The principles of permaculture are the secret to why permaculture works. The better you understand and utilize these principles, the more successful you’ll be as a permaculture designer.
A principle is something that can be observed to be true or to work in most or all situations. It is a core reality. It has very broad applicability. If you understand principles, you have a piece of knowledge that can help you understand many different situations.
In this course, we’re going to put a lot of focus on principles. We’ll share details too, but if you understand the principles of composting, for instance, it frees you up to think about how to design a compost system for your own site, and also for someone else’s site that is very different from yours because those principles don’t change.
The permaculture principles are what distinguish permaculture design from other forms of design. If you’re not using these principles, what you are designing isn’t permaculture; it’s something else.
This is why we ask you to focus on ensuring you include these principles in your design project as a priority. It’s more important than plant lists or the things you put into the design.
We’re going to briefly discuss each principle and then continue to bring them back throughout the course. These are important enough that we feel you will benefit from continuing to do the exercises we include with each principle repeatedly until you feel that principle has become part of how you operate and see the world.
Bill Mollison and David Holmgren developed two different but related sets of principles. Bill came from an ecological sciences background and his principles relate to ecology. David comes from a design background and his principles reflect that to some degree. We’ll cover both, starting with David’s set of 12 principles.
David Holmgren wrote a book, giving each principle an entire chapter, called Permaculture: Principles and Pathways.
Mollison’s principles can be found in his two main textbooks: Permaculture: The Designer’s Manual and Introduction to Permaculture.
We'll cover Holmgren's principles in this section and then share examples of how both Mollison's and Holmgren's principles are used in real life situations.
The definition of “principle” is - a comprehensive and fundamental law or assumption.
“We are surrounded by insurmountable opportunities.”
- Bill Mollison