PERMACULTURE
EVALUATION
CENTRE
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126 Principle 7: Design from Patterns to Details
Modernity has tended to scramble any systemic common sense or intuition that can order the jumble of design possibilities and options that confront us in all fields
128 Our loss of ability to see hear and otherwise recognise the patterns of nature may be our greatest impediment in attempts to adapt to the realities of energy descent
129 There is a bias towards short term thinking within our own lifetimes (an evolutionary weakness?) which must be overcome. Science and technology works at micro level but understanding of macro systems not well developed, as not so amenable to control and benefits slow to emerge.
Public policy must engage with natural systems management and resource depletion, and at a broader scale than it has before
131 Landscapes and ecosystems have nodes of concentrated energy which support special highly productive systems or elements. Such concentrations have strongly influenced human land use and settlement patterns in the past
132 Self organisation is evident in wild landscapes and accentuated by indigenous/ traditional land use which should be seen as a general pattern for sustainable land use in a low energy future. Points to where human food can be grown and deals with land degradation
Food forests can be more productive and sustainable than grain agriculture, and have other benefits
133 Food forests work better in moist subtropics and tropics. In temperate colimates they are only possible along streams or in high rainfall areas. (Fruit and nut trees have evolved to flower, fruit and resist fungal diseases in more open environments than dense forests)
In Australia it is now recognised that lack of perennial and woody plants is prime cause of salinity and other land degradation problems. Unused water leaches nutrients, causes acidification, contributes to rising saline groundwater
134 Deciduous vs evergreen trees. Differences between S & N hemispheres
135 Fertility loving vs infertility tolerant plants
Best human habitats related to mineral content of soils
136/7 Diagram with gradient of vegetation type/ canopy height vs soil fertility in temperate, mid rainfall regions. Grasslands supported herbivores and people
Not just a question of biomass, need trees that yield something useful, can have lots of tall trees and nothing to eat
138 Zones, more or less concentric, each one characterised by a particular set of plants and animals, management strategies and structures, and influenced by slope, shape of plot, etc
141 There is an optimum scale for best productivity and stability for any particular production system and set of technologies eg beyond a certain cropping area it gets harder to make enough compost
142 Plotting decreasing yield per area issue vs increasing area/ total yield curve shows an optimum point
143 Sector design also influenced by where/how external wild energies enter the site – sun is predictable, but wind and rain less so – a diagram helps
146 River catchment protection via forests is vital, but the forests should also be productive in their own right.
Make catchments more energy efficient via dams, using run off around buildings, maintaining vegetation along stream banks
148 Evaluation of landscapes and their potential independent of current land use
150 Architecture and building design to suit a bio region. Importance of insulation value and materials permeable to water vapour.