That's a question we constantly find ourselves challenged to answer. Permaculture could have many manifestations and its applications vary from a small backyard vegetable garden to a self-reliant and climate change adaptive community. Permaculture could be about: 

 

• Regenerating degraded land and reintroducing lost biodiversity

• Producing high-nutrient organic food while enhancing soil fertility

• Creating water, energy and food self-reliant communities

• Designing and operating a resilient business that profits while solving environmental challenges

 

It’s about all these and many more…

 

                     Permaculture is a system of designing and creating thriving ecosystems to live in. 

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Environmental challenges today are daunting and the solutions to them many times seem impossible and futile. Permaculture gives us the hope and tools to prove that the reversal and regeneration of degenerated living ecosystems is possible. Architect William Mc Donough and chemist Michael Braungart once said that “Pollution is a symbol of design failure” and we couldn't agree more. As long as non-renewable sources are considered our primal choices of water, energy and building resources and a degenerative method of thinking and acting is employed, there’s a need for permaculture design. 

In an era when:

 

• Conventional chemical agriculture is responsible for 40% of the greenhouse gas emissions

• We lose soil 40 times faster than it can be replenished

• The loss of nutrients in our soil costs us 20 billion a year

• We are depleting our water reservoirs faster than we can replenish them (1) while 85% of the water consumed today is used up by agriculture 

• The planet’s mean temperature is expected to rise 1.5-2°C in the next 30 years (2) and by 2100 there is a 93% chance that the planet will be 4°C warmer - which means that the planet may only be survivable by small, resilient and indigenous groups of people (3)

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...we decided that we did not want to be part of the problem any more.

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With our work and living example we choose to be part of the solution. 

Permaculture offers resilient solutions for households, school vegetable gardens, agricultural systems, communities and businesses. It requires extensive data collection and processing and the incorporation of an innovative and regenerative process of thinking in order to offer high-yielding solutions, time and site relevant to each case. What is unique about the permaculture system of design is that it combines the traditional wisdom of generations that lived for centuries with respect to nature, alongside appropriate contemporary scientific innovation and knowledge. Permaculture is not a single discipline but rather the synthesis of many:

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regenerative organic agriculture

agroforestry

integrated soil and water management

applied ecology

sustainable architecture and

sustainable community development

Find out more about how we, at Permaculture Designs Cyprus, can help you transform your life into a more resilient one!

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(1) Cyprus General Controller Report on Water, 2015
(2) Reg. Environ Change (2011), Vol. 11 (3), P. Hadjinicolaou, C. Giannakopoulos, C. Zerefos, M. A. Lange, S. Pashiardis, J. Lelieveld
(3) Four Degrees Beyond International Climate Conference in Oxford

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