PERMACULTURE: A Designer's Manual

by BILL MOLLISON with Reny Mia Slay and Andrew Geeves

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Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of a stable social order.

Permaculture design is a system of assembling conceptual, material and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all its forms. The philosophy behind permaculture is one of working with, rather than against, nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtlessaction; of looking at systems in all their functions, rather than asking only one yield of them; and of allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolutions.

This is the definitive Permaculture design manual in print since 1988. It is the textbook and curriculum for the 72-hour Certificate course in Permaculture Design. Written for teachers, students and designers, it follows on and greatly enlarges on the initial introductory texts, Permaculture One (1978) and Permaculture Two (1979) both of which are still in demand over twenty years after publication. Very little of the material found in this book is reproduced from the former texts. It covers design methodologies and strategies for both urban and rural applications, describing property design and natural farming techniques.

Topics include:

• Author's note
• Introduction
• Concepts and themes in design
• Methods of design
• Pattern understanding
• Climatic factors
• Trees and their energy transactions
• Water
• Soils
• Earthworking and earth resources
• The humid tropics
• Dryland strategies
• Humid cool to cold climates
• Aquaculture
• The strategies of an alternative global nation

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