Environmental degradation is a problem that besets most of the globe in the modern era. The capitalist system which has driven the industrialization of the developed nations, has not paid due attention to respecting the function of the ecological systems which support life on this little planet of ours. Wasteful squandering of finite resources and negligent pollution of the biosphere and atmosphere is resulting in the global climate becoming less predictable and more extreme. Deserts are expanding and ice caps are shrinking. Meanwhile our reckless guzzling of oil to fuel energy intensive solutions to the very problems we have created cannot continue indefinitely, because oil is now being discovered less quickly than it’s being consumed. Peak oil approaches.

PEAK OIL : http://www.wolfatthedoor.org.uk/

Modern commercial agriculture is a case in point. Mined of nutritional value by years of repetitive cereal cropping, most agricultural soils in Europe and America have been so depleted of all organic content they are basically sterile media which won’t grow anything much alone. To compensate for this, farmers in these areas poor chemical fertilizers, produced in energy hungry industrial facilities, onto the land in vast quantities. However, being inorganic and highly soluble, they quickly wash away in rain and need continual replacement. They enter the water courses and causing “eutrophication” (over fertilization) of streams and rivers, which quickly become clogged with algae, killing fish and other aquatic life. What’s more, the huge gas guzzling machines which work the vast monotonous agricultural expanses we call fields these days, require a highly simplified medium to work on, so the fields are almost always planted with a single species of crop (a “mono-culture”). When a disease attacks one individual in a monoculture it can quickly spread through the entire population as all neighbours are the same species. This problem is dealt with in modern industrial agriculture by the use of more chemicals; pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, which are also leached into the water-courses and pollute the aquifers, oceans and the soils themselves, as well as remaining as residues in the food we eat, so also polluting our bodies. The increase in the quantity and variety of chemical compounds in our diet over the last 100 years may go a long way to explain why so many people are dying of cancer these days.

Once the food we eat makes it onto the supermarket shelves the total energy that has gone into its production is many times the calorific value of the food itself. Then there is transport to consider. In the current era of globalization food may well have been travel half way around the world to reach that supermarket shelf. The there is the packaging to consider. And where is all of this expended energy is coming from? Fossil fuels.

In this climate of reckless over-consumption a global counter-movement has begun to grow amongst those who look to a more sustainable future, recognising that for a society to last, it must respect the function of the ecological systems upon which it relies for its sustenance. The movement is based on a methodology developed by two Australians in the 1970’s, called Bill Mollison and David Holngren. Their project is Permaculture. Forty years in the making, it has grown to global scope, with active associations on all five continents. Others that have made notable contributions to the movement include Rosemary Morrow, Geoff Lawton and Patrick Whitefield.

Major National institutes and associations:

UK
http://www.permaculture.org.uk/

N. America
http://www.permaculture.org

Australia (and global)
http://permaculture.org.au

Middle East

http://www.thefarm.org/charities/i4at/marda/

 Permaculture In Africa