When reading up and focusing on this principle, I found two great quotes that resonates so well with this principle: “The bigger they are, the harder they fall” and “Slow and steady wins the race”. Permaculture, and this principle in particular is all about searching for long lasting sustainable solutions, rather than finding a quick fix for our challenges.

From a Permaculture perspective, this principle is about the connections that are present in nature, and how we can improve and benefit ourselves, our animals and our plants integrating with others.

“The commonality of patterns observable in nature and society allows us to not only make sense of what we see, but to use a pattern from one context and scale, to design in another. Pattern recognition is an outcome of the application of Principle 1: Observe and interact, and is the necessary precursor to the process of design”.

The obvious and potentially easiest thing for us to adhere to this principle is to compost our food scraps through a compost bin or a worm farm. But what other ways is there for us to reduce our waste?

This is one of my absolute favorite principles, and the one I use most in my daily life and gardening. For example. I use all the cardboard I acquire from different online orders to either fill up my compost bin, or as sheet mulch when making a “no dig” garden bed. Another obvious example of this is that i reuse all my green waste (lawn clippings, plants) by composting it and making precious soil.

We often hear that we need to reduce our impact on the earth, meaning we should do less things that are harmful to our planet. When researching this topic I came across a wonderful picture with a quote that says “Increase your impact” rather than reduce.

I often look at this principle almost as a directive, to make sure my system is providing something. Rather than just having a garden, I want to have a garden that is useful to me in terms of providing food, being beautiful to look at, etc.

Catch and Store Energy is all about using and taking advantage of surplus energy, food and other recourses when they are available - to invest in systems that will sustain us in rougher times.

Fair Share is about setting limits on our behaviour, and redistribute any surplus that we are creating.

So if we as people in our community could practice similar simple ways of being kind and compassionate towards others, this will create massive ripple effects by creating new friendships, connections, and more motivated people to do good for our beautiful planet!

One of the co-founders of Permaculture, Bill Mollison, explains Earth Care as follows in his book “Introduction to Permaculture”: “Care of the earth means care of all living and nonliving things: soils, species and their varieties, atmosphere, forests, micro-habitats, animals, and waters”.

“Permaculture is a design system for resilient living and land use based on universal ethics and ecological design principles”. He evaluates further that while the primary focus of Permaculture is the redesign of gardening, farming, animal husbandry, and forestry, it can also be applied design of buildings, tools, and technology.