Permaculture

A design approach that copies the patterns of a healthy natural ecosystem onto a farm or settlement rather than imposing a single crop on cleared ground, built on three stated ethics: care for the earth, care for people, and returning any surplus to both. Bill Mollison, an environmental psychologist at the University of Tasmania often called its father, and his graduate student David Holmgren coined the term and its twelve design principles, from "observe and interact" to "creatively use and respond to change," as a systematic alternative to input-heavy industrial farming.