Permaculture Education is Eco-Logical Literacy for all Citizens

Permaculture education expands ecological literacy in an affordable and accessible manner. This knowledge base builds on basic literacy to connect individuals to the living world on which their lives depend and gives them agency to make it better. Permaculture design principles and understandings have been tested around the world in all climates and regions for half a century. This body of empirical knowledge and proven theory with a considerable literature and hundreds of thousands of trained practitioners should inform Sustainability policies across society. 

There are many teachers and designers of Permaculture in the Tri-State region. Cincinnati Permaculture Institute (CPI) is a hub for accessing this ample resource. We share knowledge, direct support, and organize action to improve countless facets of modern life. The Institute teaches practical Permaculture solutions which are demonstrated and made accessible by a network of experienced practitioners. We note the following areas of work which could improve public policy outcomes if modeled and adopted more widely.

• The Carbon Drawdown Project recognizes the need to pull carbon dioxide actively from the atmosphere, and identifies those actions most effective in doing so. Of the top 17 strategies, 11 sequester carbon in soil. Permaculture teaches these practices.
• Keyline design, a revolutionary earthworking system that originated in dryland Australia where it influenced the origins of Permaculture, enhances broadscale agriculture by lifting limits to soil carbon and moisture. It works to hydrate soil by concentrating water in surface storages, then spreading it in pulses to stimulate the growth of legumes at the topsoil/subsoil interface. This plant growth is later mown or grazed, which leads to rapid increases in organic matter in the root zone, aiding crops, feeding livestock, and deepening the soil carbon sponge. It can accelerate the rate of topsoil formation 1000-fold.
• Sewage management has increased human health and longevity in the past 150 years, but increasingly impoverishes agricultural soils, leading to an epidemic of degenerative diseases. Ironically, the gifts of engineering (waste removal) and medicine (vitamins and minerals are the key to health) have not been connected. Permaculture teaches methods to reverse this loss of farm nutrients by safely recycling urine and humanure at the household level. 
• Study after study shows the importance of green space in urban areas for human health and well-being, improved traffic safety, cooler microclimates, energy savings, and lower levels of crime. Permaculture training places tree crops and food forests at the center of efforts to rehabilitate land, improve and stabilize local food systems, improve livelihoods, and restore ecosystem and human health.
• With the generous allotment of unused but prime growing land around homes, suburban micro-farm development holds great promise for augmenting metropolitan food systems while creating employment and reducing the transport and pollution costs of food supply. Policy changes could readily accelerate the development of farming greenbelts as an answer to urban food deserts. Permaculture has always emphasized developing resilient households and neighborhoods through the cultivation of edible landscapes.
• Public edible landscapes, community gardens, farmers markets, school gardens, green infrastructure for runoff management, and many other pages from the Permaculture playbook would go a long way to improve the quality of life in our cities. We have done these kinds of projects across the country, and know how to implement them here.
• All ecosystems have been damaged by human activities, most especially urban, industrial, and farming lands. Permaculture offers a suite of strategies for restoration of soil, water, air, and climate using micro-engineering, together with microbes, fungi, plants, and biochar. The tools are known, but the public awareness, political will, and funding have been scant to date.
• Permaculture teaches the use of appropriate technology from solar ovens to greenhouses, landscape placement, and ecological design to reduce costs, harvest natural energies, and build resilience into local economies. Citizens would benefit from having access to this knowledge as we undergo an epochal energy transformation.
• Traditional methods of building with local and natural materials such as strawbales, round timber, and clay when coupled with sophisticated design understanding can reduce housing costs while increasing health, comfort, and functionality. Permaculture has harvested and shared the best of these technologies from the past and from other cultures.
• We teach and promote local and circular economy pathways, offer models of complementary currencies to optimize the use and circulation of resources in communities, and have shared alternative systems for financing home purchases and construction.
• As in all the above areas of design for living, we also emphasize ethical and ecological business development to supply goods and services for a greener and more humane way of living.

By strengthening the producer level of the economy, and optimizing information flows through interdependence and the local circulation of materials, we deploy ecosystem models and principles to increase energy harvest and resource conservation within our communities. This leads to growing yields emerging along with greater inclusion and stability.

Permaculture is a design system based in ethics and ecological principles which empowers us to create sustainable systems. Its conceptual tools and training methods are applicable to any human endeavor: a home, farm, business, community, or culture. In fact, Permaculture has translated for the modern world the essence of all long-lived indigenous cultures because it is firmly rooted in Nature. The design system gives us a lens to view the world and the challenges of meeting our needs by turning problems into solutions. Our courses encourage a shift of attitude, and demonstrate a can-do approach to problems. The principles and patterns of the living world guide us to become producers, not only consumers, and to accept and enhance the circular and mutual relationships of our living reality. The gifts of Earth are abundant, but for want of example, traditions, and in the face of regrettably human-centered attitudes, we lack the imagination to see and then build a sustainable future for ourselves and our descendants. Until we overcome these cultural and invisible hurdles, we will continue to grapple with systemic dysfunctionality that only ramifies with each passing year. Permaculture offers a path beyond the pitfalls of past ignorance and presents an abundant future.