Customer Reviews

Permaculture: A Designers' Manual

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For those of us searching for an ecologically responsible lifestyle amid urban and suburban insanity, Bill Mollison has a real and exciting answer. This book is full of helpful advice presented in a very readable way. (The only problem might be getting stuck in the chapters on climates that don't concern you; just skip them until later!) The groundwork philosophy of permaculture is laid first, and the book moves from there to the practical business of actually designing one. The emphasis is on letting various plant and animal species work together as much as possible, to form a basically self-sustaining system from which people can reap a continual harvest, not only of food, but of interest and self-respect. What a prospect! It is certainly a very different one from what we young people have been taught to expect from life! This volume is much more complete in both the philosophy and the practice than were the original "Permaculture One" and "Permaculture Two." It is also much less focused on the Southern Hemisphere, which is helpful for North Americans trying to visualize their own permaculture. I can only hope that more people happen upon this book as I did and are themselves inspired to create a fulfilling life for themselves and their children.

This is the definitive Permaculture design manual in print since 1988. It is the text book and curriculum for the 72-hour Certificate course in Permaculture Design. Written for teachers, students and designers, it follows on and greatly enlarges on the initial introductory texts, Permaculture One (1978) and Permaculture Two (1979) both of which are still in demand over twenty years after publication. Very little of the material found in this book is reproduced from the former texts. It covers design methodologies and strategies for both urban and rural applications describing property design and natural farming techniques. Topics include:

design methods,

understanding patterns in nature,

climatic factors,

water,

soils,

earthworks and their use in earth repair,

techniques and design strategies for both urban and rural applications,

the temperate climates,

dry lands,

cold climates,

humid cool climates,

humid tropics ,

trees and their energy transactions,

aqua-culture,

waste management,

energy efficient architecture,

legal strategies and trusts,

effective working groups,

right livelihood,

money and finance,

ethical investment.

bio-regional organisation,

effective aid.

Bill Mollison is an ecologist of the first rank. In 1981 he received the Right Livelihood Award--the Alternative Nobel Prize--for his work in environmental design. He and David Holmgren coined the word permaculture; Mollison has devoted his life to teaching the concept. Permaculture is humans working with, not against, nature. It's about causing land, water, plants and animals to synergistically cause multiple benefits and to improve an ecosystem simultaneously. It maximizes functional connections so that the many parts become a whole. To create permaculture design is to make the strongest possible statement of our eco-values, a resounding vote against current agribusiness practices. I have four of Mollison's books--this one has it all plus 129 color photos and a gazillion drawings by Andrew Jeeves. Here is complete knowledge to create your personal permaculture, a place to work and live in harmony with nature, a place that will nuture your body and your soul.

If ecology was the primary intellectual response to the environmental and agricultural crises of the twentieth century, permaculture (or permanent agriculture) was its practical application. Born in the mid-seventies, permaculture co-founder Bill Mollison defines this new field as "the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permaculture there is no possibility of a stable social order." In other words, permaculture is the practical science of sustainability - a whole-systems approach life in the biosphere - and this near-encyclopedic tome covers every aspect of the subject, from soil conditions to climactic factors. The only conceivable drawback of this book is that it is rather difficult to ascertain and won't come cheap. If you enjoy tracking down rare and expensive books, there are none better than Mollison's Permaculture: A Designer's Manual. Large, comprehensive and filled with helpful illustrations and explanations, it is nothing less than the permaculture bible. On the other hand, if you are on a tight budget, and do not wish to spend your time searching for an unworn copy, there are newer and more accessible titles on the subject: like the other permaculture co-founder David Holmgren's Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability, or the concise and slim Earth User's Guide to Permaculture, by Rosemary Morrow. Whatever book you choose, this fascinating subject is perhaps humanity's only hope for a sustainable (read livable) future. Should not be overlooked.

An essential reference.

j.w.k.

Bill Mollison represents the most successful attempt to mainstream practical home-scale sustainable design principles. I found myself needing to do an enormous amount of supplementary research to actually understand what bill was talking about, but to explain them in depth here would have taken away from the thrust of the book - which is mainly to show you example after example (many on every page) at sustainable principles of design put into practice.

The book remains the best book on sustainability written to date. There are some aspects of his system that are lacking that I will briefly draw attention to. Understand that I deeply appreciate his genius, but I want to just mention that these other things need to be integrated into his system to be fully fully sustainable.

1) He doesn't pay enough attention to seed saving and plant breeding. A loss of seed diversity and a re-invigoration of seed savers is essential to truly sustainable self-sufficient design.

See:
Seed to Seed - by Suzanne Ashworth and Kent Whealy
Breed your own Vegetable Varieties - by Carol Deppe

2) He very rarely mentions the role mushrooms and fungi can play in sustainability.

See:
Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World by Paul Stamets

3) He doesn't stress the science behind it enough, which is fine, but leaves you asking sometimes... how do we know this is really ecologically sound? How can I NOT imitate mr. mollison but still create an ecologically sound system? Basically, Mollison's proscriptions are incredibly scientifically informed but not always scientifically explicit.

See:
Plant Ecophysiological Ecology
New Dimensions in Agro-Ecology
Smallholders, Householders: farm families and the ecology of intensive sustainable agriculture - by Rober Netting

4) In relation to the first point, he also doesn't stress the role that evolution plays in sustainability. This is a very complicated problem, see book.

See:
Evolutionary Conservation Biology.

These are not really criticism so much as signs of slight conceptual anal retentiveness on my part... Also please don't forget mollison's OTHER books which are incredible as well, especially the permaculture book of ferment and human nutrition.

Having worked in the field of sustainable foresty and agriculture for the past 9 years, I found the concepts presented in this book to be VERY useful. The book is filled with illistrations and ideas for every climate and situation. I like to think of the book as an idea catolouge from which I can pick and choose.

I must however warn, Bill Mollison is sometimes overly optimistic in his predictions of yeilds. I have friends who have tried some of the suggestions, only to get limited results. For example, the author claims that a family could produce most of it's food needs, with a little supplimental trading, within 6 meters (20ft) of their home. While this may be true for a developing world standard of living, it would be a real strech for an American to do so.

But don't let that discourage you from buying the book, just take the suggestions with a grain of salt.

Essential reading for all farmers, foresters, and landowners!

If Buckminster Fuller was still alive this is the book he would have wrote. And like Bucminster Fullers work this book is an important contirbution to science, not just farming and gardening. This book is also a must have for designers and not just gardeners and farmers. While a close "cousin" of this book on designing settlements, "A Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander is quite often a standard text for students of software design. The chapters in this book that deal with "Concepts and Themes of Design", "Methods of Design" and "Pattern Understanding", give a much better understanding of the basics of good design than any other book that you are likely to ever read. While a "Pattern Language" shows how to create a synergy between man and the archititecture of individual buildings and their collective groupings as villages suburbs and towns.This book shows how to design human settlements that create a synergy between man and nature that is incredible in its scope, and its scalabality from the micro to the macro. If you are designing a house, a farm, or even a city or state this is the most dynamic book on the planet for urban and rural design. This books also contains many metaphors for design and tools for thought (such as decision trees) that are useful for anyone interested in design. This book is a must have if you are a serious farmer or home gardener. If you are interested in infrastructure design whether it be for I.T. infrastructure such as software or hardware design or Economic and Government Infrastructure then this book will give you a competitive advantage over fellow designers of policy. As this book clearly demonstrates noone can beat Mother Nature when it comes to designing systems that maximixe the flow and interaction of energy and information. This book is quite large and is over 570 pages long, if you are not the sort of person who likes to read and absorb a lot of Material then you could find this book a bit daunting. If you are a Farmer or Gardener who just wishes to improve the yield of their crops then you will find "Introduction to Permaculture" by Bill Molllison much more useful. It summarises all the principles of design laid down in "Permaculture A Designers Manual" and its small size and volume (198 pages) is a lot easier to digest. A good companion to these two books is the Video of the Australian Telelvision series "Global Gardener" narrated by the inventor of the concept of Permaculture, Bill Mollison. This video shows examples of the principles of Permaculture Design at work in every climate and situation you are likely to encounter in both the Northern and Southern hemisphere. .....

The information presented in this book is worth a semester of agriculture, chemistry, and geography classes.

I was initially set back when I went looking for a copy of this classic and discovered that there wasn't a recent printing available and all of the ones on the market were over $100 at the time. Still, I wanted to learn about Permaculture and everyone said that this was the place to start.

I am extremely happy with my decision to buck up and fork over my money. This text is the source from which all others on the topic are written and they pale in comparison.

If you are someone who is looking to homestead, or currently doing so, this book will help you plan your own gardens, manage your land as a whole, and be able to assist others in the community.

Lastly, the book is a nice hardcover, the pages are thick for a tome of this size, and the print is nice and dark. The copy in front of me has been well thumbed, tossed around, and shelved on many occassions and is still holding up nicely. Only the corners are dinged up a little.

...and probably one of the most fun to read. I read the first 8 chapters while working on a permaculture site on Isla Ometepe in Nicaragua, and ordered it immediately upon returning home.

Bill Mollison carefully and beautifully lays out the theory and practice of Permaculture (permanent agriculture). Permaculture is a holistic design system that sustainably envisions, creates, and organizes the spaces that we as humans inhabit on this planet. It takes everything that I feel is good for the world-Green architecture, local food, water conservation, renewable energy, organic agriculture, etc.-and wraps them into one cohesive scheme for planning the spaces and manner in which we live.

For more information, check out the Permaculture Research Institute's page at www.permaculture.org.au, especially the quick video "Greening the Desert", which is an excellent introduction.

This is one of those few books that when you've read it you wonder why arent we doing any of these things and why have'nt more people read it! It is a sizable volume, which may be one reason why it not more widely read, and it covers a range of issues such as homesite layout and design (and probably not the one's you're used to... ever consider an underground home?), getting maximum production from your garden in a minimum of space, and other ideas for designing your way of living in harmony with the climate and geography where you live. It does wax philisophical often but to me that was the best part of the book, it is truly and integrated way of considering how to live with your environment and not just simply in it.