Permaculture Ethics

In earlier days, several of us researched community ethics, as adopted by older religious and cooperative groups, seeking universal principles to guide our own actions. Although, many of these guidelines contained as many as 18 principles, most of these can be included in the three below (and even the second and third arise from the first):

THE ETHICAL BASIS OF PERMACULTURE:

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

These ethics are a very simple statement of guidance, and serve well to illuminate everyday endeavors. It can be coupled to a determination to make our own way: "to be neither employers nor employees, landlords nor tenants, but to be self - reliant as individuals and to cooperate as groups".

For the sake of the earth itself, a philosophy close to Taoism evolved by experiences with natural systems. As stated - Permaculture is a philosophy, of working with rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless action; of looking at systems and people in all their functions; and of allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolutions. A basic question that can be asked in two ways is:

"What can I get from this land, or person?"
or
"What does this person, or land, have to give if I cooperate with them?"

Of these two approaches, the former leads to war and waste, the latter to peace and plenty.

Most conflicts lie in how such questions are asked, and not in the answers to any questions. Or, to put it in other way, we are clearly looking for the right questions rather than for the answers. We should be alert to rephrase or refuse the " wrong" questions.

It has become evident that unity in people comes from a common adherence to a set of ethical principles, each of us perhaps going our own way, at our own pace, and within the limits of our resources, yet all leading to the same goals, which in our own case is that of a living, complex, and sustainable earth. Those who agree on such ethics, philosophies, and goals form a global nation.

We see how enlightened self - interest leads us to evolve ETHIC OF SUSTAINABLE AND SENSIBLE BEHAVIOR. These then, are the ethic expressed in permaculture. Having evolved ethics, we can then devise ways to apply them to our lives, economies, gardens, land, and nature; thus here we deal with; the mechanisms of mature ethical behavior, or how to act in order to sustain the earth.

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