zone 6: the wider world?

• Well put. As with below a re-named section would capture things better. Sholto Maud 01:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd say this section should be re-named 'current challanges'. Cheif amonge these I would say is the difference between permaculture design as a pure design system, and permaculture as an ecoligical agricurtural system. That whole permenant culture/permanent agriculture debate. --Pfafrich 00:12, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Whilst I agree the Energy stuff is over emphesised in the article. We need to be clear on original research. Wikipedia is not a place to publish original research. However we can and should report notable original research. So discussing the original research Holmgren did is something which should go in (preferably cited). Later metions of Odum are more questionable and would need citing.

• Re: energy emphasis, I'm not sure that one can over emphasise how important energy is to permaculture philosphy and ethics. Recent discussions about peak oil are all to do with the computer modelling and simulation of energy production. It is the computer models (based on hisotrical production but with various inbuilt assumptions) that predict peak oil. It is in light of these predictions, that the permaculture ethics of small and slow, and the emphasis on low energy quality agricultural systems (etc.) come about. Appropriate energy use is central to permaculture. Ecological engineering designs of permaculture are all about obtaining the maximum energetic benefit from our food landscapes for the minimum input. The design principles are based on the laws of ecological energetics - again Odum (et al.) are important here. If you take the energy emphasis out of permaculture what is left is environmental anthropology, and a broad collection of ideas about organic gardening. But there is no moral imperative - the imperative comes out of the peak oil predictions, and thus energy modeling and simulation. Sholto Maud 01:35, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

• It gives me not the slightest bit of pleasure to say that I agree with Sholto Maud. All of this time I just figured that he was smoking crack cocaine. Then I read his last piece talking about just energy/permaculture and I found that in that one area I largely agreed with him. I can accept for example “Appropriate energy use is central to permaculture. Ecological engineering designs of permaculture are all about obtaining the maximum energetic benefit from our food landscapes for the minimum input.” and “If you take the energy emphasis out of permaculture what is left is environmental anthropology, and a broad collection of ideas about organic gardening.” But the “laws of ecological energetics” belong in some section other than this one.

I think that most people who take peak oil really seriously are utopians in denial; hoping and waiting for the machine (society) to breakdown and force us all back to Tolkien's Shire.

My parents are strong believers in peak oil, my dad in particular. The biggest problem with his arguments are that its always “six months from now civilization will cease because we will have run out of energy” and then six months passes and ..well we are all still here. I don’t get a lot of contact with other people who worry endlessly about peak oil, so I don’t know if he is typical or not. My personal disagreement with the argument is two fold; First, I figure that when oil gets expensive enough, some company in Japan, or Korea, or India, wherever, will start marketing a functional H2O fuel cell – problem solved. Two, if I understand Einstein’s em2 equation, it means we are surrounded by all the energy we could ever use, we just have to be smart enough to get to it, and if things get bad enough so that everyone is sitting around thinking about it, someone will figure out a practical way to do it. –but I digress.

Barring a worldwide pandemic; in a fairly short period of time there will be 9 billion humans running around on this planet, whether anyone likes it or not. How we deal with that, how 9 billion can live without acting as devouring locus…that is the biggest challenge we face today. I don’t believe that permaculture is the answer, but I do believe that it is part of the answer.

Some guy living in Bangalore, when he comes to Wikipedia and pulls up permaculture, what is he looking for? Likely not some high-brow argument. He’s most likely looking for a tool, even a philosophical one, which he can use to improve his world. He hears about permaculture and comes here to get an overview and see if it has application to his world -to see if it is worth his time and effort to examine further. We need to give him enough information to answer the question.

I would still throw out Odum et, all, except for historical context. But the thrust of Sholto Maud’s last argument is probably valid IMO, and should probably be expanded upon. Balanced into practical applications of permaculture, and not entirely based upon peak-oil either. One place where I would disagree with Sholto Maud is his last statement. If a cheep functional fuel cell springs forth tomorrow does that mean permaculture fails to matter any more? No. Just because we have the energy to overrun the planet does not mean we should (and no I am not implying that what Sholto said can be construed that way). If someone comes up with a way to solve the energy problem, there will still be enough other problems out there –but regardless we should not have to come back and rewrite the whole thing either. Does permaculture have meaning in the Big Picture even without an energy crisis? I think it does. But the here and now is that energy is an important part of permaculture. Ok, I am off to bed so that I stop writing 650 word rambling essays every time I post here. Brimba 05:57, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

FYI, cheap (or not) functional fuel cells are irrelevant in terms of overall energy availability. A fuel cell is only a means of storing energy, not a means of creating energy. Some source of energy is required to generate the energy that the fuel cell stores. To some of us it's obvious that most of our biggest problems as a species are a consequence of lots and lots of "cheap" energy and not nearly enough wisdom in its application. And that's the context in which the eventual end of that lots and lots of "cheap" energy is a "problem." So IMO the awareness, observation and understanding of what we humans call "energy efficiency" in natural systems, and applications of those kinds of efficiencies in human-designed systems, is a vital part of permaculture (regardless of beefs over how/to whom to attribute that vital part). While I'm at it - Holmgren does say a few words in "Permaculture: principles and pathways..." about the potential relevance of permaculture in futures other than energy descent, his take IMI being that it would still have various sorts of relevance for people whose lifestyle preferences it suits regardless of larger context. -- JSchinnerer 07:48, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Hart's forest garden

Hi Rich, I see you've amended my mention of Robert Hart's forest garden to read that its 'no longer operational'- do you have any information on the status of this project- the last I heard was that the trustees of the forest garden were in dispute with the neighbouring farm who wanted to destroy it- whats the lastest as far as you know? I'm often asked about this on permaculture courses, etc, but don't have any clear answers to give people... quercus robur 18:27, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Not heard anything about it for many years. --Pfafrich 15:01, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

OK I've amended the text to refelect the general uncertainty around the site rather than saying its not functioning anymore, hope this is OK? quercus robur 08:24, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Confusion over origin of the word 'Permaculture'

Permaculture is a design system which aims to create sustainable human habitats by following nature's patterns. The word 'permaculture' originally referred to permanent agriculture, a term coined by Franklin Hiram King in his classic book from 1911, Farmers of Forty Centuries: Or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan. He meant permanent agriculture to be understood as agriculture that can be sustained indefinitely. This definition was supported by Australian P.A. Yeomans (1973, p. 45) who introduced an observation based approach to land use in Australia in the 1940's, based partially on his understanding of geology. In the 1970's David Holmgren and Bill Mollison redefined permaculture to mean "permanent culture", thus including the social aspects of sustainability. They are widely considered to be the co-originators of the modern permaculture concept.

My understanding has always been that Mollison and Holmgren coined the word Permaculture, however the intro passage as it stands gives the impression that the word appears in the Farmers of 40 Centuries book, as well as Yeomans. Did Yeomans and King actually use the word permaculture or did they refer to permanent agriculture? I think this needs to be clarified. Also my inderstanding was that Mollison & Holmgren originally intended that 'permaculture' should refer to 'permanent agriculture' and that permanent culture came along as a meaning slightly later (albeit still a meaning applied by H & M).

In addition I personally think that this section of the article is too confusing and complicated for an introduction section, such quite complex information should be elaborated further into the article. The first para should be a short, sharp, to the point definition only. quercus robur 15:02, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Latest edits

I've begun restructuring the article hopefully to get things a bit more ballanced and closer to a historically acurate account. Whilst Odum work is important, there a good article by Holmgren at the Permaculture Activist, we do need to ensure that this material does have an appropriate level of significance in the article. --Pfafrich 18:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I ran Permaculture + Military through Google, but could not find anything about a US base. I also ran Permaculture + Peru through Google and again I found nothing. I suspect that the tribe in Peru is legit, but that I failed to find the info. The US base sounds more questionable, I figure a slight exaggeration, rather then simply bad info; anyway, I could not find anything about it. For now I am going to pull both references; HOWEVER, I will try to find some other better documented examples. I just won’t be online much for the next couple of weeks, so it may be a little while before I can do the research.

I have two books The Power of Duck (Tagari Publications ISBN: 0908228120) in which Mollison gives a really good explanation of real world permaculture from his point of view, (has a lot in common with Masanobu Fukuoka’s statements in The One-Straw Revolution.) Once the page gets settled again, I will grab the book and see if Mollison’s take on things belongs here or not. If it looks like it does I will try and work it in somehow.

I also have a copy of Introduction to Permaculture (Tagari Publications ISBN: 0908228082) but its sitting a few thousand miles away at the moment. I may try and have it shipped to me (its in Honduras right now). It’s the book I really wish I had handy…but….

I while ago looked up some of Odum’s stuff, and he REALLY looked like a crackpot, but then I found something a different writer had written paraphrasing Odum, and the light bulb went on. Maybe the problem here is Odum just was not that good at communicating his own ideas. As his ideas are described even now…..

"The work of H.T._Odum was also an early influence especially for Holmgren [1]. Odum's work focus on system ecology, in particular the Maximum power principle which examined the energy of a system and how natural systems tend to maximise the energy embodied in a system. This was adapted in permaculture techniques such as the multiple layers in a forest garden with multiple interacting elements."

You have to reread it a couple of times and even then (at least I) only get about half of what the author is trying to convey. I just think there is a better description out there someplace. I found it once; hopefully I can find it again, when I can I will go in search of it. Ok, enough blabbering for now. Brimba 03:45, 31 December 2005 (UTC) PS: Keep up the good work.

Contemporary opportunities

It is noteworthy that both permaculture and the maximum power principle of sytems ecology give priority to low level and smaller scale processes. This is noteworthy because later work has emphasised that the higher level transformation processes are just as important as the low level processes in sustainability design (H.T.Odum 2004). The maximum power principle was therefore restated as the maximum empower principle to emphasise role the larger zone of 'empower' has to play in regulating smaller 'power' zones. This considersation has resulted in the recognition that the larger scales of energy quality in organisations - like the nation-state and transnational corporations - play an important regulatory and autocatalytic role in smaller scale organisations. Moreover it appears to demonstrate an opportunity for permaculturalists to embrace the energy systems language and empower simulation literacy within permaculture design, and to develop quantitative computer models of permacultural design innovations.

Snipped from main article and placed here. Really this comes close to original research. --Pfafrich 23:48, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Does it??? Well done for even being able to understand it Rich- I couldn't make head or tail and I've got a Diploma in Permaculture Design! ;-) quercus robur 23:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• In the Holmgren article he says that his primary sustainability test applies perspectives derived from Odum. Why is it that people do not teach Odum's emergy simulation and systems ecology in permaculture diploma's? Is there not a contemporary opportunity for permaculturalist's to embrace the perspectives derived from Odum's work? Best of luck with reworking this entry. :) Sholto Maud 03:36, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm familiar with Odum's Emergy concept through Holmgren's 'Principles' book- however I'm not very good with technical language and found the paragraph in question very difficult to understand. it would be good if it could be rephrased in a a way which is accessable to any lay-person quercus robur 15:44, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

3.9 Annual Monoculture (anti-pattern)

I'm not sure what 'anti-pattern' means- surely monocultural annual farming is itself a 'pattern'- certainly its a system which is replicated accross the world- just not, from the permacultural point of view- a very good one. Maybe it would be good to have a small section explaining pattern language before terms such as pattern and anti-pattern are introduced into the article? Antri-pattern isn't a term I've come accross before, although I have heard permaculture teachers and designers refer to 'bad patterns' quercus robur 15:44, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

List of useful plants

Hi all, I've just started List of useful plants to collect information of plants suitable for permaculture and other useful plants. Very stubby at the moment. Feel free to expand. --Salix alba (talk) 10:07, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

ungh, that seems silly as you can utilise native plants as shelter and resources, ergo ALL plants on earth can be useful --Hypo Mix (talk) 06:28, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Sustainable habitat

I've changed the link at top from Sustainable habitat back to Sustainable habitat. The combined page does not at present add much to the discussion and seems to link to only one institute the New SHIRE Institute, the other link on the page is just another wiki like page, with much the same information. The New Shire institute has no other webpages linking to it, and only one page of content created by submitted of article. Much as I'm like to include as much permaculture related material, this seems like a subtile form of link span. --Salix alba (talk) 01:19, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

way too long

hi somebody already mentioned this, this article comes across as a permaculture fan site. i would not wanna push this but i think this article could be shortened by at least 50% if not more. i propose getting some feedback from people who know nothing about permaculture, ask them which part is helpful, which is not. criticism: one put i could think of is that permaculture does not seem to inspire a lot of people who want to make a living working the land. they don't seem to be it a lot of commercial farms that work with permaculture principles, some of the places from the uk list even fail to produce enough food to say feed a family. trueblood 18:08, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Spiritcare???

I've never heard of a '4th ethic' of 'spiritcare', certainly this isn't widely recognised in permaculture circles as far as I am aware. Certainly its not in Holmgren or Mollisons books, or indeed the books of Whitefield, Bell, Hemeningway, or anybody else as far as I'm aware. Whilst it sounds like a nice enough idea, I don't see that doesn't come under part of the already existant 'peoplecare' ethic. I'm dubious that this addition belongs in this article, especially as its not 'mainstream' permaculture thinking at this time. It looks more like something for debate and discussion within permaculture circles and journals rather than an accepted part of the permaculture concept in an encyclopedia article quercus robur 18:28, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I did a google search for permaculture spiritcare and got 0 relavant results. So at present this is not verifiable. It may well have been mentioned in APC8 a fairly important conference, but unless there is some documentation we can not verify it, so sticking to the wikipedia rules and regs it should go. --Salix alba (talk) 21:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Debate as to whether there should be a '4th ethic' of spiritcare might be better placed at the permaculture wiki rather than wikipedia. I'm happy to delete the content from wikipedia and move it over if there is a consensus that this is acceptable. In fcat I see this as a very imporatnt potential function otf the Permawiki, to move forward permaculture theory, thinking, debate and philosophy. quercus robur 22:43, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to get this '4th ethic' stuff shunted out of this article ASAP as I really do feel it doesn't belong here and would give a misinterpretative image of current permaculture thinking to any casual browser who might happen upon this article, can we get comment from other people interested in permaculture to also comment as I'm also reluctant to be seen to be acting in a high-handed fashion over this... quercus robur 23:14, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd be much happier if it wasn't included as wp canon, too. -- jedd, 01:09 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Just a comment on this, I was at the APC8 Convergence last year and one of the discussion groups proposed/claimed a 4th ethic, the Care of the Spirit ethic, and this was included in the final convergence results.-Sinergyinaction 15:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)Cheers

advertizing permaculture

from the article

Visit the Northeastern Permaculture Wikispace for a comprehensive listing of Events, Permaculture Groups, and Demonstration Sites in the Northeastern US and Canada. [18] Amazing example of urban permaculture in Los Angeles Path to Freedom Ideally, the Dervaes would reside on a couple of country acres in order to live the organic, self-sufficient eco-friendly and health conscious lifestyle they live. Instead, finding themselves in the middle of an urban landscape, on a simple city block in Pasadena, California, the five member family has transformed the 1/5 acre and city home into a sustainable urban homestead that provides them with enough organic and cancer prevention food that they have turned the excess crops into a lucrative home business. The family is vegetarian, and the yard blooms with over 350 varieties of edible and useful plants. The 1/10 acre organic garden now grows over 6,000 pounds of organic produce each year. The money from the cottage-industry produce business helps fund purchases of solar panels, energy efficient appliances, and a biodiesel processor. The family makes their own vegetable oil-based bio-diesel fuel to run the family car. They have chickens and ducks, and compost with worms. The Dervaes family is generous in the time they spend showing others what they are doing, from allowing local school children come take a tour to giving how-to workshops to keeping a blog Path to Freedom Journal. They protect their health, they protect the health of others, and they protect the health of the planet -- in the way they choose to live. All while living in the middle of a city on a small city lot. [edit] Cuba Cuba has in the past 18 years transformed their food production using bio-dynamic farming and permaculture. Havana produces up to 50% of its food requirements from within the city limits, all of it organic and produced by people in their homes, gardens and in municipal spaces. Read more about how and why the Cubans made this happen at The Power of Community [edit]

most of this sounds like it is straight from some leaflet advertizing permaculture. amazing.

also do the cuban really use mostly biodynamics and permaculture. i just thought they converted their agriculture to organics. --trueblood 10:26, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

"Conversation with the landscape"?

I've removed the passage that User:24.5.92.11 added to the "Observation" paragraph, because:

• If it's intended metaphorically, it doesn't fit the rest of the section it's part of
• If it's not intended metaphorically, it's pretty dramatically POV

Here's the passage I removed:

Observation allows one to sense and tune into the conversation allready present within the landscape. WIth adequate observation one can enter the conversation knowing the diversity of languages, the individual voices, and the context of the communion.

(typos in the original) Waitak 01:37, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Links

An anon editor has removed loads of the links from this article. Whilst there is probably a need for some link editing many of these were valid and informational (including links to David Holmgren's own website!). The list requires judicious pruning, not wholesale slash and burn, hence reverted theses edits. quercus robur 22:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

1st Revision

Good. I've started pruning the list and improving it with little comments

Update: I have already gone through the whole list. -Cacuija (my talk) 07:17, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Links removed:

Not relevant or specific:

• Path to Freedom - Example of Urban Permaculture (Comment: Not specifically relevant)
• Northeastern Permaculture Network - Wiki (Northeastern North America) (Comment: I surfed it a bit and it all seems to be related to the Northeastern of the United States. It is not relevant to other regions of the world
• What is Permaculture? from Lost Valley Educational Center in rural Dexter, Oregon southwest of Eugene, Oregon (Comment: basic information that is covered in this article and in other external links)
• Permaculture Project in Spain (Comment: It's in Spanish, i am adding it to Wikipedia in Spanish if this link is not there)
• Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm in Swoope, VA, USA

Commercial:

• Barking Frog/ Elfin Permaculture Design Consulting (with sales of teaching CD's, ...
• Link to Yeoman's Keyline Site

Relevant to a certaint region:

• The Permaculture Association (Britain) (Comment: not much information and relevant only to the UK)

Am replacing link to UK PCA, there is loads of information on this site, including articles, permaculture eduation, explanations of permaculture, projects, news, internation sections and more. quercus robur 16:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Just Permaculture Projects (Farms, Eco Villages, Institutes and the like:

• Permaculture in Salzburg, Austria
• Permaculture and Sustainability in Brazil
• Naturewise, a London based permaculture project
• Permaculture Project in Northern Thailand
• The L'akea Community on the Big Island in Hawai'i
• The Portland Permaculture Institute

Links to be considered removed:

• Permaculture Magazine - solutions for sustainable living. Also publish ans sell books, tools & products related to permaculture and sustainable living. (Comment: This is only a magazine -which can be an important magazine-, i couldn't find useful information in their site)

Look again there are lots of links to relevant articles from the magazine plus lots of practical stuff quercus robur 16:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

• Permaculture in Indonesia + IDEP (Comment: there is a page in Wikipedia about this project, maybe we could link to it from somewhere and remove it from external links) (already linked in the article, so i've removed it)

Modified:

• Permaculture.net (Comment: Doesn't have much information. I have decided to replace it with:

Permaculture.net - A collection of definitions related to Permaculture)

You can view the changes by clicking here -Cacuija (my talk) 12:49, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

for example: jam

i removed a passage from the section examples:This does not mean that there is no possibility of making a living from permaculture systems. For example: jam. Jam is more valuable than strawberries. By doing this and making useful connections, permaculture designs can find niches for themselves in our existing socio-ecomomic structure, but it is unlikely that permaculture designs could produce the flood of fresh produce needed to keep 24 hour hypermarkets stocked with goods. Why is this? Perhaps because as systems become more complex the communities of animals and plants are more likely to balance out and massive surpluses of just one crop are harder to arrive at. There is more likely to be a more constant and varied flow of crops over the course of a year. As food has become cheaper it becomes harder to make a living from growing it on a small scale.

what is this trying to say, and is there anything besides opinion Madbishop 14:50, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes I agree with the deletion of this passage. I think it does raise some important points about economics. The mainstream agricultural system is very much geared to monoculture so does not fit well with the permaculture ethos. Following on from the PC idea that the problem is the solution it means that permaculturalist have to find an alternative means of suporting themselves. Often this is by running courses, value added products like jam, or making wooden benches are another way. In the UK we've seen quite a few permaculturealists getting involved in the farmers market movement, as this essentially is a way round the supermartket dominance. What the paragraph is trying to say is relevant, just not stated very well. --Salix alba (talk) 17:12, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Doubts about the value of "edge"

Sure, coastal areas are more full of life, there's rainfall, temperatures are moderate, but to jump to the concusion that "edges" are valuable from that seems a stretch. Please provide more evidence, at least in the form of links or delete! Even if there is an advantage to the seashore, the coastal edge is tens of miles wide, while I've seen permaculture designs where there were edges every hundred feet or so, it might not scale down. Permaculture is an essential idea, so it becomes even more important that it doesn't get watered down by New Age superstitions.

Coexist 18:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC) coexist

Theres quite a lot of discussion on edges in permaculture litrature. I've added one like to and articl on the woodland edge Plants for a Future (disclaimer i'm their webmaster). Edge are also mentioned in

• permaculture faq
• UK Permaculture assoc

I've asked on the PC mailing list about if there is any evidence to back up the claims of edges productivity. --Salix alba (talk) 20:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Ecologically this is a truth known as the edge effect. Basically it means that at the zones where two ecotones intermix, there will be a greater diversity of plant/animal life due to the proximity of two or more relatively heterogeneous regions allowing for increased niches, potential for species to freely move between regions, and potential synergistic effects between zones of light/shade, wet/dry soils, different wind exposures, etc etc. creating potential habitat for a wider variety of life strategiesApothecia (talk) 06:00, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Robert Hart

I don't know how much some editor know about Robert Hart. But his garden and writings were tremendiously influential in the UK. Its been the case over the last five years that whenever two permaculturalists meet the question whats happened to Robert's garden? comes up. He had an obit in permaculture magazine [5], has had articles written about him by plants for a future [6], is referenced by the RISC roof gardening project [7], he is referenced numberious times by Pactric Whitefield (probably the most prolific permaculture author in the UK), and here and here and here here. I could go on but Robert Hart and Forest Gardening definintly deseve a place in the history of the UK movement.--Salix alba (talk) 09:02, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

some author has been to robert harts garden, if you want to call it a garden, and to forest gardening research thing in totnes and to the devon plants for a future site. non of these places produced nearly as much food as a little conventionally kept garden slot. maybe it is easier to write fancy books about gardening than actually have a functional garden. thus some author is relativly frustrated with fancy descriptions of disfuntional sites. some author as been growing things to make a living and looking at many permaculture sites in uk for inspiration but realized that there is noone that follows permaculture principles to make a living (except when they teach permaculture to other people).trueblood 07:40, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes this is a valid critique, if you find anything published to this effect your are free to include information to this effect, however you own impression of these gardens is WP:OR. There are many many people who have visited these sites and left with different oppinions and in the history of permaculture in the UK Hart has undoutably been influential. This is an inspirational garden created by an inspirational man - Visitors came from all over the world, inspired by his books, to meet the man and see his garden, which really amounted to the same thing. (from The Guardian). It may not have been a success in your criteria, but Harts criteria were different. Indeed this is the point of permaculture as a design system, there is not the single goal of more food per square yard but a multitude of goals to suit the user, esthetics, ease of maintanance and creating natural habitats are other goals embodied by these gardens. One thing about the gardens you mention is they are all very low maintanance, ART I think spends 1 day a month on the garden, something you would not get away with in a conventianal plot. --Salix alba (talk) 08:56, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

well you permaculture and particulary forest gardening makes certain claims about amounts of food that could be grown , i would quote from hart's book but i have gotten rid of it since i've seen the place. as far as natural habitats goes, planting all kinds of exotice stuff does not really convince. and esthetics, well if a overgrown, neglected garden is prettier than a well kept up traditional veggie plot with fruit trees and flowers etc might depend on the person.. but yeah, it's all OR, so i leave you to your little permaculture shrine

trueblood 11:37, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Returning a concise definition to the top of the article

Before anyone cares who coined the term or what it is derived from, the term must be defined.

About six months ago I refined this short overview of Permaculture found below (and recently added to the top of the article by me):

Permaculture is both a lifestyle ethic as well as a design system which utilizes a systems thinking approach to create sustainable human habitats by analyzing and duplicating nature's patterns (ecology).

It needs revision, but I think it is important to keep this information at the forefront of the article for the sake of those wishing for a brief overview.

What do you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mkbnett (talk • contribs) 2007-08-21 18:39

I don't think that we should use that source. Wictionary is not cricket per WP:RS. I think it is a good definition and we certainly need something short and sweet in the lead. Here's the paragraph I removed:

Permaculture' is both a lifestyle ethic as well as a design system that uses a systems thinking approach to create sustainable human habitats by analyzing and duplicating nature's patterns (ecology).

I wonder about the use of the term "lifestyle." If you can find a better source for that, great, otherwise, perhaps a definition that is close. Sunray 01:50, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

new image

hi everyone I added a plan for a herb spiral I don't know how to size or where it would be best but plase don't delete it I want this information to be available —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gurdjieff (talk • contribs) 17:03, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Changes to Permaculture

Dear Fishnut, some recent changes made to the permaculture page don't meet a few guidelines of Wikipedia, as far as I understand them. Introducing what looks like point-of-view remarks (without citation) and disparaging a living person (without evidence). If the information can be verified (links to sources) and the tone become neutral, then that is fine, but otherwise these look like POV, no-cite, negative remarks and violate the following guidelines:

• Wikipedia:CITE
• Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons
• Wikipedia:NPOV

I myself am not a big rule-monger, but the lack of neutral tone without any explanation is not helpful to understand if these changes to the article are accurate or not. Since there have only been "reverts" to the introduced changes and repeating of the changes, I am putting this notice here and on the Talk page for Permaculture, seeking a solution. If we cannot make progress on this, then I intend to file a 3RR violation with the admins.

User:Fishnut reported by User:jeffmcneill (Result: )

• Three-revert rule violation on

Permaculture (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Fishnut (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): Time reported: 02:39, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

• Previous version reverted to: VersionTime

• Fishnut does not revert, but repeats very similar edits which remove an individuals' name attributed to Permaculture, injects disparaging remarks regarding that person (a living person David_Holmgren, and then injects disparaging remarks regarding Permaculture itself (the topic of the article) without any evidence or citation.

• Here is an example set of five edits over 18 minutes which was subsequently reverted by me:
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Permaculture&diff=190766828&oldid=190756870

• Fishnut has just edited twice and reintroduced two of those edits:
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Permaculture&diff=190778003&oldid=190774307

• Previously, Fishnut had introduced 6 edits done over two days of a similar nature, which was reverted by User:Skyeriquelme (who it should be noted had only this single revert as a contribution):
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Permaculture&diff=190521441&oldid=190009457 --Jeffmcneill ^{talk contribs} 02:39, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Biological pest control methods

A new article is best included called "Biological pest control methods". For each common pest/weed, a ecological method of disposing and preventing it should be noted. Preparation should also be noted. 2 sections are to be created; one for outside planting and one for greenhouses.

Examples against certain pests (outside use) are:

• Artemesia absintium extract
• Urtica dioica extract
• eggshells
• pot and beer traps (against snails, ..)
• equisetumtea
• tanacetum vulgare powder
• rhubarb extract
• Pilzvorsoge
• Bio-S
• Spruzit
• Carbolineum
• onion-extract + soft soap
• luring of natural predators (earwigs against aphids)

Examples greenhouse use:

• Pheromone traps

KVDP (talk) 09:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

There already a Biological pest control article, which could do with a bit of work. --Salix alba (talk) 10:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Plant propogation

A better (more practical) description of how to do the plant propogation is needed per article. Eg: strikings (not practical enough) air layering, ...

KVDP (talk) 10:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Use by ancient peoples

While the article is about the system devised in the 1970s, it should not lead the reader to think that the concept is new. The modern system of thought is only a reaction to global industrialization, a return to the old sustainable ways. For example, the History section should mention precedents of sustainable agriculture practiced by various peoples around the world. I am not an expert, so I cannot cite any sources, but I know that peoples from Central and South America were expert farmers who practiced crop rotation, natural fertilization and crop combination (three sisters (agriculture)). -Pgan002 (talk) 01:41, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I removed the last sentence in section "Design for ecologinomic (ecology-economic) ethics", which did not fit into the section at all. The section explains the economic reasoning behind permaculture and behind conventional agriculture, by example of a wheat field and walnuts. The last sentence read 'So, as things stand it is quite hard for a permaculture farm to compete with a "conventional" farm in order to grow basic fruit and vegetables.' This can be placed under "Critiques" if some more context is added. -Pgan002 (talk) 02:51, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Problem with "Contemporary examples} section

This section is now waaaay to long and comes across as advertising in many cases. It will continue to grow, as everyone adds their favourite candidate. I propose that we remove the section. If people think that the information is really necessary, we could create a "List of Permaculture sites" page. If there were guidelines for what goes in there, it might be viable. This has been done with many other similar pages (see List of ecovillages, List of intentional communities). What do folks think? Sunray (talk) 01:23, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I Agree - needs to be split into list of article. (With criteria for inclusion and references). Zodon (talk) 08:17, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Linda Woodrow

I briefly read something that said Linda Woodrow coined the phrase "permaculture" I didn't have a chance to keep reading but can any one elaborate to the history section perhaps? it was in the book The Permaculture Home Garden. --Hypo Mix (talk) 06:25, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Kostiksav, 1 April 2011

{{edit semi-protected}} External links

• Permaculture projects in Moscow region (Russia)

Kostiksav (talk) 11:52, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I looked at the site. I am not exactly sure what we can take from it. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:58, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

You're involved with that link, according to your username, so, no.  狐 Dhéanamh ar rolla bairille!  22:30, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Add Portal:Ecology

Add Portal:Ecology 99.190.81.210 (talk) 21:50, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Talk page archive please

Could someone please archive most of this page? I'm not sure how to do it. Thanks Span (talk) 06:20, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

 Done Nirvana2013 (talk) 19:06, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Selecting plants

Nowhere is the selecting of plants with sequential fruiting times mentioned, nor is seasonal eating mentioned, see Community-supported agriculture 91.182.169.80 (talk) 09:07, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Ploughing image

It's not encouraging to see an image of ploughing at the start of the page on permaculture. I'd like to suggest that the Agriculture template should be removed. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:54, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. The Agriculture template is simply being used as a universal signal of agriculture. --PhxJennifer 20:44, 21 February 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by PhxJennifer (talk • contribs)

Possible Merge?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was not merge, slightly out of process as I've already commented but the consensus against seems clear -- Salix (talk): 23:59, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

---

Sustainable Agriculture --130.88.52.7 (talk) 15:13, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Oppose There is much which is sustainable agriculture which is not permaculture and vice versa.--Salix (talk): 17:31, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Oppose I concur. Byelf2007 (talk) 1 November 2012

Oppose As above. Legion23 (talk) 18:28, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Oppose As above. --PhxJennifer 20:39, 21 February 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by PhxJennifer (talk • contribs)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Permaculture was untried at the time of first publication.

When David Holmgren was a student of Bill Mollison's at Hobart University, he did, as part of his course, a literature survey of perennial food-bearing plants. Bill Mollison, known for coining catchy names, abbreviated the existing idea of "permanent agriculture" to Permaculture. At this point nothing new had been created except a word. At the time of publishing Permaculture One, it seems that neither Mollison nor Holmgren had actually planted a permaculture garden. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.106.137.82 (talk) 07:16, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Do you have a citation for this? If so, it can (and probably should) be added to the article as it is notable point. Nirvana2013 (talk) 08:04, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I think that presumes that the coiners of this term "invented" permaculture. They did not. They simply looked at the notion of "permanent agriculture" and distilled the principles found among long-lived sustainable cultures around the world (and there are a few) into a set of principles. Permaculture has been around for as long as people have been using agriculture in a way that is sustainable. There are few examples, and many more examples of unsustainable agricultural practices. I think whether Mollison or Holmgren had planted a garden is a moot point and does not bear on this subject. Since the permaculture principles have been espoused, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of examples where these systems have worked. Additionally, permaculture is a set of design principles, it is not simply a gardening manual. ~ * ~ Blue Electric Storm ~ * ~ (talk) 23:10, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Possible to remove flag calling for additional citations and references?

Can we remove the following from the page:

There are 26 references and 46 notes listed as of March 19,2013. I find that is it well-referenced and well-researched. I'd like to know what other editors have to say about this. ~ * ~ Blue Electric Storm ~ * ~ (talk) 23:20, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, just remove it. The general tag is completely inappropriate, since generally the article is well referenced, and the specific areas that need citations have been specifically identified. --Epipelagic (talk) 01:04, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Rewrite of the Managed intensive rotational grazing section.

I did a pretty substantial rewrite of the Managed intensive rotational grazing section. Primarily I did this as an attempt to clarify the differences between grazing and/or forage systems that meet the permaculture standards and those that don't. Any critique or additional clarification in order to help improve this section is welcome.Redddbaron (talk) 04:32, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

It might need more references to show its actually a permaculture technique.--Salix (talk): 08:29, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

It isn't always. That's the problem. MIRG includes many forms of management and not all of them reach the high standards of permaculture in every respect. As a general rule, most do. The perennial (permanent) is the biodiversity of the grass (instead of the forest) and the concept of rotational grazing mimicking nature is a key principle in permaculture, but you couldn't claim all the forms of MIRG are permaculture. For example, typically a permaculture pasture may have 10-20+ different species of grass and broadleaf plants. Also typically a permaculture pasture may rotate though cows sheep chickens and other species on the same ground. Sepp uses pigs and chickens (and I think maybe sheep too) But the permaculture version has been copied by some that sometimes even plow a field and plant 1 or two types of grass and clover and use MIRG a couple years to improve the land, then plow it back under for crops. That wouldn't fit as a permaculture method....but at least better than conventional ag. So how do you advise I handle that issue? Obviously the way Sepp and Bill do it is permaculture...they are fathers of permaculture. Redddbaron (talk) 03:35, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

ethics

the ethics of permaculture, as espoused by mollison and holmgren, are: 1: care of earth 2: care of people 3: share the surplus. why is the third ethic on this site changed to 'setting limits to consumption and production'? it is not as simple or as accurate....in fact it is not of the same spirit at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gavtheelf (talk • contribs) 10:13, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

The ethics of permaculture are as stated and cited in this article and come directly from Permaculture: A Designer's Manual. "Share the surplus" is a new phrase meant to be less provocative. The original concept was a focus on simplicity that would not overconsume nonrenewable resources and that would regenerate and improve the resiliency of renewable resources. "Share the surplus" does not adequately capture this concept. (74.96.85.98 (talk) 04:23, 27 June 2012 (UTC))

It would seem to me that the ethics would vary a bit if you are using permaculture as a farmer to make a living as well, as opposed to permaculture in your own personal non-commercial garden forest. I am not sure how one would convey the concept in the article such that it fits every situation. Possibly rewrite it using somewhere the phrase: "generous with others and frugal for yourself"? Remember this concept of permaculture, while developed by Bill, Seth etc..., has grown to the point of being a general concept with many people around the world participating in it's further developement now. The article, since it is an encyclopedia, should convey that more general POV...IMHO Redddbaron (talk) 16:25, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Strange advertising

I took out a sentence that had absolutely no context indicating its relevance: "Ivan Taslimson organic permaculture dwellings system was unveiled in Bali." Indeed, neither of the two sources (1 and 2) mentions him nor Bali. Looks like someone just tried to slip their name into Wikipedia. Watch out. --Oop (talk) 13:31, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

It was readded, it seems :) Bennylin (talk) 15:16, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I also deleted it after another +/- cycle because the url did not allow verification and a web search did not reveal a reliable source. Pinethicket (talk)

Lead section

There was a request to improve the lead section and the article was tagged. Rather than add redundant information, I think simply reorganizing what is already there should solve this issue.Redddbaron (talk) 05:50, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge with List of people in permaculture

Stub list more useful at this point as part of parent article. DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 10:25, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

• Comment* The list has quite long descriptions of its entries . Jonpatterns (talk) 12:11, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

• True, but lists need not be simply lists of things. In fact some of the most useful lists on Wikipedia are 'value added' lists that provide the reader key information about the items listed. Entries on the existing permaculture list article can be edited for succinctness & consistency... Regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 14:18, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

• I see no problems with the proposal. By the way, would it be accurate to use the title "List of permaculturists" instead of "List of people in permaculture?"1Halpo1 (talk) 23:08, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I would merge it into the permaculture page and only split it if it became too long. There are many notable permaculturists not listed BTW Sepp Holzer, Paul Wheaton, Masanobu Fukuoka, Joel Salatin etc... Redddbaron (talk) 11:38, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

• Support merger Per others above. We could list all 15 in a section of the parent article, and see how it expands. Then split it off if and when it grows bit. More eyes would be on it here. This article gets nearly 1,000 hits a day, whereas List of people in permaculture gets a whopping 6 per day. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:49, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
• also Support. Seems sensible. I'm going to try to do the merge. feel free to revert if you think it's premature. Mcgrubso (talk) 16:54, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Site/Article style consistency edit(s)

1. Having a random quotation (in this case from Patrick Whitefield) is inconsistent with the style of this site in general and the article. -editor

2. "Bec-Hellouin permaculture farm engaged in a research program in partnership with INRA and AgroParisTech to collect scientific data." That's not a criticism. If there's criticisms in those sources, fine, but we need to know what they are. Also, I'm not sure if any of their criticisms qualify as general criticisms of permaculture or are about specific practices. -editor — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.187.135.120 (talk) 01:04, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

"General criticisms" criticism

The final sentence in the "General criticisms" sub-section is not a general criticism of permaculture. Rather, it is a specific criticism of Mollison's presentation of aquaculture in his books. Perhaps a new sub-section can be created for this single criticism.Sdb27 (talk) 15:28, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Does Owen Hablutzel's quote belong under Criticisms? It's hardly a criticism of the idea of permaculture that it has yet to gain popularity (especially when, almost by definition, permaculture doesn't depend on popularity for it to be successful), much less is it a valid one.70.68.102.57 (talk) 07:38, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

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Bibiography, King, Franklin Hiram (1911), Farmers of Forty Centuries ...

The external link of ´King, Franklin Hiram (1911), Farmers of Forty Centuries: Or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan´ doesn´t exist. Franklin Hiram King does.

Here is a link to the book (29 MB) https://archive.org/download/farmersoffortyce00king_0/farmersoffortyce00king_0.pdf

An other link https://www.gutenberg.org/author/King,+F.+H.+(Franklin+Hiram)

An other (without illustrations) http://agri-history.ihns.ac.cn/books/Farmers%20of%2040%20centuries/ffc.html

(German wikipedia article ´https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permakultur´, translated by http://free-website-translation.com/?de: Quote "The term "permanent agriculture" used in 1911, the American agricultural scientist Franklin Hiram King in a similar sense to the sustainable farming methods in China , Korea and Japan to describe." --Visionhelp (talk) 07:40, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Criticism

I checked the "criticisms" of "some people", traced back to a PHD paper. I'm going to either delete the text as misrepresenting itself, or qualify it. As the paper was rejected for publication, it is pretty thin ice to skate on itself. The claim that "some people" think permaculture is a "pseudoscience" is just flakey. Permaculture is not presenting itself as a scientific tradition, and permaculture practitioners do not have the resources to play that game. PC is just a group of ideas. Billyshiverstick (talk) 06:08, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Info perhaps not important enough for the page

1. There was a special on TV about permaculture, Holmgren explained what the primary agenda of the movement is, Holmgren endorsed a magazine. I don't think this is important enough to be on this page. What's the special significance of these? If we were consistent with including these, it applies the page would grow in size ten-fold with a lot of small tidbits about permaculture throughout recent history. -editor

2. A compost basket isn't really permaculture - look what sets it apart from other food growing approaches. If we included that, we would include a ton of stuff done in non-permaculture approaches growing food. -editor— Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.187.135.120 (talk) 01:09, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

My two cents is to be patient with the article. Permaculture is an important topic. If these "tidbits" threaten to balloon, trim a few, but for now just let the article grow (pardon the pun), unless you see something egregious. tx Billyshiverstick (talk) 06:12, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Fractals?

"Permaculture is a design philosophy which seeks to learn from and imitate naturally occurring patterns. Patterns occur in nature in many forms: From studying Fractals, patterns emerge as mathematical principles from apparently random things such as the shape of plants."

Really? I have no clear picture of what permaculture is (even after reading the article) but this one small part alone makes it look extremely esoteric. If that's unintentional, it should be removed or replaced. --Mudd1 (talk) 08:01, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

You are right. That particular quote is a bit over the top. Not exactly wrong, but you are right, esoteric. Most people understand that one of the key elements of permaculture is to mimic patterns in nature which are self organising and regenerative, as opposed to conventional agriculture which requires large inputs of energy and material to function and are thus not sustainable long term. I'll see if that could possibly could be lacking and/or improved in the article.Redddbaron (talk) 13:41, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

This may be esoteric to you but the mention of Fractals is actually very important. Please keep this for reference.

A quick search finds that this is a commonly discussed feature of permaculture design, so certainly it has merits for inclusion as a descriptor of at least an element of the design process, although I suppose more research is needed to know how widespread their use is by permaculturalists. One editor who admits to having no idea about permaculture, and possibly not even much idea of the science behind fractals as well, given they seem to think they are purely esoteric, is hardly merits for a deletion. Inclusion as a descriptor should be easy enough, and widespread academic support for fractals may be found, although I think more detail on the science behind fractals belongs on the fractal page.Gudzwabofer (talk) 21:50, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Fractals are important to leave in. If you don't understand why, go learn more elsewhere, but please don't delete it. tx Billyshiverstick (talk) 06:14, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Rephrasing/modification required

Under the section 'People', there is a line "A growing awareness finds that firstly, the peoplecare ethic needs attention, interpersonal dynamics can often interfere with projects,...". I looked for the word 'peoplecare' in multiple dictionaries, but it doesn't exist. No useful search result about the word on the internet either. Could someone look into this? Arihant Garg (talk) 20:51, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Vegan Permaculture?

Under permaculture practices, vegan permaculture seems really out of place. The other subheadings are discussing about permaculture techniques and below the domesticated animal section, vegan permaculture is interjected. It would appear that the section was added in opposition to the domesticated animal section.

The original teachings of Permaculture never included veganism or ideas associated with veganism. There isn't a chapter in Bill Molisson's Designer's manual that touches veganism. Most current permaculture textbooks also do not include veganism in them. I was never taught about vegan Permaculture in my PDC either. In my Permaculture guild, vegan permaculture is not recognized as a legitimate sub-division of permaculture such as dry-land permaculture or tropical permaculture. In fact, vegan permaculture is viewed as attempted hijacking of permaculture ethics and principles by fabricating and adding new ethics that has nothing to do with Permaculture Design. Is there consensus that veganism is part of Permaculture and should be included in its wiki page? SilentNote (talk) 18:52, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Foraging, Wild Edible Weeds, Ethobotany, and Obscure Food Plants

On permies.com there are sections devoted to these things. Don't you think this should be included and mentioned and discussed? There are countless wild edible weeds. Searching online begets many results. Eattheweeds.com is a website that covers these very devotedly and assiduously. There are other websites, there are also books, field guides, ethnobotanical tomes, herbals, cook books, ethnobotanical research journals and articles. There's a wikipedia article on [Ethnobotany] as it so happens. You can Google lists of wild edible weeds. There's a very good one by Better Homes and Gardens magazine that lists 8 very common ones, though there are countless edible plants and invasive weeds.

1arkspur (talk) 21:24, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

See also—Draft:Contemporary Foraging Movement —¿philoserf? (talk) 12:25, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 February 2020 and 31 March 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Unknown991.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:25, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

My botched edit of 'permaculture', re: G W Carver.

As I was writing up the edit to the page to include G W Carver to the permaculture page, during editing I pressed the ENTER key by accident, posting the edit before it was complete, and the software correctly rejected the edit because I had left <ref> containing another Wikipedia entry.

I then corrected the edit to point to external documents, one at National Parks and another, backup, at the Wayback machine. These meet the requirement for sources.

User Praxidicae then reverted my corrected edit, stating 'cant circular ref'. Likely they saw the first, botched edit, and not the correct one. Then, SIGH, I pressed ENTER again, which defaults to PUBLISH, which was not my intent.

I apologize to Praxidicae since it appears I was just rudely un-doing his reversion. That wasn't my intent at all. It was keyboard error of an infrequent editor.

With this in mind, I will now re-do my edit as intended, with correct references.

I apologize also for this additional thrash I am generating.

tom Tom.jennings (talk) 23:25, 18 August 2022 (UTC)