Permaculture: A Designers' Manual: A Designer's Manual Tapa dura - 1997

Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of a stable social order. Permaculture design is a system of assembling conceptual, material, and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all its forms. The philosophy behind permaculture is one of working with, rather than against, nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless action; of looking at systems in all their functions rather than asking only one yield of them; and of allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolutions (from publisher).

Preface Author’s note Permaculture defined and its useConventions usedAccess to informationCover storyChapter 1, IntroductionChapert 2, Concepts and Themes in DesignChapter 3, Methods of DesignChapter 4, Pattern UnderstandingChapter 5, Climatic FactorsChapter 6, Trees and their Energy TransactionsChapter 7, WaterChapter 8, SoilsChapter 9, Earthworking and Earth ResourcesChapter 10, The Humid TropicsChapter 11, Dryland StrategiesChapter 12, Humid Cool to Cold ClimatesChapter 13, AquacultureChapter 14, The Strategies of an Alternative Global NationPlant list by common namePlant list by species nameGlossaryResourcesReferencesIndex