Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual

This is really a fabulous, illuminating and highly useful book. In the 1970s, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren worked out the concepts of a nature-mimicking ecological system of sustainable agriculture and earth friendly communities (permanent agriculture) and coined the term “permaculture”. He further defines permaculture as “the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems.” This is a handbook that combines science, biology, botany, and common sense principles to form a practical guide for designing sustainable homes, mini-farms, villages, and larger communities. The concepts are applicable to all climate zones, though there is more focus on tropical and desert climates than for temperate regions, since the originators of permaculture live in Australia.