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Friday, 7 September 2007

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The permaculture papers

THE EFFECTIVENESS of PERMACULTURE

The reasons why this is so will be explored. It has much to do with the philosophy and influence of Bill Mollison and the unquestioning way his ideas remain part of Permaculture lore years after he formulated them.

Bill's ideas and his critique of modern society continue to resonate, particularly among those alarmed at the way the world is going. Some may respond that Bill's statements are glib and lack substance, that they are simplistic. But anyone with knowledge of Mollison's background will know that, though his statements might be simple, they have a great deal of analysis behind them.

While some of the content of his Designer's Manual may be outdated and contestable, the ideas in the book continue to attract people. Yet, simply attracting people on an ad hoc basis does not necessarily make the design system any more effective as a methodology for sustainable development, whether that is at the household or societal level. That requires some sort of collective action.

The effectiveness of Permaculture has a great deal to do with how Permaculture practitioners see themselves in relation to society and its institutions. Are they part of mainstream society or somehow separate to it?

Proponents of accredited training suggest that their purpose is to "Permaculture the mainstream, not mainstream Permaculture". This play on words is a bit of a chicken-or-egg statement. Does not permaculturing the mainstream imply some degree of mainstreaming Permaculture so it has some utility value to that mainstream?

Discussing the effectiveness of Permaculture is complicated because, according to the Macquarie Dictionary, effectiveness requires an 'intended result' that is to be achieved.

The Permaculture ethics of caring for the Earth and for people and distributing surplus can be seen as end results but can also be seen as an 'operating system' for the movement. Likewise the Permaculture principles, they are more ways of thinking and acting.

Perhaps it is a weakness of Permaculture that an intended result has never been defined except in generality. Some would say that ecological or social sustainability is the intended result, yet this begs a universally acceptable definition of the terms, something that may be problematic.

Effectiveness if not efficiency, necessarily

If effectiveness is getting done the jobs that need doing, then efficiency is getting them done with minimal resource use, such as the use of materials and time.

You can be efficient at doing the wrong job but you cannot be effective. If you are doing the right job in the first place you can be both effective and efficient.

This implies that, in selecting areas of action, Permaculture designers have to be able to identify strategic areas that promise substantial results.

Effectiveness as validated by employment

Permaculture has never developed paid employment niches such as the 'sustainability planner', 'triple bottom line officer' and 'bushland management officer' now found in local government.

Why is there no comparable employment position for 'Permaculture planner' or the like? It is a valid question the answer to which begs the further questions of what, exactly, would such a Permaculture position do?

When you break down potential roles for such a position you are left with activities such as waste management, community development, landscape design and management, energy efficient building design, horticultural training and so on. Trouble is, these are all positions occupied by tertiary-trained specialists, not by a generalist unqualified in any particular discipline. This, as one Permaculture person working in local government said, is why Permaculture has not been accepted by other design professions as a valid discipline.

Where, then, does that leave Permaculture in seeking effectiveness through employment roles? One solution would be to revert to the strategy followed by Permaculturists in the 1980s - Permaculture as a form of specialised training taken by people such as those in the design professions during or after their formal studies.

The pursuit of this strategy was the reason that Sydney Permaculture designer and landscape architect, Birgit Seidlich, organised a three-day seminar in Sydney in the early 1990s. Attended by members of various planning professions and addressed by Bill Mollison, the purpose was to stimulate professional interest in the design system and ecovillages. Unfortunately, the Permaculture Design Course was not structured for professional education - there was no national accreditation system for training in the early days - so there was no formal path for interested professionals to follow. The accredited Permaculture training, however, has potential to insinuate Permaculture design into professional education.

Only time will tell whether the new courses will increase the effectiveness of Permaculture as workplace practice. The same question keeps recurring - where are the jobs? The question is perhaps a little premature. It still too early for employment avenues to have opened, however on listening to questions from Certificate Four trainees, there seemed to be some expectation that the certificate would get them work. That it might, if they have some other, specialist qualification. This brings us full circle to where the PDC started, as a course for people with some existing qualification rather than as a stand-alone qualification.

Why no political clout?

As people have asked of Permaculture, if it pre-dates the environment movement, why does it not have the influence and the lobbying clout of that movement?

The reason is because Permaculture has not taken an overtly political stance by assuming an advocacy role. The ideology of the movement and the early influence of Bill Mollison has been inimicable to such development. Yet, Permaculture's claim of non-political status is a bit of a fiction because Permaculture teachers sometimes promote Green politics.

It is doubtful if Bill, even though he distanced Permaculture from mainstream party politics, meant that Permaculture activists should not attempt to influence the political process. Simply by building alternatives to mainstream solutions, permaculturists influence opinion and take a political stance.

Bill might not have advocated any political party, but his critique of modern economies which were implicit, sometimes explicit, in his writings and at public meetings, carries an oppositional message. Confusion might have been the outcome of Bill's political message for some, however, as at different times he criticised not only mainstream but Green politics. For those with a simple 'us and them' political outlook, it may have been difficult to tell just where Bill stood politically, however it would probably be close to the truth to suggest that his politics was like that summed up by the statement of British politician, Jonathan Porritt (although Porritt was talking about Green politics), that his politics was 'beyond Right and Left".

Politics is the means by which ideas are brought to implementation in society, the route by which they become reality. Even where the origin of an idea is not political, somewhere, sometime, it has to enter the political process to be adopted in some official sense.

Energy efficient building design in NSW is a case in point. For years, energy efficient building was the province of the few motivated and affluent enough to afford it. Then it entered the political agenda and became legislated, first among local governments participating in the Sustainable Energy Development Authority's Energy Smart Homes Scheme, then state-wide when, in July 2004, the Building Sustainability Index (BASIX) became law. What had been a marginal activity was suddenly mainstreamed through the political process.

As a movement, Permaculture does not have the political nous to lead the lobbying process but it does have the potential to support and participate in campaigns and to educate its members. It is less about participating in party politics - which, in Australia, is 'on the nose' a little and is held in low public esteem - than about seeking influence through the processes offered by a supposedly democratic society.

The unconscious championing of political ideologies

Despite its avowed non-political stance, individual Permaculture educators and activists have inadvertently championed measures that carry political cachet. The 'user-pays' principle, a product of free-market advocates, right-wing think tanks, environmentalists and government seeking to reduce resource use and save money, is a case in point.

Ostensibly, user-pays is a means of making those who consume a resource or service financially responsible for their consumption of it. It is meant to conserve the resource or to make the service financially self-supporting. But to be socially equitable it has to be applied on the basis of an equal capacity to pay. As is obvious, this does not exist. User-pays may conserve resources but it does so by excluding those with insufficient funds from buying the resource or service to a degree they would otherwise use it. Whether this should exclude it from a design system with an ethic of people-care is a pertinent question.

User-pays is a tool that needs to be used carefully because it can detract from the practice of sharing the cost of providing common property resources and discourage the notion of social responsibility. Although it remains a valid strategy to reduce resource consumption, Permaculturists who support user-pays must accept supporting something that in its worse cases could contravene the design system's second ethic.

Increase effectiveness by enacting Permaculture values

Permaculture has a set of values defined by the ethics of earth and people-care and the distribution of surplus resources. Permaculture principles, as defined by Bill Mollison and later reformulated by David Holmgren, further define a set of shared values.

The values have considerable appeal in an age when the ideologies and structures of the past are undergoing forced change. Their universal common sense stands in contrast to the pragmatism and shifting values of government, the business world and institutions. Were there greater focus on applying the values in Permaculture projects, the design system might be more widely noted for principle-based activity.

This is not to suggest that Permaculture practitioners have been lax in implementing the ethics and principles in their activities. Mostly, the evidence is otherwise. The suggestion is that a clearer articulation of the way the ethics are applied and clearer processes for enacting them in project work could benefit Permaculture. In doing this it may be instructive to investigate the values-based planning described in Snead and Wycoff's book, To Do, Doing, Done (1997; Simon and Schuster, USA).

Effectiveness through participation and openness

Permaculturists have enacted the principles of participation and openness in their work. A further commitment to these values would lend Permaculture greater credibility and make it, in the longer term, a more effective technology.

The participatory planning methodology that New Zealand designer, Robina McCurdy (Planet Organic training) was working on in the 1990s serves as an example. So does that of Tony Jansen (www.terracircle.org.au) in overseas development aid; Tony was Permaculture trained but has gone beyond it in participatory planning and development.

Openness, or transparency as it is known, is increasingly called for in the operations of non-government organisations (NGOs). Despite the contradiction that it is sometimes government that makes this call - the same governments that are characterised by obsessive and unnecessary secrecy - there is increasing expectation that the workings and decision making process of NGOs (and that includes community-based organisations) will be open for all to see. Such was called for in a 2004 report of the right wing think tank, the Institute for Public Affairs. The think tank is influential in federal government circles and it is significant that Canberra hired it to analyse the relationship of non-government organisations with government.

NGOs have nothing to fear from having their governance process open to public scrutiny. Openness implies trust, honesty and fair dealing. That was why it was interesting to find Permaculture International, in 2004, calling for parts of the accredited training then under development to be regarded by those involved in the work as "commercial-in-confidence"; ie. secret. This is the same excuse given by government and big business for their refusal to disclose the detail of agreements. It has become a bit of a dirty word among those who watch government.

PIL's stated reason for commercial-in-confidence was that undisclosed people outside PIL could pre-empt the organisation by registering their own accredited training. Permaculture, said PIL, should remain under the control of the Permaculture movement (which in this case is defined as PIL). So it should be, however no evidence was presented that any individual or organisation was planning to co-opt the design system. Confidentiality might have to be maintained during the crucial start-up phase of a new project - in this sense the PIL call for confidentiality is understandable - however there is no reason to keep details from members and stakeholders after that critical time has passed.

This might be a minor example, however it is cited here to warn that Permaculture organisations stray from a policy of open governance at their own risk.

Improving effectiveness through de Bono's five principles

Edward de Bono sets out the five principles for his 'Positive Revolution' in his Handbook for the Positive Revolution (1991; Viking Books, UK). The principles can be extrapolated to provide clues about improving the effectiveness of Permaculture design.

The Positive Revolution, de Bono says, is supported on three legs:

1. Principles (see table above) - guidelines for thinking, setting direction and decision making; "In the Positive Revolution we design rather than destroy and for 'design' there must be a direction".
2. Methods - how the principles are put into action.
3. Power - "The Positive Revolution uses the power of perception (rather than dogma or ideology)".

This last one is an interesting point that suggests participants in the Positive Revolution seek to influence how their actions and those of others are thought of. They seek to make use of perception to influence others. Applied to Permaculture, it implies influence through the way that things are described and named.

The rest of de Bono's statement is about a pragmatic approach not dictated by dogmatic or ideological structures. Applied to the design system, it suggests a willingness to remain open to new and different sources of ideas that go beyond those in Permaculture - A Designer's Manual which were never intended to be taken as dogma but which are accepted unquestiongly by too many.

The question of whether Permaculture is dogmatic is debatable. Certainly, a few practitioners have taken Mollison's Designer's Manual as the final word but others, perhaps truer to Permaculture's ethos, continue to absorb and synthesise ideas and influences from outside the system.

Belief = perception + content

When I was starting out in journalism my editor said to me: "It is not so much truth, it is perception that counts". The beliefs that people form about something are the result of how they perceive it and what they believe it is made up of. This, in turn, is influenced by the behaviour and statements of those on the inside.

So it is with Permaculture. The stories the design system tells about itself, the images it creates, the way it handles situations and critiques and its ability to get things done all influence how people think about it.

You might think this does not matter, that concern with public perception is about form over substance. You may be right to some degree, however form counts whether you think it should or not. Form (the popular image of Permaculture) is most effective when it is based on demonstratable content (what Permaculture consists of and its actual work in the world). That is why effectiveness counts.