permaculture

["charles knoles" <charles@growfood.org>]

> Message: 6
> From: "Kirby Fry" <peace@totalaccess.net>
> To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Open letter to Mark and Kirby
> Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2002 09:05:01 -0500
> Reply-To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
>

> When I came to this list with the above topics I was looking for hard
> information not necessarily debate.  It's taken several weeks now to just
> BEGIN drawing out the information I'm looking for, and there's still more
I
> would like especially regarding the roll of forests vs. prairies, and the
> effects of reforestation on the climate.

I see your point.  The discussion has become a lot more useful in the last 
few posts.

> I did post a letter describing our recent Pc installation and its
> shortcomings.

 >>  let's check back in twenty years (or other appropriate time frame for
>> succession) and see who's right.  Let nature be the judge.  <<

  I don't think I expressed my point of view very well earlier. What I was 
trying to say is that we are still in the early stages of 
permaculture/ecological design.  Since we don't really know what a 
sustainable food supply for 6 billion people looks like it is a good thing at 
this point that there are people like you and Mark out there who have the 
same goal and can speak the same perma-jargon to each other but are 
experimenting with completely different approaches.   It's also extremely 
important that you communicate to each other and to the rest of us what your 
successes and failures are.  It can just get a little tiresome if it gets 
bogged down in a philosophical headbutting match rather than a comparison of 
results.  It reminded me of those stories of the ancient greeks who used to 
debate over things like how many teeth a horse had without anyone thinking to 
just go and count them.

  > In Texas, at least, the trees have been falling for 400 years and are
> falling even faster today.  I'll be happy to post the results of juniper
> encroachment on our land in 20 years but I can go a mile in any direction
> and start reporting on the results today.

  True.  The thing is that there may be differences in the way Mark or 
someone else manages their system that make it turn out differently to the
examples in your area.  If so I would like to see the results and find out 
about it.  We are all experimenters.

  By analogy look at the intentional communities that were formed in the late 
sixties/seventies.   Most of them have dissappeared or been lost to 
fractiousness, alcoholism, cults, or unsustainability BUT.....  a very small 
portion of them are still around and doing cool stuff.  I can imagine there 
were similar debates back in the day about what was the right way to make a 
community, political/religious issues, financial issues blah blah blah but 
what we have now is the end result of a 30 year long darwinian process. 
Anyone who wants to start an intentional community now can just look at what 
is still around and model their successful patterns and build on the basis of 
success.  In another twenty years or so we'll know a lot more about what 
works in other areas such as exotic species control due to the same selective 
process.In the meantime let's encourage as many approaches as possible that 
move us toward our common goals.

   I think we ought to look at permaculture principles, techniques and ethics 
as an ongoing process rather than a static system of rules.  As a
member of the transcendental meditation movement I know only too well how 
easy it is for people with laudable goals and excellent techniques to get 
overly rigid!



--
Charles Knoles
President
Permaculture Club
Maharishi University of Management 
Fairfield Iowa 52557
USA 
email: charles@growfood.org
--