Chiara Grimes is in her first year of the Schar School of Policy and Government’s highly ranked Master of Public Administration program, with a concentration in Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University. A former intern at the Women’s Earth Alliance Global Programs, she is a current ORISE Fellow with the Environmental Protection Agency. The following was adapted from an essay recently published on the Rachel Carson Council website.
I’ve recently felt called to start gardening.
Whether the call is from wanting to cultivate biodiversity on my patio, seeking control after the recent U.S. election results, or genuine curiosity to develop a new skill, I am not sure.
Perhaps it is a combination of the aforementioned feelings, and more. I’ve always wanted to take a horticulture class, and I’m very interested in learning more about plants from a medicinal or survivalist standpoint. In my preparation for what I should plant, I’ve also been learning more about various sustainable agricultural methods from which I hope to take inspiration. “Permaculture” in particular stands out for me.
The term is a combination of the words “permanent” and “agriculture” and was developed by Australian professor Bruce Charles “Bill” Mollison and David Holmgren in 1978. The bio-consultants at Permadomia say, “Permaculture is a system of agricultural and social design principles centered on simulating or directly utilizing the patterns and features observed in natural ecosystems. It has many branches that include but are not limited to ecological design, ecological engineering, environmental design, construction and integrated water resources management that develops sustainable architecture, and regenerative and self-maintained habitat and agricultural systems modeled from natural ecosystems.”
The Permadomia website adds that Mollison and Holmgren “… didn’t invent [permaculture], they just observed and reproduced what Nature does so well: Growing.”
Australian permaculture design proponents at Noosa Forest Retreat define permaculture as the “designing [of] the entire human habitat, [including] philosophy, ethics, property access, natural building of houses and other structures, food forests and kitchen gardens, energy, water and exchange systems, culture, and community living and development, to name a few. The key term is ‘culture’ and all that this entails.”
Permaculture surpasses other sustainable farming practices by integrating both the garden and home to develop a lifestyle that lessens negative environmental impacts.
The three core pillars of this practice include: care for the Earth, care for the people, and return of surplus.
However, Holmgren expanded on these pillars by developing the “12 design principles of permaculture.” After reading about these philosophies, I wondered how we could take permaculture practices and ideologies and apply them to our personal lives, especially for those living in urban environments.
After all, permaculture integrates care for the whole Earth and its peoples, and so we must simply observe and reproduce what nature already does so well.