This months issue of Permaculture Activist talks about zones
and has some of the philosophy behind this concept. According
to the Activist the zone concept is useful in conserving energy
and makes our activities more efficient. The zones are created
by a human presence and exist to support humans. In other words
zones are about energy conservation for humans.
The article goes on saying zones can be applied to economics
and other areas of our life and are not exclusively tied to our
living space or landscape. Also, and apartment would have
a different set of zones from a small farm.
At this point i began to feel something was missing in this
philosophy of zones. At the very beginning there was one statement
about working with nature and after that we were off into this
abstract tool called zones.
Using this philosophy we might apply zone thinking to building
an oil refinery and think this is Permaculture. In fact,
this is the position a few people have taken. This opens
up some questions:
Can zone design be separated from the natural world?
Does a site dictate the zones or should we try to modify
the site and create a diverse set of zones if possible?
How do we keep zone design on a sustainable path?
I'm not sure where this is going, the worry is a tool will used
to suport unsustainable goals. How the tool is used is up to us.
If we focus on the tool too strongly we may miss its origional
purpose.
Later the Ativist article talks about gardens and animals followed
by one mention of zone 5 which is would be wild areas. The existience
of these things seemed to be assumed. I think we should encourage
these zones rather than assume they exist.
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Jeff Owens ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Zone 7
Underground house, solar energy, reduced consumption, no TV
