Permaculture: A Designers' Manual

Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of a stable social order. Permaculture design is a system of assembling conceptual, material, and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all its forms. The philosophy behind permaculture is one of working with, rather than against, nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless action; of looking at systems in all their functions rather than asking only one yield of them; and of allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolutions.

• By Bill Mollison - Introduction To Permaculture (2nd Revised edition) (5.2.2002)
• Introduction to Permaculture
• Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd Edition
• Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: A Practical Guide to Small-Scale, Integrative Farming and Gardening
• Permaculture Design: A Step-by-Step Guide
• The Resilient Farm and Homestead: An Innovative Permaculture and Whole Systems Design Approach
• The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming (New York Review Books Classics)
• Restoration Agriculture
• The Permaculture Earthworks Handbook: How to Design and Build Swales, Dams, Ponds, and other Water Harvesting Systems
• Practical Permaculture: for Home Landscapes, Your Community, and the Whole Earth