permaculture

[Jim <ashevillecurrencyproject@gmail.com>]

Hi All-
In this review below, Rob Hopkins of Britain (and the innovator of the 
Transition Towns approach to peak oil)
raises some questions about Permaculture culture.

-- Jim

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Book Review: Permaculture, a beginner’s guide
Review by Rob Hopkins
http://transitionculture.org/2009/01/12/book-review-permaculture-a-beginners-guide

Permaculture: a beginner’s guide (second edition). Graham Burnett. 
Spiralseed Publications.

I have had a copy of the initial edition of this small book for many 
years. Graham both wrote and illustrated the book, and it has a very 
distinctive look and feel which are particular to his work. His 
particular background and his perspective on permaculture emerges from a 
long background in anarchism, veganism, and a more urban, communitarian 
approach than some more rural-focused writers such as Patrick 
Whitefield. He is also active in Transition Westcliffe-on-Sea.

The book is a clear and information-packed, and it covers most of what 
you would expect a short introduction to permaculture to cover. It 
covers the ethics and principles of permaculture, opting for Mollison’s 
original ones, rather than Holmgren’s revised principles. This dilemma 
presents an interesting choice for permaculture teachers and writers, 
which to use? Personally, I tend to see Mollison’s as the GCSE ones, 
more accessible for beginners, and Holmgren’s as the A’Level ones, for 
those already grounded in the basic ideas. In this regard, I think 
Graham gets it right opting for Mollison’s, they certainly work very 
well in the context of this book.

He then explores the permaculture design process and how to apply 
permaculture in a range of settings, the garden, the farm, and within 
the urban community. Like any good primer, or introductory text, ‘A 
Beginner’s Guide’ does lots of signposting. Of course it can’t tell you, 
in its 74 pages, how to coppice a woodland and create a roof garden, but 
references are provided to those who can. Some of the tables are very 
useful, offering a quick guide to edible weeds and reading a landscape, 
among other things.

More nice things?

I have only two grumbles, one small and one larger one. I was a bit 
disappointed, having had my original copy of this for many years, to 
find that the ’second edition’ is almost exactly the same as the first. 
So far as I can tell, all that has been added has been a colour cover 
and some (albeit useful) colour pictures at the back with accompanying 
case studies. In spite of all the advances in permaculture since, and in 
the world around it, what you get it still a version of permaculture 
from 10 years or so ago. The opportunity for a more substantial updating 
of the original seems to have been missed.

The other thing is the presentation. In the world of permaculture such 
as it is presented graphically by Graham’s accomplished illustrations, 
everyone is a member of some minority group or other. You would think 
that the only people who practice permaculture are punks, hippies, 
people who wear T-Shirts with radical slogans printed on them, people of 
colour, people with a penchant for going to the toilet with no clothes 
on, people with mohicans. dreadlocks and 3 day-old stubble. While that 
may have been the case when this book was originally written (although 
it wasn’t my experience of most of the people I met practicising 
permaculture at that time) I was reminded, as I read the book, of a copy 
of ‘Spiritual Midwifery’, that classic 60’s guide to holistic birthing, 
owned by my wife.

‘Spiritual Midwifery’ was produced at The Farm in Tennessee and was a 
classic, selling millions of copies. In the original, all the men have 
beards and long hair, and all the women have long hair, with head 
scarves and long dresses, and most women report giving birth as being 
like one long orgasm. When my wife bought a copy about 10 years ago, on 
the cover was a banner boldly proclaiming “Updated and Revised for the 
1990s!” I opened the book, intrigued. Had they airbrushed out the 
beards? Did all the men now have trainers on and Timberland jackets? 
Were all the women dressed in the finest Prada and have their 
bellybuttons pierced? No. The photos were exactly the same, leaving me 
wondering in what sense the book had been brought up to date.

Similarly, ‘A Beginners Guide’ feels, graphically at least, stuck in 
some 1980s version of radical change, where the only people really 
pursuing change of any value are small minority groups, not anyone who 
carries even a whiff of the mainstream. In this world, most change of 
any value comes from punks, rastas, animal rights activists, anarchists 
and squatters. I would have loved to see, in a second edition of this 
highly useful book, a more up to date look at who might actually be 
implementing this stuff, given the degree to which it has subsequently 
moved on (if, indeed, it was ever like this).

What I see as I travel up and down the country meeting Transition 
groups, is a distinct absence of mohicans and dreadlocks (not that 
there’s anything wrong with those, its just that the vast majority of 
people don’t have them). In that sense, there is something in this book 
which somehow encapsulates why it is that permaculture has struggled to 
escape from a ghetto of its own making.

Who would I give this book to? I think as an introduction to 
permaculture for someone already immersed in ‘alternative’ culture, it 
is excellent. It certainly was a big influence on me at the time in my 
life when it first emerged. People with a background in campaigning and 
in activism will find this an easy-to-follow, rousing introduction to 
permaculture, a very useful and important tool.

Would I give this to my local councillor, my MP, my next-door 
neighbours, or to my sister, in an attempt to convince them that 
permaculture has a role to play in transitioning their very conventional 
lifestyles/workplaces? I don’t think I would. In that case I’d opt for 
Patrick Whitefield’s ‘Permaculture in a Nutshell’, but acknowledging 
that even that may well not have a universal appeal. Feels to me like 
with the world heading headlong into financial meltdown and energy 
famine, and with permaculture, as Holmgren so passionately argues, being 
the design system of a post-oil world, we need ways to broaden, 
mainstream and deepen its appeal as quickly as possible. While this book 
is a passionate, powerful and information rich guide to permaculture 
principles for those already amenable to alternative ways of looking at 
the world, it is not, by a long way, the book that will bridge across to 
the mainstream.