Prepping and permaculture

Prepping, or being prepared for disaster, is a big topic now. 

 

 

Download full size copy at www.prepperlink.com

 

Depending on where you live, you might prep for a variety of natural disasters, like hurricanes, tornados, wildfires, tsunamis, floods, or volcanic eruption. 

 Then there are manmade disasters, like the nuclear leak at Three Mile Island or the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

Many of us prepare for smaller disasters, however, like enduring a power outage or being trapped in a highway drift during a snowstorm.

At the high end of the prepping movement, there are individuals preparing for the breakdown of society.  Some are moving to remote locations and setting up mini farms to ensure a steady food supply.  These people would certainly benefit from the agricultural principles of permaculture.  But, how might they benefit from adopting the broader scope of permaculture?

They would have to form a community (zone 2) of like minded people to leverage their position.

The nucleus of this community needs to be set in place before the disaster. 

 Microcurrencies might provide a small community of people with a medium of exchange, to facilitate bartering of goods and skills.  This should be developed before hand in order to build up trust in the system.

 A community first aid station could handle small emergencies or provide ambulance service to a city hospital.  By addressing this need in advance, a building could be converted and powered by solar, with battery backup. Arrangements could be made to train people to staff the facility and a system established to compensate them from the farm produce or by microcurrency. 

Shared educational responsibilities would provide children with a larger pool of knowledge than just home schooling.  This might entail a rotating schedule, much like a Cub Scout Den Meeting.

Ideally, each homestead should have solar power and battery backup.  For those who don’t or can’t have a personal solar power system,  community solar or wind installations could be set up to provide a charging station for batteries used to power electric tools, tractors and rototillers.

So preppers have a lot to learn from permaculture, but do permaculturists have anything to learn from preppers?

There are well over 100 prepper blogs on a variety of subjects.  Here you can learn to store and preserve food, manage your water supply, treat human and animal illnesses, and a host of other things that everyone might need at some time.

 At one extreme are people who are prepared to live as hermits to escape the ills of a dysfunctional society.  At the other people are thinking of ways to form communities after a social breakdown.  There is a wide range of thought in between.

 I think both would benefit from reading the thoughts of each other.

Permaculture

  Copied from www.holmgren.com.au

Permaculture began as an agriculture zone theory in Australia. It has since evolved into a framework for thinking about all aspects of society. I first became aware of the subject at a talk given at the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Fair in Kempton, Pa. several years ago.

What caught my fancy was the Permaculture flower shown above.

 

I began researching various areas as indicated on the chart. In some areas there were slim pickin’s. It seems the theory has outpaced the research. That’s as it should be. Now there are areas that challenge our imaginations and beg for solutions.

I thought about taking a Permaculture Design Course, but the idea seems to have been franchised and it costs big bucks to take the course.

Fortunately, there is a wealth of information available for free on the web. As I searched, I came across a web page, www.tv.naturalnews.com that has videos on a variety of permaculture subjects. There is a series of fourteen videos by Goeff Lawton that provide a pretty good overview of the design theory for agriculture.

Finally, I found a site where I could get free ebooks about permaculture, www.green-shopping.co.uk. They also sell books about permaculture, if you want to round out your library.

There is also a free booklet titled, The Essence of Permaculture by Dave Holmgren, one of the founders of the Permaculture movement, on his site listed above or at www.permacultureprinciples.com.

In this book, David Holmgren lists the Design Principles of Permaculture. They are:

1. Observe and interact

a. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

2. Catch and store energy

a. Make hay while the sun shines

3. Obtain a yield

a. You can’t work on an empty stomach

4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback

a. The sins of the fathers are visited on the children unto the seventh generation

5. Use and value renewable resources and services

a. Let nature take its course

6. Produce no waste

a. Waste not, want not

7. Design from patterns to details

a. Can’t see the forest for the trees

8. Integrate rather than segregate

a. Many hands make light work

9. Use small and slow solutions

a. Slow and steady wins the race

10. Use and value diversity

a. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket

11. Use edges and value the marginal

a. Don’t think you are on the right track, just because it is well beaten

12. Creatively use and respond to change

a. Vision is not seeing things as they are, but as they will be

If you download the book and want to print it, make sure your printer is in landscape mode.

If reviewing this topic stimulates your thinking about using the permaculture principles in a non-agricultural way, or if you are involved in a current project, let me know. I would love to hear of your ideas, experiences and plans.