What is Permaculture?
Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking and applies these principles in fields such as regenerative agriculture, town planning, rewilding, and community resilience. Founded on three core ethics—Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Shares—permaculture derives these values from commonalities of many worldviews and beliefs. While often associated with gardening, permaculture encompasses architecture, social systems, economics, and any domain where design thinking can create self-sustaining, productive systems.
Origins & Lineage
Permaculture was coined by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the mid-1970s. Holmgren wrote the manuscript for Permaculture One: a perennial agricultural system for human settlements as he completed his Environmental Design studies, submitted it as his thesis, then handed it to Mollison for editing and additions before it was published in 1978. Holmgren first met Bill Mollison in 1974 when Mollison spoke at a seminar at the Department of Environmental Design, leading to an intense working relationship over the next three years, with Holmgren and Mollison sharing a house and garden, putting ideas into practice and collecting useful plant species.
Permaculture made its first appearance on the world stage in 1976 in an article in Tasmania’s Organic Farmer and Gardener newsletter published by the Tasmanian Organic Gardening and Farming Society, titled A Permaculture System for Southern Australian Conditions — Part One and written by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. In 1981, Mollison was awarded the Right Livelihood Award “for developing and promoting the theory and practice of permaculture.” Mollison passed away in 2016.
The concept drew on earlier thinkers. In 1911, Franklin Hiram King wrote Farmers of Forty Centuries: Or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan, describing farming practices of East Asia designed for “permanent agriculture.” In 1929, Joseph Russell Smith appended King’s term as the subtitle for Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture, which he wrote in response to widespread deforestation, plow agriculture, and erosion in the eastern mountains and hill regions of the United States. Holmgren and Mollison translated the ideas of Masanobu Fukuoka into English and pulled the work of Ken Yeomans (Water for Every Farm, 1954) and F.H. King’s concepts from Farmers of Forty Centuries (1911) to create a universal framework for the permanency of human activities with a landscape, paired with experimental architecture and the work of the Odum brothers, who had created mathematical models of what sustainable agriculture would have to look like.
How It’s Practiced
Permaculture practice begins with observation. The foundations of permaculture are the ethics which guide the use of 12 design principles, ensuring that they are used in appropriate ways. These principles are seen as universal, although the methods used to express them will vary greatly according to the place and situation. Practitioners apply whole-systems thinking to design landscapes, buildings, communities, and farms that mimic natural patterns—closed nutrient loops, diverse polycultures, water harvesting, perennial food forests, and strategic zoning that places frequently accessed elements close to human activity.
Common design elements include swales (on-contour earthworks that slow and infiltrate water), food forests (layered edible ecosystems), guild planting (grouping mutually beneficial species), and zone planning (organizing space by frequency of human interaction). Projects range from backyard vegetable gardens to urban farms, intentional communities, watershed restoration, and regional food systems design. Permaculture’s emphasis on perennial plants, minimal tillage, and biomimicry distinguishes it from conventional row-crop agriculture.
Permaculture Today
The Permaculture Design Course (PDC) Certificate is awarded to students who complete the 72-hour curriculum in permaculture design as created by Bill Mollison. Permaculture is a worldwide grassroots movement organized on principle, ethics, and the honor system. Certification has been a part of design course completion since the early days of permaculture (the 1980s). An estimated 1,000,000 people have now completed this training and comprise a mostly informal global network of educators and ecological doers who influence corporations, create new business alternatives, influence the communities they live in, and turn damaged lands into highly productive, food-producing landscapes.
Courses are offered in-person and online by hundreds of organizations globally. The official internationally-recognized Permaculture Design Certificate Course (PDC Course) and Advanced Permaculture Courses are trusted by learners in over 130 countries and taught by experienced instructors in the direct lineage of the founders of the global movement—Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. Weekend workshops, farm visits, and design consultations offer additional entry points. Permaculture has influenced policy, landscape architecture, regenerative agriculture, Transition Towns, and social justice movements.
Common Misconceptions
Permaculture is not synonymous with organic gardening or farming, though they share values. Permaculture is about designing integrated systems where the relationships between things matter. You can use organic methods to grow a monoculture of organic food but this wouldn’t be a permaculture system. You can also use permaculture to design systems that have nothing at all to do with gardening. Bill Mollison once said that having your own garden is not necessary to practice permaculture—you might be better buying your potatoes from someone who has grown them ethically rather than growing them yourself.
It is not a labor-free approach. Despite knowing little about vegetable growing, some enthusiasts claim that if it’s hard work, it can’t be permaculture—that you can design hard work out of gardening and that all you have to do is wander through your food forest with your mouth open and ripe, juicy fruit will just fall in. In reality, permaculture requires significant upfront work and ongoing management, though well-designed systems reduce labor over time.
Permaculture as a popular movement has been largely isolated from scientific literature and has been criticized for a lack of clear definition or rigorous methodology. Despite a long divide, some 21st-century studies have supported the claims that permaculture improves soil quality and biodiversity and have identified it as a social movement capable of promoting agroecological transition away from conventional agriculture. Critics of permaculture often say that it’s a practice more suited to small-scale operations and farms or gardens. While it’s true that it’s easier to institute permaculture designs and practices for smaller gardens than giant agricultural efforts, it isn’t impossible.
How to Begin
Start with observation. Spend time on your site—whether a balcony, backyard, or farm—noting sun angles, water flow, wind, existing vegetation, and human patterns. Read Permaculture One (Mollison & Holmgren, 1978) or Introduction to Permaculture (Mollison, 1991) for foundational concepts. David Holmgren’s Permaculture Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability offers one framework for understanding the principles.
Consider a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course to gain hands-on exposure to design methodology, ethics, and practice. These 72-hour trainings are available online and in-person worldwide. Start small: install rainwater catchment, plant a perennial garden bed, compost kitchen scraps, or support local farmers practicing regenerative methods. Permaculture rewards iterative learning—each design informs the next.