Earth User's Guide to Permaculture by: Rosemary Morrow 1993 Our local library just ordered this book and it has not made it to the shelves yet. I pounced on it and don't want to give it up. I found the book easy to read with lots of pictures and diagrams. The information is more current than the Permaculture Design Manual and style of writing more relaxed. The topics often have questions for further study and a reading list. The reading list is biased towards Australia and the material also seems biased towards the authors site (naturally). The rest of this review is a summary of the book. I suspect only those interested in learning about Permaculture will find it interesting. 1. Starting Permaculture This section define Pc and includes the words "sustainable human settlements". The role of observation is stressed and it was suggest that we go outside and record everything. The idea is to begin the process of seeing. 2. Ethics, Principles, and Characteristics This section lists ethics and expands the list into specific beliefs. The ethics are: care of earth, care for people, distribute surplus, and reduce consumption. An improvement from the ethics in the design manual (in my opinion). These ethics translate into: Small-scale systems, Diversity, borrowing ideas from everywhere, long term sustainability, viewing plants and animals as a resource, working with a site rather than dominating it. 3. Ecology - The foundation Ecology is the basis of Pc and the key concepts are: - Energy flow, energy drives our world and its life forms -Cycling -combining of energy and cycling combined into food chains -succession of plants and animals -stacking, utilizing a site, seeing the layers -limits 4. Reading a site One of the first steps in design is to collect data. For land it might be: climate, maps, plants, water, local regulations, etc. 5. Large and Small climates. This talks about micro climates and created climates. 6. Soil - A Living Organism This section could be a whole book and our knowledge base expands each day. What was presented just touched on the basics of organics. 7. The Work and Duties of Water I really enjoyed the section on water use. It is 10 pages and does a good job of pointing out how important water is and how close we are to it. Ways of using local water are shown and also ways of thinking about water. The remaining sections are: 8. Plants 9. Trees, forests 10. Design skills 11. Zone 0, the house 12. Gardens for food 13. Forests for food 14. Bees and Poultry 15. Farming 16. Creating a forest 17. Natural forests 18. Biozones 19. Aquaculture 20. Disaster protection 21. Social Permaculture Section 10 on design was very interesting for me and included a summary of design skills as: Observation, Deduction, Reading Patterns, Experience, Analysis, Mapping and overlays, zones and sectors. The role of feedback and on going education were not stressed sufficiently for my taste, but i am critical of everything <grin>. Each section is about 4-8 pages and serves as an introduction. I think this book is great for anyone who intends to study local conditions and try Pc design. For those who want a cookbook approach and easy answers it would be a mistake. The graphs and pictures make it easy to view Pc as a few techniques and miss the point. ---------- Jeff Owens ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Zone 7, http://www.teleport.com/~kowens Underground house, solar energy, reduced consumption, no TV
