This article was originally printed in Permaculture Design Magazine issue #110, Winter 2019, the Permaculture Ethics issue. As permaculture becomes more popular and gains greater recognition with a mainstream audience here in North America, I find that it’s helpful to have your “elevator speech” ready-to-hand to quickly define it when it comes up in casual conversation. I usually speak about permaculture in concrete terms at first using keywords like “edible landscaping” or “edible ecosystem design,” while dancing around the more abstract idea of whole systems design. If the people I’m talking ..read more

Overview When we want to support local agriculture we think first to plant a garden or organize a farmers market. But rarely do we take the next logical step, which is to use local law to protect that sustainable agriculture system that we’re trying to build. When we don’t take that step, agribusiness corporations step into the vacuum that’s created to monopolize food access. As our farming practices return to decentralized production, so too must the decision-making about that food. La Via Campesina, an international peasant and indigenous farmers movement, coined the term “Food Sovereignty ..read more

By Nathan Davis and Jesse Labbe-Watson | Dec 01, 2016       Original link This question is at the core of the movement for food sovereignty in Maine and around the world. Food sovereignty is the assertion of local control over our food system, and the assertion against control by big agribusiness and nonlocal corporate interests. Eighteen municipalities in Maine have passed food sovereignty ordinances, and food sovereignty is now before the Rockland City Council. Rockland would be the largest community in Maine to pass a food sovereignty ordinance, and the first city to do so. W ..read more

The first step in any good design process is to clearly define our goals for the project.  A clear grasp of goals helps us to hold a vision, make design and implementation decisions and strategically allocate limited resources.  The goal helps us orient our actions in the right direction.  This way we can distinguish between which elements are the right fit for the right place or which actions take us toward our goal versus away from it.  A good goal consists of a couple sentences that clearly articulate a statement of purpose.  This is different from an element or lis ..read more

Look, i clearly understand that there are invasive and noxious weeds that can have negative consequences on ecosystems, but we have to grok that this is a consequence of living in the Anthropocene. There are complex dynamics afoot in the “invasive” species debate that include ecology, economics, ethics and psychology. Our European ancestors are responsible for much of the introduced species. Some good, some bad. While purple loosestrife is problematic, can the same be said for the honeybee or apple tree or earthworm? And over a long enough time span, don’t ecosystems eventually find balance af ..read more