Permanent + agriculture (which had been expanded to include culture).

The root word “permanent” is intended as a reference to sustainability — an unsustainable society would, by definition, eventually cease to exist; it would be impermanent. Practitioners of this movement are known as “permaculturists” or “permies.”

Because it encourages growing food by working with, rather than against, nature — through thoughtful observation instead of thoughtless labor.

By letting nature do the work of farming and gardening for you, one achieves one of Bill Mollison's famous motto: “maximizing hammock time.”

Bill Mollison was the Tasmanian son of a fisherman who first coined the “permaculture” term in 1978. Mollison was a professor of biogeography and environmental psychology at the University of Tasmania. Mollison met David Holmgren, a graduate student at the time, who helped him develop the principles and practices that are now taught around the world in the standard Permaculture Design Course, typically a two-week immersive experience held on a farm or property that has been developed with a permaculture approach.

Essentially, Permaculture is a holistic, living-in-harmony-with-nature worldview, as well as a technical approach for how to do so.

Permaculture represents a way of thinking that attempts to better integrate human elements into natural settings in a permanently sustainable way. Closed loop systems that require little to no inputs, and the idea of working with nature as much as possible, are probably the two most defining features of permaculture.

Permaculture, in practice, operates based on 3 principles:

Permaculture is not an offbeat “hippie” movement — it's simply a common sense approach to agriculture and living.

Permaculture's 12-point design principles go like this…