permaculture

["Michael Burns" <burns@panix.com>]

People ought to be suspicious of those who claim to know the truth. On the
other hand, there is a core of ideas and practices that are commonly accepted
as Permaculture. If I want to hire someone to work on my homestead who has
permaculture certification, their certification suggests that they have
surveyed and practiced these key ideas. I know of no other certifation process
that attempts to standardize, catagorize, and otherwise attempt to hold up
some degree of quality that is solely focused on sustainability. On one hand
permaculture relies on sound science and on the other demands that we address
core values about sustaining life.

In my area, I have been both amazed and disturbed at how quickly people have
begun to throw around the phrase permaculture as a catch-all phrase for
sustainable living. It quickly becomes a vague term to decribe their own
personal viewpoint and suddenly the issue of DESIGN is forgotten.

In a recent post on a local list serv, permaculture was compared with Marxism
and capitalism and other ideologies! It seems strange to me as I see it more
like the discipline of architecture or engineering. But because Pc does have
values (like earthcare, peoplecare, fairshare...) I find some use it as a
buzzword and others avoid it like it is a religious sect.

This summer I am administrating the FINGER LAKES PERMACULTURE INTENSIVE in
hope of clearing the air and educating at least dozen people into the
DISCIPLINE and PRACTICE of permaculture.

Certainly (like architecture) the practice and theory behind permaculture will
adapt and change through the years, but one reason why the practice of
permaculture has persisted is that the Pc curriculum maintains some standards
for training and practice, and that the core principles and guiding theories
have remained consistent.

SHAMELESS PROMOTION: Interested in learning more about permaculture? Would you
like to earn your certification among an intensive community of learning in
the beauty of the Finger Lakes(New York, USA)? Visit: http://www.cayuta.org

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lisa MacIver" <lisamaciver8@yahoo.com>
>
>> One thing that I have trouble with, that I see in the permaculture
>> movement, is that there appears to be this rigid definition and  structure
>> and the "right" way to think about land use and society;

### http://www.cayuta.org ###