Published on March 14th, 2012 | by Lynn Fang

Open Source Permaculture: Bringing Permaculture to Everyone

Imagine being able to access a wealth of free resources teaching you how to enhance the sustainability of your home or land. You could ask any question you have, and you would receive answers written by experienced Permaculturists. With access to a library of free ebooks on everything from Natural Farming to Urban Permaculture, anyone around the world could teach themselves how to grow food using the least resources (water, fertilizer, labor), design buildings and landscapes integrated into the local ecosystem, or start their own rainwater harvesting systems. Anyone (including you!) could learn how to grow a backyard permaculture garden, just as beautiful as the picture above shows.

Sophia Novak is a documentary film student who wants to give everyone the opportunity to learn about Permaculture, a method of sustainable farming and landscape design based on ecological principles, no matter who they are or where they’re from. So she’s created a crowdfunding campaign, to support the expansion of Open Source Permaculture.

The premise of this campaign is the creation of a free Urban Permaculture eBook, a Permaculture Q&A website and Wiki, granting easier access to information and resources for those looking to create their own projects on a small budget.

Permaculture is a promising path to developing sustainable living ecosystems. It is founded on a system of ethics, emphasizing the importance of shared values among people in a community. Its ethics embrace care for the Earth, care for the people, and sharing the collective fruits of labor. It supports mindful use of technology, and its ethics and principles can be applied to non-physical systems such as social structures and business concepts. As a gardening method, permaculture can also be called ‘natural farming’, as its techniques seek to emulate nature.

With 7 billion human beings on the planet, people are the number one urban resource. That means it’s really a smart idea to bring Permaculture to the city, where more people can take action and work together to build a more sustainable and resilient future. More permaculture design courses are being taught in urban settings these days, adapting the course content to include topics on ecological landscape architecture, such as green roofs, rain gardens, and other innovations that integrate into the city landscape.

Sophia Novak is the force behind the Permaculture Media Blog, an extensive online resource of free Permaculture guides and ebooks, and a course directory across the globe.

Help make Open Source Permaculture a reality, and give the gift of Permaculture to everyone!

Your contribution will receive a thank-you reward listed on their site. A $25 donation gets you a free pre-release version of the Urban Permaculture Guide eBook! Other potential rewards include a handmade natural bag with ornaments, and a tree planted on the The Wolf Private Natural Reserve in Slovakia.