Our good friend and collaborator Mollie Caitlin Brigid offers this:<\/p>\n
\u201cSimply, permaculture is an ethical design system with a set of principles and concepts that guide design and promote whole systems thinking. \u00a0This ethical, principled system can be used to design anything:\u00a0\u00a0social living spaces, business models, economic models, educational curriculum. \u00a0It is most commonly used to design and think about ecological systems, gardens, farms and landscapes.<\/p>\n
Permaculture is most often associated with gardening, farming and homesteading because when the term was coined in the seventies by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, their focus was on how to apply systems thinking to ecological systems to create a “permanent culture<\/a>” around food and community.\u00a0 Our understanding of permaculture is always changing, and truly, as a brainchild of systems thinking, we can use permaculture’s ethics and principles to design any aspect of our lives we choose to see as a whole.<\/p>\n There are three ethics to live by in permaculture. \u00a0They are: \u00a0Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share. \u00a0The principles may vary depending on your teacher or which authors you read.\u00a0 I generally follow David Holmgren\u2019s 12 permaculture principles, and add\u2019s Ben Weiss\u2019 13th: \u00a0Design With Beauty in Mind. \u00a0Some of Holmgren\u2019s principles are: \u00a0Observe and Interact, Catch and Store Energy, Apply Self Regulation\/Accept Feedback and Use and Value Diversity.<\/p>\n There are many different definitions of \u201cpermaculture\u201d and this is because it is not a system with a static, set in stone definition of what it always will be.\u00a0 It is adaptive. It is changing.\u00a0 It depends on its environment.\u201d<\/p>\n