permaculture

["Marsha Hanzi" <hanzibra@svn.com.br>]

Dear friends,

 

I was fumbling around looking for that little document that I wrote so many years ago, when I discovered that my colleague had put it on our homepage (in Portuguese..) Reading it now I am not at all satisfied--  lacks coherence (Each principle was accompanied with examples...) Really should work it into some more coherent body...  Toby?

 

Today I would consider cooperation  with others and Nature, and creating interconnected systems which imitate ecosystems to be   fundamental ideas in our work (I even wrote once a bit about the city being  a great body , with organs ( liver and heart, etc), circulatory systems, nerve system, drawing parallels between city ailments and physical diseases ( traffic jams being blood clots,  lack of money in some areas as a form of anemia, etc.etc.)

 

But back to my first analysis of principles. Here is what I wrote:

 

1. The more you approximate nature, the less you work.

 

2. Substitute capital and work for planning and creativity.

 

3. The problem is the solution.

 

4. Diversification guarantees stability.

 

5. Closing loops  brings stability.

 

6. We must be responsible for our grandchildren.

 

7.  The problems are basically domestic and can be solved at the domestic level.

 

8. All systems should produce more energy than they consume.

 

9. We aim at cooperation and not competition, integration instead of fragmentation.

 

10. It's cheaper to avoid emergencies than to face them.

 

 

Today they look more like rules of thumb than principles to me... Will have to think about this...

 

Marsha