"To empower the powerless and create a 'million villages' to replace nation-states is the only safe future for the preservation of the biosphere. Let interdependence and personal responsibility be our aims."
Bill Mollison, an Australian jack-of-all-trades, developed an agricultural systems strategy after extensive research
on the Tasmanian aborigines. He and David Holmgren coined the phrase permaculture (permanent agriculture), while
attempting to create an "interdisciplinary earth science with a potential for positivism, integrated, and
global outreach" (Mollison ix).
|
|
| Permacultural aspect: helping animals in a veggie garden; harnessing and maintenance (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The agricultural system that he developed involves a comprehensive
paradigm shift that includes the development of an ethical and moral
approach to the natural world. The foundation of this ethics begins with
the adoption of a "sophisticated aboriginal belief system." By looking
towards the aborigines, we can develop a more holistic approach to the
world around us. Mollison summarizes this belief in his book
Permaculture: A Designer's Manual:
|
|
| English:
permacultural aspect: co-operating niches at a small scale – photo made
on an organic farm on the Swabian Mountains in Germany (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
"Life (according the aboriginal people of Australia) is a totality neither created nor destroyed. It can be
imagined as an egg from which all tribes (life forms) issue and to which all return. The ideal way in which to
spend one's time is in the perfection of the expression of life, to lead the most evolved life possible, and to
assist in and celebrate the existence of life forms other than humans, for all come from the same egg" (2).
With this belief system, which is inherent to Mollison's form of permaculture, the "prime directive of permaculture"
can be met. This directive is acceptance of responsibility for our own existence and that our offspring (1).
