permaculture

["Robert Waldrop" <bwaldrop@cox.net>]

Gulp.  I thought I was just dashing off a quick 
answer not presuming to develop a definition of 
permaculture good enough to lead off a website ;), 
In the onlie Barking Frogs Permaculture PDC in 
which I am presently enrolled, the subject of 
"definition of permaculture" has been talked about 
a lot.  I finally got the point when some aspects 
of my design outline were rejected because I 
labelled them "permaculture features".  The point 
that was made to me was that permaculture is not 
really a collection of specific strategies/tasks, 
rather, it is the wholistic way of looking at a 
particular site or situation and the process we 
use for working through the various 
issues/resource/challenges unique to that 
site/situation, in the direction of 
sustainability.  But certainly use it as you will. 
I am not fussy about that sort of thing.  Every 
time people complain about the government spying 
on them I say, "I hope they are spying on me and 
making copies of everything I write and sending 
those copies to everyone in the CIA, the State 
Department, the War Department, Congress and the 
White House.

Robert Waldrop, OKC

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>
To: "permaculture" 
<permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 1:31 AM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Terraforming and 
Permaculture,what are the connections


> Robert Waldrop wrote:
> > It seems to me that the correct way of 
> > formulating
> > this would be to say "permaculture is a total
> > concept that can use natural agriculture,
> > terramechanics, terraforming, local food
> > production, wildscaping etc.  "  In other 
> > words,
> > permaculture is not just another parallel 
> > concept
> > to wildscaping, local food production, natural
> > agriculture.  Permacultue IS the total concept
> > design system, which may use any number of
> > sub-systems like wildscaping, natural 
> > agriculture,
> > terraforming, etc. to achieve its goals.  This
> > seems to imply a narrow vision of permaculture 
> > as
> > forest gardening with a design manual, or 
> > orchard
> > keeping, when in fact permaculture is a total
> > design concept under whose wings the rest of 
> > these
> > strategies can rest comfortably and 
> > productively.
>
> That says it perfectly, Robert. If its OK with 
> you I am going to stick this in the homepage for 
> this list -
> let me know if you want me to add a credit to 
> you reading anything different than "a 
> definition of permaculture provided
> by one of this list's subscribers, Robert 
> Waldrop, OKC". If I can fit it on I'll add it to 
> the
>
> Permaculture could also be described as "the 
> source from which many Earth stewardship 
> disciplines flow".