What is permaculture, and why is it

important?
This is week 1 of our yearlong #freepermaculture course
Whether this is the first time you’ve heard of permaculture, or you’re sure you already know
what it is, it’s important for us to launch our course with this fundamental inquiry, and
investigate the ways in which we can agree on our basic purpose while still holding space for
a diversity of attitudes and approaches.

In a nutshell:

Permaculture is a strategic, systematic approach to changing our homes, gardens, and

lives so that they regenerate, rather than annihilate, the Earth.

 Permaculture designers transform scarcity into abundance.

 The permaculture process balances human needs with the needs of other species.
 A permaculture design creates systems made up of organisms, mechanisms, and
feedback.

Permaculture is community, human and non-human,

interconnected.
 What is permaculture? Learning about permaculture means empowering ourselves to heal
and regenerate ourselves, our communities and Earth. Some courses are certified and some
aren’t, but this understanding is at the core of all permaculture education. Artwork by KT
Shepherd.

Why Permaculture?
A permaculture design process can help you:

 Heal the planet

 Give back what you take
 Create solutions to problems on any scale
 Manifest your personal potential
 Improve your day-to-day experience of life


Un
leash your inner geek!

Wait, did you come here to learn about gardening?!?

Yes, we will get into that too, but permaculture is and does so much more than create
beautiful, abundant gardens. 

As we go deeper into our studies, over the next 52 weeks, we will learn many ways to work
with plants. But first, let's look at the foundational reasons why plants are so important, by
exploring the ideas that started the permaculture movement, back in the 1970's.

Back in the Day

Permaculture forefathers Bill Mollison and David Holmgren taught from an ethical and
ecological basis that used Birch’s Six Principles of Natural Systems, as follows:

1. Nothing in nature grows forever. There is a constant cycle of decay and rebirth.
2. Continuation of life depends on the maintenance of the global bio-geochemical cycles
of essential elements, in particular carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus.
3. The probability of extinction of populations or a species is greatest when the density is
very high or very low. Both crowding and too few individuals of a species may reach
thresholds of extinction.
4. The chance that a species has to survive and reproduce is dependent primarily upon
one or two key factors in the complex web of relations of the organism to its
environment.
5. Our ability to change the face of the earth increases at a faster rate than our ability to
foresee the consequence of change.
6. Living organisms are not only means but ends. In addition to their instrumental value
to humans and other living organisms, they have an intrinsic worth.

And here is the original list of permaculture principles, as presented by Mollison and
Holmgren:

 Work with nature, rather than against it.

 The problem is the solution. "You don't have a slug problem, you have a duck
deficiency."
 Make the least change for the greatest effect.
 The yield of a system is limited only by the information and imagination of the
designer.
 Everything gardens, and is in relationship to its environment.
 It is not the number of diverse components in a design that leads to stability, it is the
number of beneficial connections between these components.
 All design is ecological design, in that all designs, whether intentional or not, affect
their environment.

Can you see how these ideas could help you to design not only a garden and homestead,
but also a social and emotional landscape that is more resilient, abundant, and safe than
the current (degenerative) systems in which most of us now exist?

To understand better what permaculture is and isn't,

watch this video, excerpted from our certification course:
What is permaculture: the long version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8bYCDrYA7g

The entire first module of our certification course is available here for free. It includes the
content from the above article, plus several more videos, a detailed exploration of
permaculture basics, and a list of essential resources. So, if you haven’t already taken this free
introduction to permaculture class, then jump in! It’s fun!
CHECK IT OUT
Now it's your turn! Hands-on
to think, write, discuss, and dive deep into exploring and experimenting with these ideas in
your daily life. 

Questions to ask Things to t

This week it’s all
 Could you improve your day-to-day quality of life by improving your
relationship with the natural environment? How?  Geek out
 Could you improve your local community by improving its relationship visit Face
with the natural environment? How? magazine
 Can you find areas in your life/home/garden/community where you are  Start to th
working against nature, rather than with it? Make a list. would lik
 How do all of the aspects,elements, and components of your strategies
life/home/garden/community work together in a system? Where can that
system be improved so that it promotes healthy, regenerative (Side note: D
relationships? sadly, pr
incomplete lis

Relevant Links and Resources

 Listen to Maddy Harland, UK permaculture p
Permaculture Magazine (who also happens to
Podcast.
LISTEN

Bill Mollison and David Holmgren explain the core strengths of Here’s an awesome
permaculture. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbxLv9EEzs8

Tending the Wild

This beautiful documentary explores some of the ideas about where permaculture
techniques came from and reminds us how much we can learn from some
indigenous cultures, about caring for nature.

See you next week!

Want to share this yearlong permaculture adventure with your friends and family?
Send them to www.freepermaculture.com
Whole Systems Design: What it is and what
it can do for you
In permaculture we use the terms "whole systems design," and "whole system
design" (no s) interchangeably, to describe the overarching approach we use to
make sense of a project. It is what it sounds like it is: a design that includes your
whole system. Your system, your garden's system, your water supply's system,
your climate's system, your economic and social systems, and so on. 

Permaculture is a design science, and in order to use if effectively, we have to

become systems thinkers, and cultivate a designer's mind. The purpose of today's
class is to open those doors for you.
 In a whole systems design, each component links to the next, in a closed-loop
system, meeting needs with resources. Artwork by KT Shepherd

Whole Systems Design, defined

By now you understand that permaculture is so much more than gardening. It’s true
that gardening is usually the thing that brings most people to permaculture, but if
we make it just about gardening we're missing an opportunity to create a thriving
natural system that we can really be a part of.

You can have an organic garden, a composting toilet, a Hugelkultur, a heap of solar
panels, and a goat, and it still won’t be reaching its potential as “permaculture”
until those components come into relationship with each other, as a whole system.

Here's a mini-lecture:
Close your eyes and imagine your own "whole system." It's easy to let it
overwhelm you, to get lost in huge fantasies of what you will do...one day when
you win the lottery and buy a huge farm. Don't do that. Be here now, Sister bear!
Part of what makes permaculture so special is that it provides us with a tangible
framework around which to plan and implement whole systems designs in real life,
on any scale.  

How do we do this, you ask?

 Patterns, Principles, Process, Place
On your permaculture journey you will encounter a multitude of
complex ideas and expandable, exponentially powerful concepts.
This can be a joyful ride, even when it's overwhelming and
confusing! However, if you're anything like me, you enjoy a bit of
structure now and then. 

A permaculture whole systems design can be simplified into four

basic parts:

Patterns. 
We use patterns in nature to guide us. We mimic them, we obey
them, and we work with, rather than against them. We develop our
multi-phase plans based on patterns in our lives, and we design our
gardens based on patterns in our soil, climate, and water cycles. 

Principles. 
Observing and adhering to natural patterns is one of the core principles of
permaculture, and there are several more, which we will learn about in the next few
weeks. Whenever we are stuck on a decision, struggling with how to prioritise
different aspects of a project, or dealing with interpersonal conflict, we rely on our
principles to guide us. 

Process. 
To provide a tangible structure to all of these visions and bold ideas, we need a
specific, measurable, actionable result-driven, and timebound process. That's where
GOBRADIME comes in.  I use GOBRADIME in all of my permaculture work. 

Place.
We're all connected to a place, and some of us are connected to several. No matter
what your goals are, you still have to sleep, eat, get warm, make friends. In its most
basic essense, every design comes back to place, and placement.

I wrote about GOBRADIME in my book, Food Not Lawns, which you now can
read for free! Here’s the direct link to the chapter that discusses GOBRADIME. Or,
if you want the quick-and-updated version, go here.

Permaculture practitioners also use other processes besides GOBRADIME, such as

Looby MacNamara's design web. But since GOBRADIME is my jam, that's what
we will use in this course. 

You can download a PDF of this chart, here.

 Hands On
Ready to put these ideas into action?!?

Paradise Design Game

Step 1: Make a list of every component you think you might want to include in
your whole systems design. Vegetable garden? Orchards? Food forest? Solar hot
water? Wind power? Workshop? Animals? Whatever you want, make a list (or, use
index cards if you want to spread out!)

Step 2: For each item on your list, note which of the other components this item
could somehow connect to. Does your shower connect to your garden? How so?
Does your kitchen connect to your chicken coop? Where? And so on.

Step 3: Then, play with drawing it out. Don't worry about drawing maps to scale or
getting all the details! Think of it more like a game, and make a drawing of your
silly ultimate fantasy whole system design. 

More stuff to do

 Learn about GOBRADIME and see if you can use it for a

tiny design project like, say, reorganizing a project. Work
through each of the steps and imagine how you could use
the same process for your whole system design.

 Practice "systems thinking." What does that mean to you?

Write about it, talk about it, try to embody it as you move
through your day. 
 Come join us in our Facebook group and/or our independent #freepermaculture
forum.

Relevant Links and Resources

Again, all we can do is scratch the surface of this topic for you...but hopefully
you’re inspired to go deeper on your own. Here are some resources to get you
started:
Don't miss this great article about How to Think Like an Ecosystem.
Here’s a super-useful video from the Autodesk Sustainability Workshop, who also
happen to make an excellent free app that you can use for all of your design
artwork.
Clarification and Review
If you’re still unsure exactly what permaculture and whole system
design are, and you haven’t taken advantage of the free intro
module from our permaculture course, head over there now and
check it out. Even if you've already seen that content, take a
moment this week to review it all. 

Things to keep in mind:

 Permaculture is, at its core, a design science, heavily

focused on placement as a vector for environmental
regeneration.
 Permaculture, like any new skillset, cannot be learned in a
day or a week, or even once a week for a couple of hours.
You can learn a TON of amazing stuff that will have
profound influence on your day to day quality of life, but if
you want to master the art of this powerful toolkit, you have
to put in your 10,000 hours. 
 Permaculture is not the one true path. It's the vehicle, not
the destination. 
Permaculture Ethics: Care for the Earth,
Care for the People and careful
consideration of the needs of others...
This is week 3 of our yearlong #freepermaculture course

You can see more illustrations by Katie Shepherd at ktshepherdpermaculture.com

One of the first things you will always learn about in

permaculture is the ethics:
 care for the Earth, because she is what sustains us;
 care for the People, because we ARE people, and because people who aren’t
cared for tend to mess up the Earth;
 and the third ethic, which has been interpreted a variety of ways but, for the
purpose of this class, I am summarizing as “careful consideration of the
needs of others,” meaning other of ALL species, not just our own. (For a
 thorough explanation of the permaculture ethics, and the “Heather Jo
Flores assertion” about what the third ethic should be, read this article.)

However, though we learn and teach about the “permaculture ethics” in every class, course, and
workshop, we too often discuss these ethics as if they are apart from ourselves, and herein lies the
rub: if we are not willing to strictly adhere to these ethics ourselves, and to make a commitment, as
permaculture designers at whatever level of expertise, to BE the change, rather than just preaching
about it, then we’re wasting our time.

And so, for today’s class, we’re asking you to say it out loud, wherever you are right now: I promise
to try, every day, to study, honor, and exemplify ALL THREE ethics in my permaculture
practice.
Ok yes that feels great...but HOW?

Through your relationship with the land. 

Permaculture is: patterns-process-principles-PLACE.

Access to land, gaining it, sharing it, maintaining it, and respecting it are the core
ingredients that make permaculture possible. Even if you’re absolutely focused on
Social Permaculture, you’re still sleeping somewhere, eating somewhere and,
whether you acknowledge it or not, deeply connected to the solid ground on which
you conduct your day-to-day existence.

If you can’t find a space to practice your permaculture ideas, you’re not gonna get
very far. Yes, of course you can grow pots on your patio and catch graywater from
a bucket under the bathroom sink to water them...but that’s not really permaculture,
and it would be remiss to pretend like it is. You can practice permaculture in the
city, and you can do it if you don’t own property. But if you don't have access to
land, on some level, then you have to get out there and find it.
 By the same token, if you DO own property, and your plans are to
create a permaculture design there: unless you create space within
your project to include and support those less fortunate than you,
then you’re neglecting the third ethic, and probably the first two as
well. Caring for the Earth, caring for the people, and considering the
needs of others will always require us to reach far beyond our own
property and family’s needs.
Bottom line:

If you have it, share it. If you don’t have it, share something else.

Urban Permaculture: access to land in the city

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TMAUnrioZc
Becky Ellis, who teaches the Urban Permaculture module in our certificate
course, offers a ton of amazing resources, including her Permaculture for the
People podcast. Here, she discusses ways to find space in the city.
A note to landowners:

If you happen to have access to land, consider opening up a section for nearby
urban dwellers to come and grow food. Or, if that’s too much for you, perhaps host
local school tours?

A case study:
In Eugene, Oregon, there’s a 33-acre organic farm called River’s Turn, and for the
last 40 years, farmer John Sundquist has hosted school buses from all over the
county for annual farm tours. The kids come in hordes and follow John around the
farm, where he talks about growing food, taking care of animals, managing the
water, and so much more. As such, now there are hundreds, if not thousands, of
grown adults all over the Eugene area who went to River’s Turn farm every single
year of their elementary education, and now their kids are going too! It’s truly
extraordinary how that one farmer was able to influence how so many kids think
about food, plants, land, and life...simply by opening his doors to the school buses a
few days a year.

Big picture, little picture....

Now, there’s a HUGE discussion about privilege, capitalism, and colonization, that
we could get into here, and one could posit that controlling a population’s access to
land (and water) has been the primary tool of murderous regimes, for millennia. If
you want to discuss these topics, you are absolutely welcome to pose them in our
group. We just ask that you stay calm, present, and open to the inevitably
challenging conversations that will happen. Ultimately, if our movement is to gain
lasting power, we will need to have these hard conversations, and more.

However, for today, focus on your own plans for a permaculture design that works,
for you. Come and join the discussion, share your thoughts on the big picture...but
don’t get so distracted by it that you neglect the hands-on practicality of applying
these ideas to your life, right now.

Questions to ask
 What’s your own version of the third ethic? How can you define it, in a way that you can
commit to, for your daily life?
 If you have access to land, what are some ways you can share it? Make a list of at least ten
ideas that would feel comfortable for you...and don’t be afraid to stretch that comfort
zone! Growth is good!
 If you don’t have access to land, make a list of other types of resources you could
exchange, to gain access. Time, labor, ideas, artwork, organizing...be as specific as
possible; really articulate what you would be willing to offer as a mutual exchange. After
brainstorming about it, try writing up a few paragraphs you could include in an email,
asking a local landowner about gaining access through them. 

Relevant Links and Resources

So much great stuff on this topic! 
 Why My Farm isn't a Permaculture Farm

If you live in the country now, or if you dream of buyi

read this insightful piece from Marit Parker, who teach
PDC. Want her for your dedicated faculty mentor? Gr
box on the orientation form, after you enroll.

Gaining Ground
Excerpted from Food Not Lawns, How to Turn Your Yard into a
Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community, here’s a
quick-n-dirty rundown of 8 ways for non-owners to find land on
which to grow food.

M
A provocative, creativ
Permaculture Principles: an overview and
compilation
This is week 4 of our yearlong #freepermaculture course

Neighbors using the permaculture principle “Use Edge and Value the Marginal” as guidance
for their backyard keyhole garden design. Artwork by KT Shepherd

The 4 P's of Permaculture

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCzHIqljQ-Y
Here's another layer of introduction, to help you wrap your mind around how permaculture
can be understood through a four-part approach, and to explain how the GOBRADIME
design process can connect to the core ideas behind the permaculture principles. 

(note: I made this video for the public, so pardon the introduction, if we're already
acquainted!)

Permaculture Principles and related lists for ecological

designers and Earth activists: a literary chronology
Many of the principles you will read in the permaculture milieu will
sound familiar. Some are proverbs that go back as far as anyone can
remember--truths of life that indigenous people used and shared.
Others are based on newer explorations of ecology, psychology, and
regenerative agriculture, and are representations of a more millennial
thought process; one that we will need to continue to cultivate if we
are to survive as a species. 
As you read, each principle, consider it not in terms of whether you
agree with or approve of what it says, but more so: imagine how each
principle might be used to improve the beauty, efficiency, and/or
ecological integrity of your home, garden, or community. And while,
yes, you are welcome and encouraged to think critically and present
debates and opinions, try to remember that you don't know what you
don't know, and that nature has more to teach us than we could ever
learn in a lifetime.

Download the following timeline as a PDF

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962)

The Environmental Ethic:

1. Live in harmony with nature;
2. Preserve and learn from the natural places of the world;
3. Minimize the impact of man-made chemicals on natural systems;
4.Consider the implications of all human actions on the global web of life.

Charles Birch and John Cobb, The Liberation of Life: From the Cell to the
Community (1984)

Six Principles of Natural Systems

1. Nothing in nature grows forever. There is a constant cycle of decay and rebirth.
2. Continuation of life depends on the maintenance of the global biogeochemical cycles of
essential elements, in particular carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus.
3. The probability of extinction of populations or a species is greatest when the density is very
high or very low. Both crowding and too few Individuals of a species may reach thresholds of
extinction.
4. The chance that a species has to survive and reproduce is dependent primarily upon one or
two key factors in the complex web of relations of the organism to its environment.
5. Our ability to change the face of the earth increases at a faster rate than our ability to
foresee the consequence of change.
6. Living organisms are not only means but ends. In addition to their instrumental value to
humans and other living organisms, they have an intrinsic worth.

Bill Mollison, Permaculture: a Designer’s Manual (1985)

The Prime Directive of Permaculture: the only ethical decision is to take responsibility for
our own existence and that of our children’s.

Principle of Cooperation: cooperation, not competition, is the very basis of future survival

and of existing life systems.

The Ethical Basis of Permaculture:

 CARE OF THE EARTH: Provision for all life systems to continue and increase.
 CARE OF PEOPLE: Provision for people to access those resources necessary to their
existence.
 SETTING OUR OWN LIMITS TO POPULATION AND CONSUMPTION: By
governing our own needs, we can set resources aside to further the above principles.

Rules of Use of Natural Resources:

 Reduce waste, hence pollution;

 Thoroughly replace lost minerals;
 Do a careful energy accounting; and
 Make a biosocial impact assessment for long term effects on society, and act to buffer
or eliminate any negative impacts.

Life Intervention Principle: In chaos lies unparalleled opportunity for imposing creative
order.

Law of Return: Whatever we take, we must return, or Nature demands a return for every gift
received, or The user must pay.

Directive of Return: Every object must responsibly provide for its replacement. Society
must, as a conditions of use, replace an equal or greater resource than that used.

A Policy of Responsibility (to relinquish power):

The role of beneficial  authority is to return  function and responsibility to life and to people;
if successful, no further authority is needed. The role of  successful design is to create a self-
managed system.

Categories of Resources:

 Those which increase by modest use.

 Those unaffected  by use.
 Those which disappear or degrade if not used.
 Those reduced by use.
 Those which pollute or destroy other resources if used.

Policy of Resource Management:

A responsible human society bans the use of resources which permanently reduce yields of
sustainable resources, e.g. pollutants, persistent poisons, radioactives, large areas of concrete
and highways, sewers from city to sea.

Principle of Disorder:
Order and harmony produce energy for other uses. Disorder consumes energy to no useful
end. Neatness, tidiness, uniformity, and straightness signify an energy-maintained disorder in
natural systems.

Law of Entropy (Asimov): The total energy of the universe is constant and the total entropy
is increasing.

The Basic Law of Thermodynamics (Watt): Energy can be transferred from one form to
another, but it cannot disappear, or be destroyed, or created. No energy conversion system is
ever completely efficient.

Principle of Cyclic Opportunity: Every cyclic event increases the opportunity  for yield. To
increase cycling is to increase yield. Cycles in nature are diversion routes away from entropic
ends-life itself cycles nutrients-giving opportunities for yield, and thus opportunities for
species to occupy time niches.

Types of Niches:

 Niche in space, or “territory” (nest and forage sites).

 Niche in time (cycles of opportunity).
 Niche in space-time (schedules)

Principle of Stress and Harmony: Stress may be defined as either prevention of natural

function, or of forced function; and (conversely) harmony as the permission of chosen and
natural functions and the supply of essential needs.

Principle of Stability: It is not the number of diverse things in a design that leads to stability,
it is the number of beneficial connections between these components.

Set of Ethics on Natural Systems:

  Implacable and uncompromising opposition to further disturbance of any remaining
natural forests;
 Vigorous rehabilitation of degraded and damaged natural systems to a stable state;
 Establishment of plant systems for our own use on the least amount of land we can use
for our existence; and
 Establishment of plant and animal refuges for rare or threatened species.

Information as a Resource: Information is the critical potential resource. It becomes a

resource only when obtained and acted upon.

Practical Design Considerations:

 The systems we construct should last as long as possible, and take least maintenance.
 These systems, fuelled by the sun, should produce not only their own needs, but the
needs of the people creating or controlling them. Thus, they are sustainable, as they
sustain both themselves and those who construct them.
 We can use energy to construct these systems, providing that in their lifetime, they
store or conserve more energy than we use to construct them or to maintain them.

Definition of System Yield:

System yield is the sum total of surplus energy produced by, stored, conserved, reused, or
converted by the design. Energy is in surplus once the system itself has available all its needs
for growth, reproduction, and maintenance.

The Role of Life in Yield:

Living things, including people, are the only effective intervening systems to capture
resources on this planet, and to produce a yield. Thus, it is the sum and capacity of life forms
which decide total system yield and surplus.

Limits to Yield:
Yield is not a fixed sum in any design system. It is the measure of the comprehension,
understanding, and ability of the designers and managers of that design.

Undistributed Surplus is Pollution:

Any system or organism can accept only that quantity of a resource which can be  used
productively. Any resource input beyond that point throws the system or organism into
disorder; oversupply of a resource is a form of chronic pollution.
Bill Mollison and Remy Slay, Introduction to Permaculture (1991) The images/interpretatio
Rumson, who teaches the
Principles of Permaculture course.  Check out her ar
flashcards,  here.
 Work with nature, rather than against the natural elements, forces,
pressures, processes, agencies, and evolutions, so that we assist rather
than impede natural developments.
 The problem is the solution; everything works both ways. It is only
how we see things that makes them advantageous or not (if the wind
blows cold, let us use both its strength and its coolness to advantage).
  Make the least change for the greatest possible effect.
 Everything gardens, or has an effect on its environment.
 The Yield of a System is Theoretically Unlimited: the only limit is
the knowledge, information, imagination, and creativity of the
designer.
 Relative Location: Elements in a system are viewed, not in isolation,
but for the multitude of functional interconnections that they can have
with the other elements of the design to enhance harmony.
 Each Element Performs Many Functions: By stacking functions, the
designer has the forethought against the failure of one or more
elements.
 Each Function is Supported by Many Elements: Maximizing
beneficial connections between elements creates stability.
 Energy Efficient Planning: Through thoughtful design, we can make
the most from the least. (zone planning, sector planning, slope)
 Use Biological Resources: By including a plant or animal in our
design, we can increase our opportunities to save energy and increase
yield.
 Energy Cycling: Each cyclical opportunity in the system increases the
opportunity for yield.
 Small-Scale Intensive Systems: It’s all about scale. Smaller systems
are easier to respond to.
 Accelerating Succession & Evolution: Natural ecosystems develop
and change over time. By observing these systems, we can design for
effective restoration and productivity.
 Diversity: Functional relationships between elements creates stability
and design opportunities.

Robyn Francis, Permaculture Design Course Handbook  (1991)

1. Everything works both ways – see the duality in things; positive &
negative
2. Everything works in many ways - diversity of functions, yields,
relationships
3. See solutions not problems – look for opportunities / re-adjust
relationships
4. To co-operate and not compete – this applies to natural and human
systems and relationships between different elements
5. To make things pay - i.e. everything contributes to something else -
“there’s no such thing as a free lunch”
6. To work where it counts - minimum input for maximum benefit
7. To use everything to its highest capacity
8. To bring food production back to the cities
9. To help make people self-reliant - individuals & communities
10. To minimise maintenance and energy input while maximising yield
Rosemary Morrow, Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture (1993)

Attitudinal Principles

 Work with Nature, Not Against It

 Value Edges and Marginal and Small
 See Solutions Inherent in Problems
 Produce No Waste
 Value People and their Skills and Work
 Respect for all Life
 Use Public Transport and Renewable Fuels
 Calculate Food Miles
 Reduce Your Ecological Footprint

Design Principles

 Preserve, Regenerate, and Extend all Natural and Traditional

Permanent Landscapes
 Water: Conserve and Increase all Sources and Supplies of Water, and
Maintain and Ensure Water Purity
 Energy: Catch and Store Energy by All Non-polluting and Renewable
 Means
 Biodiversity: Preserve and Increase Biodiversity of all Types

Strategic Principles

 Focus on Long-term Sustainability

 Cooperate, don’t compete
 Design from Patterns to Details
 Start Small and Learn From Change
 Make the Least Change For the Largest Result
 Make a Priority of Renewable Resources and Services
 Bring Food Production Back to the Cities

Sim Van Der Rym and Stuart Cowen, Ecological Design (1997)

 Solutions grow from place

 Ecological Accounting informs design
 Design with Nature
 Everyone is a Designer
 Make Nature Visible

Toby Hemenway, Gaia’s Garden, (2000)

          Core Principles for Ecological Design

1. Observe. Use protracted and thoughtful observation rather than

prolonged and thoughtless action. Observe the site and its elements in
all seasons. Design for specific sites, clients, and cultures.
2. Connect. Use relative location, that is, place the elements of your
design in ways that create useful relationships and time-saving
connections among all parts. The number of connections among
elements creates a healthy, diverse ecosystem, not the number of
elements.
3. Catch and store energy and materials. Identify, collect, and hold
useful flows. Every cycle is an opportunity for yield, every gradient
(in slope, charge, temperature, and the like) can produce energy.
Reinvesting resources builds capacity to capture yet more resources.
4. Each element performs multiple functions. Choose and place each
element in a design to perform as many functions as possible.
Beneficial connections between diverse components create a stable
whole. Stack elements in both space and time.
5. Each function is supported by multiple elements. Use multiple
methods to achieve important functions and to create synergies.
Redundancy protects when one or more elements fail.
6. Make the least change for the greatest effect. Understand the system
 you are working with well enough to find its “leverage points” and
intervene there, where the least work accomplishes the most change.
7. Use small-scale, intensive systems. Start at your doorstep with the
smallest systems that will do the job and build on your successes.
8. Optimize edge. The edge—the intersection of two environments—is
the most diverse place in a system and is where energy and materials
accumulate or are translated. Increase or decrease edge as appropriate.
9. Collaborate with succession. Living systems usually advance from
immaturity to maturity, and if we accept this trend and align our
designs with it instead of fighting it, we save work and energy.
Mature ecosystems are more diverse and productive than young ones.
10. Use biological and renewable resources. Renewable resources
(usually living beings and their products) reproduce and build up over
time, store energy, assist yield, and interact with other elements.
Favor these over nonrenewable resources.

Principles Based on Attitudes

11. Turn problems into solutions. Constraints can inspire creative design,
and most problems usually carry not just the seeds of their own
solution within them but also the inspiration for simultaneously
solving other problems.
12. Get a yield. Design for both immediate and long-term returns from
your efforts: “You can’t work on an empty stomach.” Set up positive
feedback loops to build the system and repay your investment.
13. The biggest limit to abundance is creativity. The designer’s
imagination and skill usually limit productivity and diversity before
any physical limits are reached.
14. Mistakes are tools for learning. Evaluate your trials. Making mistakes
is a sign you’re trying to do things better. There is usually little
penalty for mistakes if you learn from them.

David Holmgren, Permaculture Principles and Pathways Beyond

Sustainability (2002)

1. Observe and Interact: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”

2. Catch and Store Energy: “Make hay while the sun shines”
3. Obtain a Yield: “You can’t work on an empty stomach”
4. Apply Self-Regulation and Accept Feedback: “The sins of the fathers
are visited on the children unto the seventh generation”
5. Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services: “Let nature take
its course”
6. Produce No Waste: “A stitch in time, saves nine”
7. Design from Patterns to Details: “Can’t see the wood for the trees”
8. Integrate Rather Than Segregate: “Many hands make light work”
9. Use Small and Slow Solutions: “The bigger they are, the harder they
fall,” “Slow and steady wins the race”
10. Use and Value Diversity: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”
11. Use Edges and Value the Marginal: “Don’t think you are on the right
 track, just because it is a well-beaten path”
12. Creatively Use and Respond to Change: “Vision is not seeing things
as they are, but as they will be”

Heather Jo Flores, Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a

Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community (2006)

 Look Deep
 Emphasize Diversity on All Scales
 Recognize and Respond to Natural Patterns
 Be Specific
 Put Everyone to Work
 Prohibit Waste
 Use It, Move It or Lose It
 Replace Consumption with Creativity
 Let Autonomy Reign
 Keep Your Chin Up
 Cyclic Considerations: waste, water, soil, seeds, cosmos, society,
wilderness, self, and chaos.

Starhawk, Common Sense Permaculture Principles (2011)

 Everything is connected.
 Nature Moves in Circles.
 Energy is abundant but not unlimited.
 Do more with less.
 Resilience is true security.
 Build from the ground up.
 Take responsibility: feed what you want to grow.  
 Get some!  Obtain a yield.
 Creativity is an unlimited resource.

Go forth and find some examples!

Principles Treasure Hunt
 Walk around your neighborhood and look for examples of any of
the permaculture principles in action.  
 Take pictures and make notes about what you find.
 If you don’t understand one or more of the principles, write out some
questions and post them in our discussion group.
 Next, using a free tool like Canva, SnapSeed, or just crayons and paper,
make flashcards of your favorite principles.
  Then, look for places where you might be able to put these ideas into action
to improve the flow, efficiency, and ecological integrity of your site.

Patterns in Nature and Biomimicry

This is week 5 of our yearlong #freepermaculture course 

An herb spiral garden uses the positive aspects of spiral shapes found in nature, to create a
resilient design of abundance. Artwork by KT Shepherd

All that is and ever was...

All things that exist are made of the same basic patterns, and we can use those patterns to
understand, interact with, and mimic nature, so that our homes, gardens, and lifestyles are
more sustainable.

The goal of today’s class is to become acquainted with the core set of patterns that make up
all matter, on every scale of the known universe, and to explore ways we can
mimic,understand, and adapt to those patterns on every scale of our permaculture design
project.
Making use of available resources...
There are so many wonderful videos about this topic online already, so rather than make
something repetitive, we’ve picked a few of our favorites to share.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGKLZ3NO9Qk

In this sweet, simple overview, Amy Lamb shows the common recurring patterns in
nature that make up all things.
Alan Turing was less famous than Einstein or Tesla but his study of patterns changed
the way humans see, study, and interact with nature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1hX_nzTlgU

Biomimicry
In a permaculture context, we study biomimicry to help understand how we can apply natural
patterns to our whole systems design. Here’s an excellent short article to introduce the
concept of biomimicry.
 Here’s a fun animation about biomimicry, from the folks at Sustainability Illustrated

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHb_XNgIHFY
Hands-On

Part one: another treasure hunt!

This time, we're hunting for patterns in nature!

Go out for a walk in nature and see how many of these patterns you can find.

Take pictures and create your own collage, then share it!

Part two: personal patterns

Spend a week keeping track of your daily habits. 

 What do you eat? 

 Where do you go?
 Who do you see?
 What do you buy?
 What do you waste?
 What do you create?
 Are you taking more than you give, from an ecological standpoint?
 Can you strike a better balance? How?
 Relevant Links and Resources

The late, great Toby Hemenway, author of Gaia’s Garden, a Guide to Home-scale
Permaculture, often discussed how patterns in nature can be applied to every aspect
of our lives. Read an article and watch Toby here.
Two articles by illustrator, permaculture teacher, and disability advocate, Kt Shepherd:
Earth Based Spirituality & Permaculture — The 5 Elements as a Design Tool: Using Earth, Fire, Air,
Water and Spirit to as a tool to design my journey
Bringing Nature Inside: ideas for improving access to nature connection if you, or someone you are close
to, has an illness or disability meaning they find it difficult to be outdoors.
Goals: getting started with your
permaculture design project
This is week 6 of our yearlong #freepermaculture course 

“The problem is the solution.” This designer is helping to transform neglected and
vandalized waste land into a vertical public garden, producing food and beneficial
connections for anyone within the community. Artwork by KT Shepherd

The G in GOBRADIME: Goals!

So far in our course, we’ve covered what permaculture is and where it came from, and
explored the lexicon of ethics and principles that inform our work. We’ve gotten acquainted
with the 4 P’s of Permaculture, and next week we will start reading the land.

Today our focus is on you, the designer, and on setting clear, actionable goals for your
permaculture design project.

Setting goals is super important, but sometimes this task is easier said than done!

Here are some tools to help you:

Tool #1: The Stakeholder Interview

Working through a set of questions and receiving feedback from stakeholders in your project
will help you clarify your own goals as well as develop an idea of what you can realistically
hope to achieve with the project.

Check out this article about interviewing stakeholders, and use the sample below to create
your own, then conduct interviews of yourself and the other people who will be involved in
your project.

 Sample Interview Questionnaire by Jennifer Albanese (also featured in video below)

Image from this excellent article

Tool #2: SMARTER Goals

When we start out as permaculture designers, there is a natural urge to rush it. Draw a map,
scribble out some interconnected ideas, and start digging!

But….don’t.

Make time to get your goals and priorities crystal clear. Inhale. Study. Refine. Revel. And
create a set of SMARTER goals. 

SMARTER stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound, Ecological,

and Rewarding. SMARTER goals are an important strategy for taking your goals and
translating them into a plan.
You can think about one year, three year, six year and even ten year goals. Think about food
production, animals, infrastructure, water, energy use, soil/fertility, atmosphere, and if is is a
business venture, growth and sales. These objectives are flexible and can change over time
and might even change as you go further into the design process and discover new data and
possibilities.

In this video, excerpted from our certification course, faculty member Jennifer Albanese
discusses turning big lofty goals into tangible objectives, by making them SMART  (note we
have not updated to include those two extra, most crucial parts.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC_0MvkppcU
(if you want Jennifer for your dedicated faculty mentor in the PDC, just check her name on
your orientation form and she will personally help you create your design.)

As you refine your goals, you’ll need to refer back to your ethical commitments, and consider
the biological, socioeconomic, and personal/emotional costs and benefits, should these goals
be accomplished.

This brings us to tool #3:

Tool #3: Attitudinal Principles

In order to create a permaculture design, we have to become permaculture designers, and that
means changing the way we view and interact with the world around us, starting with our attitude.
It’s not the only factor to consider; but it’s the easiest one to change.

You’ll see the term, “attitudinal principles” in a lot of the permaculture literature, but it’s a bit of a
misnomer; it’s not so much that there are clear lines between biological principles, socioeconomic
principles, and attitudinal principles, but more so that all of these layers exist in all of the
principles.

Imagine a seed, sprouting into a tiny baby plant. Think of the metamorphosis of your goals, into
the planned set of actions (aka your permaculture design project), which transforms your goals
into tangible, edible reality. Every action you take has biological, socioeconomic, and emotional
impacts and factors to consider.
What happens if you consider each of your goals in life, through this lens? It ends up looking
a lot like those permaculture ethics, yes? Biological factors connect to Earth care;
socioeconomic factors connect to people care, and emotional factors connect to how adeptly
we can share fairly and care for the future.

So, while there are several “permaculture” principles, including but in no way limited to the
list below, that are commonly referred to as “attitudinal,” keep in mind the above mentioned
factors and see how many ways you can apply ALL the principles towards cultivating the
sharpest, most adept designer’s mind you can muster!

Here's a list of five of the most common “attitudinal principles” in the permaculture lexicon.
Without further explanation, how would you interpret these? Can you see how they could help
you shift your attitude, and perhaps open up new possibilities in your design?
 

 Make the least change for the greatest effect.

 The designer limits the yield. 
  Information is a resource.
 The problem is the solution.
 Mistakes are tools for learning.

Hands-On
 Conduct “client” interviews with yourself and the other stakeholders in your project. Use one
of the samples included in today's class, or create your own.
 Create at least three SMARTER goals for your permaculture design project.
 Spend a few minutes journaling about each of the five “attitudinal principles” listed above,
and then go back through your SMARTER goals and client interview questionnaire. What
changed? How does shifting your attitude shift your goals? Do they seem more possible? Are
you able to use “attitudinal principles” to help mak
 e your goals SMARTER?

Relevant Links and Resources

If you’re interested in how to apply permaculture theory to the design of a healthy, happy If you’r
emotional life, check out Heather Jo Flores’ free (donations accepted, as always) 3- should
day Emotional Permaculture workshop. for sur
abou
Observation & Local Ecosystems
This is week 7 of our yearlong #freepermaculture course ,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8giuubO7_d8

Understanding your local ecosystem

Observations are always better applied when we have at least a rudimentary
understanding of what you’re looking at! And when we’re designing our
permaculture paradise, it is essential that we learn about our local ecosystem.
In our PDC, we have a large module devoted to learning about local ecosystems, and it still
isn’t enough. However, since this course is supposed to be bite-sized, and also since we have
students from all around the world, the best thing for us to do here is to show you how to
learn about your own local ecosystem.

What is an ecosystem?
If this is a new concept to you, or even if you think you know what ecosystems are, take a
minute to read the Wikipedia article  on the topic--it’s actually a solid overview, and will set
the stage for the rest of today’s class.

Here’s a lovely introduction, from the Khan Academy, to how energy flows and matters are
cycled through ecosystems.

food web
Teaching Yourself About Permaculture
Rosemary Morrow’s book, Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture, is an essential for
every permaculture bookshelf. But also, even if you don’t feel prepared to teach
permaculture yet, her Earth User’s Guide to Teaching Permaculture is a powerful
tool for learning, either alone or in a peer group. If you’ve got a book budget, get
yourself a copy of each of these texts, asap. And for now, use this excerpt to teach
yourself (and the stakeholders in your design) about local ecosystems.

Observation
If you did the homework assignment at the end of the PDC Free Intro Module, you spent time
observing a tree near your house, and looking for all of the relationships that tree has with its
surroundings.
This sort of exercise is something you can use, again and again, on every layer of your design.
Indeed, observation, while presented as the second step in our GOBRADIME design process, is truly
the first step in every action you will ever take as a designer. Look before you leap, right? Yes,
always.

Don’t just observe with your eyes!

 Use all of your senses, including your intuition.

 Use your knowledge, of the place, of the patterns, of the people.
  Use your empathy, and imagine what everything you’re observing
looks/feels/smells/tastes/sounds like, for creatures other than yourself.
 And, use your emotions, but not too much! Notice your preferences and aversions, your
triggers and delights, but don’t allow them to influence your observations to the point of
corrupting them. This is no small challenge, but...try.

This beautifully-written piece by Benjamin Weiss takes a naturalist’s approach to

observation, within a permaculture context, and will give you lots of different
things to “look” for.

Over the next several weeks, set aside a few minutes each day to cultivate your
observation skills. If you have a site for your permaculture project, spend time
observing every nook and cranny, making notes and taking notice of where systems
connect, intersect, and collide. If you don’t have a site, spend time observing your
neighborhood, exploring your larger community, and looking for options and
opportunities you hadn’t noticed.

Observing a willow tree using sight, taste, smell, hearing, touch, conscious mind
and subconscious mind. Artwork by KT Shepherd

Finding a Local Mentor

The very best way to become adept at making designs that work ideally in your
local ecosystem is to find a local mentor who can guide you toward the specific
resources you need.

Do you have a local agricultural extension service? That’s a great place to start.
Master Gardener program? Good too. Local permaculture people with long-term
sites in their care? Elderly organic farmers, well-educated policy makers, and/or
deeply committed stewards and scientists? Ideal. Find the people in your
community who are learning, doing, and embodying this work, and connect with
them. Help them with their projects. Be generous. And listen.
Hands-On

Use your observation skills to learn about your local ecosystem.

Go out for a walk, go the library, connect with local elders and mentors, and gather
as much information as you can.

Questions to start with:

 What animals, birds, plants, and insects do you have locally?

 Where does the water come from, and where does it go?
 What plants are easy to grow in your local ecosystem, and which would be
more difficult?
 Who are the primary, secondary, and tertiary consumers?
 What are the biggest threats to your local ecosystem, and can you see ways
to help mediate them?
 Where are you, in your ecosystem, and how do your actions impact the
ecosystem in which you live?

Whole Systems Design: What it is and what

it can do for you
In permaculture we use the terms "whole systems design," and "whole system
design" (no s) interchangeably, to describe the overarching approach we use to
make sense of a project. It is what it sounds like it is: a design that includes your
whole system. Your system, your garden's system, your water supply's system,
your climate's system, your economic and social systems, and so on. 

Permaculture is a design science, and in order to use if effectively, we have to

become systems thinkers, and cultivate a designer's mind. The purpose of today's
class is to open those doors for you.
 In a whole systems design, each component links to the next, in a closed-loop
system, meeting needs with resources. Artwork by KT Shepherd

Whole Systems Design, defined

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-tdr0pPfRA
By now you understand that permaculture is so much more than gardening. It’s true
that gardening is usually the thing that brings most people to permaculture, but if
we make it just about gardening we're missing an opportunity to create a thriving
natural system that we can really be a part of.

You can have an organic garden, a composting toilet, a Hugelkultur, a heap of solar
panels, and a goat, and it still won’t be reaching its potential as “permaculture”
until those components come into relationship with each other, as a whole system.

Here's a mini-lecture:
Close your eyes and imagine your own "whole system." It's easy to let it
overwhelm you, to get lost in huge fantasies of what you will do...one day when
you win the lottery and buy a huge farm. Don't do that. Be here now, Sister bear!
Part of what makes permaculture so special is that it provides us with a tangible
framework around which to plan and implement whole systems designs in real life,
on any scale.  
How do we do this, you ask?

Patterns, Principles, Process, Place

On your permaculture journey you will encounter a multitude of complex ideas and expandable,
exponentially powerful concepts. This can be a joyful ride, even when it's overwhelming and
confusing! However, if you're anything like me, you enjoy a bit of structure now and then. 

A permaculture whole systems design can be simplified into four basic parts:

Patterns. 
We use patterns in nature to guide us. We mimic them, we obey them, and we work with, rather than
against them. We develop our multi-phase plans based on patterns in our lives, and we design our
gardens based on patterns in our soil, climate, and water

cycles. 
Principles. 
Observing and adhering to natural patterns is one of the core principles of
permaculture, and there are several more, which we will learn about in the next few
weeks. Whenever we are stuck on a decision, struggling with how to prioritise
different aspects of a project, or dealing with interpersonal conflict, we rely on our
principles to guide us. 

Process. 
To provide a tangible structure to all of these visions and bold ideas, we need a
specific, measurable, actionable result-driven, and timebound process. That's where
GOBRADIME comes in.  I use GOBRADIME in all of my permaculture work. 

Place.
We're all connected to a place, and some of us are connected to several. No matter
what your goals are, you still have to sleep, eat, get warm, make friends. In its most
basic essense, every design comes back to place, and placement.

I wrote about GOBRADIME in my book, Food Not Lawns, which you now can
read for free! Here’s the direct link to the chapter that discusses GOBRADIME. Or,
if you want the quick-and-updated version, go here.

Permaculture practitioners also use other processes besides GOBRADIME, such as

Looby MacNamara's design web. But since GOBRADIME is my jam, that's what
we will use in this course. 

You can download a PDF of this chart, here.

 Hands On
Ready to put these ideas into action?!?

Paradise Design Game

Step 1: Make a list of every component you think you might want to include in
your whole systems design. Vegetable garden? Orchards? Food forest? Solar hot
water? Wind power? Workshop? Animals? Whatever you want, make a list (or, use
index cards if you want to spread out!)

Step 2: For each item on your list, note which of the other components this item
could somehow connect to. Does your shower connect to your garden? How so?
Does your kitchen connect to your chicken coop? Where? And so on.

Step 3: Then, play with drawing it out. Don't worry about drawing maps to scale or
getting all the details! Think of it more like a game, and make a drawing of your
silly ultimate fantasy whole system design. 

More stuff to do

 Learn about GOBRADIME and see if you can use it for a tiny design project like, say,
reorganizing a project. Work through each of the steps and imagine how you could use the same
process for your whole system design.

 Practice "systems thinking." What does that mean to you? Write about it, talk about it, try to
embody it as you move through your
day. 
 Come join us in our Facebook group and/or our independent #freepermaculture
forum.

Relevant Links and Resources

Again, all we can do is scratch the surface of this topic for you...but hopefully
you’re inspired to go deeper on your own. Here are some resources to get you
started:
Don't miss this great article about How to Think Like an Ecosystem.
Here’s a super-useful video from the Autodesk Sustainability Workshop, who also
happen to make an excellent free app that you can use for all of your design
artwork.

Clarification and Review

If you’re still unsure exactly what permaculture and whole system design are, and you haven’t taken advan
free intro module from our permaculture course, head over there now and check it out. Even if you've alrea
that content, take a moment this week to review it all. 

Things to keep in mind:

 Permaculture is, at its core, a design science, heavily focused on placement as a vector for environm
regeneration.
 Permaculture, like any new skillset, cannot be learned in a day or a week, or even once a week for a
hours. You can learn a TON of amazing stuff that will have profound influence on your day to day q
life, but if you want to master the art of this powerful toolkit, you have to put in your 10,000 hours. 

Permaculture Sector Mapping

This is week 9 of our yearlong #freepermaculture course 
In permaculture, the term sector refers to any natural or uncontrolled influence that moves throu
design site. And through sector analysis, you can anticipate and enact design decisions that will
mitigate, and improve how those uncontrolled influences affect your site.

Sectors could be wind, water, weather...they can be economic, social, biological, or any combin
the above. Every sector has needs, resources, yields, wastes, and relationships that influence the
system.

Last week's "zones" drawing, now with some sectors added. Artwork by KT Shepherd
A work-zone is a sector, with uses, yields, and wastes. A children’s play area is a sector, and ha
and resources associated with it. The cold, moldy side of the basement is a sector (AND a micro
we'll get to that next week), with opportunities intrinsic (mushrooms, anyone?)

“Invisible structures” are mostly sectors as well, and so is your “inner landscape.”

Every site, no matter where you are, has a complex labyrinth of sectors to consider when makin
about your design. Sector analysis will help you identify microclimates and discover opportunit
weren’t obvious at first glance. The more you know, the better decisions you can make.

Permaculture sector mapping: identifying risks and designing solut

In our PDC, faculty member Pippa Buchanan includes a fun discussion of sector analysis in her
"Designing for Chaos and Catastrophe." 

Here’s an excerpt from that module:

The potential for disaster happens when systems can not handle extremes or cumulative stress. O
week of limited spending may be a challenge, but a medical bill on top of long-term debt and st
poverty may force a family into homelessness. Water is essential for life, but the extremes of ei
drought or flood-causing torrential rain can cause havoc in both natural and human systems.

Designing land, the built environment, lifestyles, livelihoods and organisations to deal with extr
well as everyday conditions is essential for resilience. There are many ways in which permacult
design and practice supports resilience, but in order to do that it is important to understand what
extremes are most likely to have an impact. This is why careful observation and sector analysis
important for a successful project.

Sector analysis is a critical tool for visually representing observations about  the “sectors” or ex
forces and elements that move through or otherwise influence your project. The sectors you rec
be related to effects on the site caused by climate, ecology, geology, topography and society. Fo
example sun paths, wind and rain patterns, invasive plants, wildlife,  pollution, neighbours, area
fire threat, views and noise could all be recorded on your sector analysis layer.

Sectors are often represented as labelled wedges, arcs or arrows representing the origin and dire
the element. However, rocky areas, contaminated soil, boggy land, or areas of flood risk are bet
represented as location specific patches over your base map. Some uncontrollable issues such a
geological instability or limiting factors such as legal restrictions are harder to represent visually
best recorded in writing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfvyNc11Gkk
Sector analysis often represents the origin of different forces through arcs.

Part of developing Designer’s Mind is about making observations free of bias. The forces recor
sector analysis are neutral and can be both beneficial or harmful.

For example, knowing that dry summer winds come from the east helps identify the best place t
a laundry line or to hang produce for drying. At the same time, that drying wind will quickly ev
water from soil as well as dams or ponds. This information guides the placement of windbreak
or hedges on the eastern side to moderate the impact of the wind and reduce evaporation.

Used together with tools such as zone analysis, sector analysis helps guide the placement of com
so that they make best use of or mitigate the risks of that sector. Sector analysis influences whic
are placed where, but at the same time, zones influence the strategies used to respond to externa
In outer zones such as 3 or 4, lower cost, less energy intensive solutions such as windbreak plan
used to slow the wind. Closer to the home more intensive solutions such as walls or use of grey
might be used to protect water-demanding plants, animals and people from a drying wind.

You should make a sector analysis for your overarching project, and you should also make anal
sub-designs such as high intensity vegetable beds that include smaller scale microclimate influe
the impact of trees casting shade.

Working on sector analysis is a great way to review and incorporate the ideas from everything e
you’ve been seeing and learning. Your sector analysis should help you identify the risks, or maj
extremes that will threaten the longevity of your design projects whether they be fire, flood, dro
legal challenges.

(end of excerpt; if you want Pippa for your dedicated faculty mentor in the PDC, just check her
on your orientation form and she will personally help you create your design.)
Hands-On
Sector mapping will generally take way more than one sitting to finish, and sectors will change,
have to keep mapping! As such, it’s a thing to keep in mind, and in progress, as you move throu
weeks and months toward your whole-system design.

Here are some steps to get you started:

1. Make a bunch of extra copies of the base map you created last week. Or, if working digit
create a dozen or so empty layers.
2. Make a list of possible sectors influencing your site, and then label each layer; one for ea
sector.
3. Begin mapping your sectors, laying them over your basemap, and looking for intersectio
limitation, opportunities, and inspirations therein.

And yes, as mentioned above, don’t stop with just mapping the sun/wind/water sectors! Go dee
each fractal layer of the design, and look for repeated patterns. Recognize that sectors may have
effects in small areas, creating “microclimates,” and that those microclimates are bursting with
opportunity!

 Permaculture is not the one true path. It's the vehicle, not the destination. 
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