David Holmgren brings into sharper focus the powerful and still evolving Permaculture concept he pioneered with Bill Mollison in the 1970s. It draws together and integrates 25 years of thinking and teaching to reveal a whole new way of understanding and action behind a simple set of design principles. The 12 design principles are each represented by a positive action statement, an icon and a traditional proverb or two that captures the essence of each principle.
Holmgren draws a correlation between every aspect of how we organize our lives, communities and landscapes and our ability to creatively adapt to the ecological realities that shape human destiny. For students and teachers of Permaculture this book provides something more fundamental and distilled than Mollison's encyclopedic Designers Manual. For the general reader it provides refreshing perspectives on a range of environmental issues and shows how permaculture is much more than just a system of gardening. For anyone seriously interested in understanding the foundations of sustainable design and culture, this book is essential reading. Although a book of ideas, the big picture is repeatedly grounded by reference to Holmgren's own place, Melliodora, and other practical examples.
I owe this book the most profound debt of gratitude. It is the book which first suggested what a collective response to peak oil and climate change rooted in permaculture design principles might look like in practice. The breadth of what Holmgren does in this book still blows me away. Read it slowly, digest it well, discuss it with anyone who will listen. Like all life-changing experiences it is best savoured, as you will thereafter think of your life in two halves, before you read Permaculture: Principles & Pathways and after. I do not hesitate to refer to it as a work of great genius. --Rob Hopkins co-founder of the Transition Movement
Essential reading for permaculture designers and accessible to a wide range of critical thinkers, this book opens the door to a new and scarcely imagined world. It contributes to a growing synthesis of design with economics, society, and landscape ecology, and compels all serious advocates of sustainability to reconsider the central organizing power of the permaculture concept. --Peter Bane: permaculture teacher and previous editor of Permaculture Activist USA for over 20 years
If the 'Permaculture Principles' that David Holmgren discusses in this extremely important book were applied to all that we do, we would be well on the road to sustainability, and beyond. --Professor Stuart B. Hill (Foundation Chair of Social Ecology University of Western Sydney)
