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Permaculture design for Stephan Schrotter at Cairo Montenotte, Italy

Permaculture design for Stephan Schrotter at Cairo Montenotte, Italy

This article is in three parts.  The entire series will take us through a Permaculture Design Project at a property in Italy.  Firstly we will look at how the project was observed, then the analysis that was undertaken before starting the design.

Holistic Goal

What is it?

holistic goal is a three-part goal describing the quality of life desired, the forms of production to get there, and the future resource base that the forms of production depend on. A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a goal. A task is one step in the plan of action to accomplish a goal.

A Holistic Goal (now referred to as a “Holistic Context” by the Savory Institute) is necessary for anyone who wants to be a Holistic Manager. It can help you with your personal life, your business, and your family life. Having a Holistic Goal has eliminated a lot of decision-making stress in my life.

Holistic Management involves using a simple decision-making framework that ensures all significant management decisions are simultaneously economically, socially and environmentally sound both short and long term.  No longer are decisions made toward objectives or goals alone, but always toward a new concept called the holistic goal for any management situation. The holistic goal provides the context for all objectives, goals or actions toward any vision or mission. This helps greatly in avoiding unintended consequences to our actions that are so universal that economists long ago used the term “Law of unintended consequences.”

-Allan Savory

What you have to manage?

A Permaculture project:  Rebuild the house with two or three rooms to rent, food production for the family and guests, trees…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

My Top 10 Books That Inspired Our Project

MY TOP 10 BOOKS THAT INSPIRED OUR PROJECT

At the beginning of 2017 Permanent Publications sent us an email expressing an interest to publish a book on our polyculture trials and experiences. I’d been thinking about writing this book for some time and responded with gleeful enthusiasm.  I’m happy to announce that we have signed the publishing agreement and have already started to work on the book.  The working title of the book is Polycultures –  Designing and Creating Polyculture Gardens, Farms and Landscapes, and you can find a draft overview of what the book will cover here.

As I prepare for a winter of writing I’m looking around at the books on our shelves and seeing that many of the books that inspired us to get us started with our project are from authors published by Permanent Publications. So after a little deliberation on whether or not I should do a cheesy 10 top blog, here it is. I should really be spending this time writing the book, but I can’t help but to write this post as a small token of my appreciation and respect to all the incredible authors and people at work, and to Permanent Publications for facilitating the dispersal of so much wonderful and useful knowledge.  So here is my top 10 books that have inspired our project.

The order does not denote how good I think the books are, it’s more based around the order I read the books.

1 – THE PERMACULTURE GARDEN –  LINDA WINDROW

Top of the list and the book that got me in and going with our project is by the ingenious, wonderfully pragmatic and endlessly enthusiastic  Linda Windrow – The Permaculture Garden.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

WHAT ANIMALS AND A BARN OFFER TO PERMACULTURE DESIGN

WHAT ANIMALS AND A BARN OFFER TO PERMACULTURE DESIGN

THE IMPORTANCE OF ANIMALS IN PERMACULTURE LANDSCAPES

Our agrarian past reminds us that farming without animals is like trying to drive a car without gasoline. While crop rotations, cover crops and periodically maintaining the land fallow were some strategies our grandparents used for keeping the farm productive, the dairy cow, the flock of chickens, and the few hogs were the guarantee of the continued fertility of the fields.

When done on a correct scale, raising animals on a small piece of land offers balance and sustained fertility while also offering quality food products. Animals eat from pastures and other waste products from the land while offering fertility and numerous food products for us humans. The function of animals in an industrialized concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) is simply to produce protein as fast as possible. On a small, permaculture landscape, however, animals (as an element of the overall system) offer several functions, including:

– Food/Protein
– Fertility
– Natural Cultivation/Tilling of the Soil
– Weed Control
– Diversification
– Companionship

Raising small animals around the world is often listed as a primary cause of deforestation, erosion, and a whole host of other ecological problems. When designed correctly, animals do contribute to overall system health.

A good parallel from the natural world is the bison herds that once roamed the Great Plains. The Native American population lived in harmony with the buffalo population which was estimated to be several million strong. The buffalo provided the native peoples as their primary food source and a source of clothing and shelter. Buffalo bones were even commonly used as kitchen and cooking utensils.

The buffalo, however, didn´t only contribute to the health and well-being of the local human population but also were the principal caretakers of the ecological balance of the prairie ecosystem over which they roamed.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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