Permaculture

Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking. It applies these principles in fields such as regenerative agriculture, town planning, rewilding, and community resilience. The term was coined in 1978 by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, who formulated the concept in opposition to modern industrialized methods, instead adopting a more traditional or "natural" approach to agriculture.^[1][2][3]

Permaculture has been criticised as being poorly defined and unscientific.^[4] Critics have pushed for less reliance on anecdote and extrapolation from ecological first principles, in favor of peer-reviewed research to substantiate productivity claims and to clarify methodology. Peter Harper from the Centre for Alternative Technology suggests that most of what passes for permaculture has no relevance to real problems.^[5] Defenders of permaculture reply that researchers have concluded it to be a “sustainable alternative to conventional agriculture,” that it “strongly” enhances carbon stocks, soil quality, and biodiversity, making it “an effective tool to promote sustainable agriculture, ensure sustainable production patterns, combat climate change and halt and reverse land degradation and biodiversity loss.”^[6] They further point out that most of permaculture’s most common methods, such as agroforestry,^[7] polycultures,^[8] and water harvesting features^[9] are also backed by peer-reviewed research.