Permaculture Definitions

Below are some of the many definitions of permaculture.

Permaculture is a method of design with the overall goal to produce an efficient and productive system by integrating plants, animals, structures, and people.

- Jude Hobbs

Permaculture is a holistic approach to landscape design and human culture. It is an attempt to integrate several disciplines, including biology, ecology, geography, agriculture, architecture, appropriate technology, gardening and community building.

- Guy Baldwin, Cortez Island, BC

Permaculture is a set of principles and processes for ecological design, applied at any scale and to any system.

- Per Kielland-Lund

Permaculture is a integrated approach to creating a permanent culture by way of design, appropriate technology, cooperation and locally based cultures and economies that do not damage the natural environment and allows all inhabitants of Planet Earth, human and otherwise to survive in health and dignity. Permaculture nurtures democracy, accountability, creativity and fun.

-Jan Spencer

Permaculture is a whole-systems method of design that organizes ideas, strategies, and techniques from agriculture, appropriate technology, natural building, economics, and other disciplines into a pattern of mutually supportive relationships. By using principles from nature to thoughtfully integrate land, water, plants, people, animals, shelter, technologies, and community, permaculture lets us design sustainable places to live.

- Jude Hobbs

Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.

Permaculture design is a system of assembling conceptual, material and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all it's forms.

The philosophy behind permaculture is one of working with, rather than against, nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless action; of looking at systems in all their functions, rather than asking only one yield of them; and of allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolutions.

- Bill Mollison

Permaculture, from permanent agriculture, is a practical system of ecological design. By learning to mirror the patterns found in healthy natural environments, you can build profitable, productive, sustainable, cultivated ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems.

Permaculture designs range from households to major agricultural enterprises and even whole bio-regions. It integrates disciplines relating to food, shelter, energy, water, waste management, economics and social sciences to create whole systems capable of reclaiming devastated lands and building sound social/economic systems.

- Lost Valley Educational Center website

Permaculture. Derived from 'Permanent' and 'Culture', as follows:

Permanent: From the Latin permanens, to remain to the end, to persist throughout (per = through, manere = to continue)

Culture: From the Latin cultura - cultivation of land, or the intellect. Now generalized to mean all those habits, beliefs, or activities than sustain human societies.

Thus, Permaculture is the study of the design of those sustainable or enduring systems that support human society, both agricultural & intellectual, traditional & scientific, architectural, financial & legal. It is the study of integrated systems, for the purpose of better design & application of such systems.

- Bill Mollison

Back to What is Permaculture?