The Center for Sustainable Living

Permaculture is a practical concept which can be applied in the city, on the farm and in the wilderness.

• Its principles empower people to establish highly productive environments providing for food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs, including economic.
• Carefully observing natural patterns characteristic of a particular site, the Permaculture designer gradually discerns optimal methods for integrating water catchment, human shelter, and energy systems with tree crops, edible and useful perennial plants, domestic and wild animals and aquaculture.
• Permaculture adopts techniques and principles from ecology, appropriate technology, sustainable agriculture, and the wisdom of indigenous peoples.
• The ethical basis of Permaculture rests upon care of the earth-maintaining a system in which all life can thrive.
• This includes human access to resources and provisions, but not the accumulation of wealth, power, or land beyond their needs.

From a Bay Area Permaculture Group brochure, published in West Coast Permaculture News & Gossip and Sustainable Living Newsletter (Fall 1995)