There is a permaculture special in the Jan/Feb edition of the French organic gardening magazine Les4 saisons du jardin bio and I have written an article on permaculture
principles.
As space is always at a premium in magazine articles, and as the
principles of permaculture run to several different lists, I decided to
translate them into French and host them on the French language version of this blog, with a link at the end of the article to guide readers to the resource on
the Web.
The principles of
permaculture are important as they guide our designing but we don't have a definitive list. To understand and then explain why in
my article, I researched the history of the origins of permaculture. Back in
the 70s, Mollison, who was a senior lecturer at the University of
Tasmania, Australia, encountered David Holmgren, a student at the Tasmanian
College of Advanced Education. (I put in this detail as it is often wrongly
stated that Holmgren was Mollison’s student at uni, in fact, there's a lot of errors and misconceptions out there!)
In an apparently short yet
intense association, these two created the backbone of the permaculture
concept. After the publication of Permaculture
One – a Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements in 1978, they went
their separate ways.
The charismatic, and
sometimes provocative, Mollison
continued to develop the concept by publishing several books, including The Designer's Manual (1988), then a concise version, Introduction to Permaculture (1991). Meanwhile, Holmgren, remained
somewhat in the shadows, tested the theory on
his property, called "Melliodora" in Hepburn Springs. He
re-emerged into the limelight in 1995 with
the publication of Ten
Years of
Sustainable Living at Melliodora,
which details his own experiences of
life on a smallholding designed using permaculture. In 2002, he published the
reference book, Permaculture
- Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability, which quickly became very popular.
If you research the history of
permaculture and the relationship between these two men, you will come across people
expressing strong emotions and opinions.
There are some trainers who say they teach using Mollison’s principles and
others who say they teach the
twelve principles of Holmgren. Do we need to treat them separately, or
are they complementary?
Permaculture One, the only book they
published together (in 1978)
does not contain an explicit list of
principles, but most of the concepts that were later included in the list of principles are described therein.
In 1988, Mollison
published, Permaculture:
A Designers' Manual. Although “principles” do not appear in the table of
contents, in Chapter 2, under the subheading “The application of laws and principles to the design” he lists “certain design principles that
have been condensed for use in permaculture.” Under each heading is an
explanation.
In 1991, with Reny Mia Slay, he
published a concise manual, Introduction
to Permaculture. Chapter 1 is entitled
“permaculture principles.” The principles are the
titles to each section. For the principles (but without the detailed
explanations you will find in the books) have a look at this page from the Permaculture Association.
In 2002, Holmgren
released, Permaculture
- Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability, in which he sets out and
explains, with academic attention to detail, his twelve principles. They are set out here on his own site. As he
introduced his 12 design principles, Holmgren said his group “varies considerably
from those used by most other permaculture teachers.” 
The subject deserves further
study in order to be fully understood
and applied correctly. A good start would be to
read Mollison’s Introduction
to Permaculture, Holmgren’s Permaculture - Principles
and Pathways Beyond Sustainability and Patrick Whitefield’s The Earth Care Manual: A Permaculture
Handbook for Britain and Other Temperate Countries (which is my
favourite). Their sets of principles are quite different, yet complementary, and
other permaculture writers and teachers have since adapted, added to and
restated them.
Permaculture principles, then, are not hard laws written on
tablets of stone but they will provide you with a good initial guide to get you
designing while you learn the underlying ethos of permaculture. Therefore, don’t feel restricted by these
lists of principles rather research and, respecting
the philosophy of the concept, synthesize
the key ideas, observe and experiment,
and so develop your own permaculture.
