The Prime Directive

No, not THAT prime directive (sorry Trekkies!). I’m referring to the Prime Directive of Permaculture, which is stated in Bill Mollison’s Permaculture Design Manual on page one as:

The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children. Make it now. (Emphasis is Mollison’s)

The prime directive advocates personal responsibility (and personal responsibility for those we bring into this world), and that all other decisions will align to this … like a compass to magnetic north. And I’ve seen this happen in my own life. Once I decided to live more sustainably (complete sustainability is a long ways off!), I almost automatically started doing many things differently:

• I started composting.


• I began avidly recycling (beyond the curbside pick-up, there is a recycling center nearby that collects much more that what can be put in the neighborhood municipal recycling bins).


• I drastically reduced packaging waste and recycling by being conscientious of my purchases.


• “Disposable” became a dirty word – as a consequence I now rarely have garbage to put out for collection.


• I vote with my dollar: if I have a choice between a less and a more sustainable option, I choose the more sustainable … even if it costs more.

Between consuming less and buying longer-lived items, I find that I’m still saving more money than in my less sustainable days.

In case you’re new to the concept, permaculture refers to the design principles developed by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s. “Permament culture” or “permament agriculture” (agriculture being a key component to our current culture) creates the contraction “permaculture.” Permanent – or in today’s lingo “sustainable” – agriculture is at the heart of the permaculture movement, but permaculture goes way beyond food production to holistic ecosystem and community design.

After the prime directive, Mollison’s design manual goes on to explain the ethics of Permaculture Design, an intriguing contrast to today's engineering mindset and highlights how context is often missing from our endeavors as human – context that requires us first to fully comprehend what our ethical values are and then to contemplate before commencing if such actions meet our own criteria of being ethical. In other words, to think not just if or how can something be done, but should it be done at all?

Permaculture has three equally important ethics: 1) Care for the Earth. 2) Care for People. 3) Reinvest the surplus to further the first two ethics – also referred to as ‘fair share,’ as it suggests that abundance is meant to be distributed. The wording and interpretation of “reinvest” varies across permaculturalists, so I have used the combination that expresses its meaning to me. However, it is the idea of “reinvesting” that is a key to one of the most important attributes of permaculture: the creation of abundance.

Before finding permaculture, my view of human interaction with nature was negative (for nature anyway … or possibly neutral for nature at best [neutral as in “take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints”]). I believed that nature in its natural state void of mankind was a kind of perfection. Permaculture radically altered my perspective. By viewing the human species as a member of the ecosystem who, like the beaver, can create things that cause change in his environment, I realized for the first time that the human species has the choice to either design for depletion or design for abundance.

We choose to invest in or design for increasing abundance … or not. We choose to create eco-friendly habitats, organic gardens that provide nourishment for wildlife as well as for people and their cultural traditions, or we can create water-consuming ecologically barren stretches of lawn. Imagine if we, as a society, take on an ethic of improving the health of the Earth’s ecosystems and of creating abundance for future generations. Although we have in recent history been able to produce an increase in abundance in food production via the so-called “green revolution” after WWII, like many other measures (including Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act) this has been a stop-gap measure at best. Habitat and species loss are as prevalent as the loss of dietary diversity and self-reliance. If GNP was a measure of our natural capital availability, how would we view waste, pollution, clear-cutting, and strip-mining regardless of legislative regulations? How would we be “investing” for the future of the country?

Which brings me back once again to third permaculture ethic: re-investing the surplus to further support a) care for the earth and b) care for people. This third ethic closes the loop – and if there’s one thing permaculture is about, it is closed loops!

In the garden, an example of a closed loop is composting – returning spent vegetation (popularly viewed as a waste product) which grew from the existing soil back to the soil to start the nutrient cycle again. In communities, it can be elders passing wisdom and skills to the next generation, either directly person-to-person through traditions and mentor/apprenticeships or in the form of information (books, videos, etc.). In the money world, it is sometimes called “redistribution of wealth.” Using the analogy of money as water, the economy can be viewed as a pond with a pump to keep the circulation going. If the pump is linear, taking the water (money) further away from the source, the pond will soon go dry and the resource dissipated. However, by closed-loop circulation, water returns to the general source and the cycle continues indefinitely. Now, I am not going to argue for or against large-scale government redistribution – although I personally believe some government actions/programs are necessary, I will say that nearly everyone agrees that it is inefficient as well often ineffective and potentially doesn’t reflect one’s personal values or priorities. Personal reinvestment (giving of your surplus), be it time or money or expertise, gives you direct control of choosing that which aligns most to your particular values or ethics. And, like a beloved plant, you must feed those things that reflect your values it if you want them to grow and bare fruit.

Creating a surplus to have for “investing” often first requires decreasing the use of that resource so that an excess is available, be it time or money or natural capital. Financial advisors ask their clients to look at their expenses to find areas (like those premium lattes) where their cash expenses don’t align to their long-term goals. By focusing on areas where they can save money without impacting the things in their life that mean the most to them (such as time with their children) a surplus can be generated. Notice the difference between increasing surplus through reduction rather than increased production, such as by taking an additional part-time job, which would take time away from the family. Often, by gaining a surplus to be invested through reduction still allows for an increase in production, but without a corresponding increase in work or time inputs.

I will end this post by returning back to the Prime Directive: taking personal responsibility for the direction of one’s life – responsibility for the waste produced in one’s life and by one’s lifestyle; responsibility for the conditions that one’s purchases creates in other countries; responsibility for the infrastructure that one’s lifestyle supports; responsibility for the conditions of the land and animals that one’s food consumption choices support. Taking personal responsibility also asks the question: What in your life are you reinvesting … and to what end?