APPLYING PERMACULTURE PRINCIPLES & ETHICS

Overview The aim of this section is to use co-founder of permaculture, David Holmgrens developed principles of permaculture as an exercise to evaluate how we can apply these strategies to campaigning & resistance work. Key resources used include David Holmgrens Book, Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability. successful (and unsuccessful) groups and movements - ultimately ensuring lessons have been learnt and that people are re-designing their approaches as a result.

In relationship to community organising, there are also clear entropic systems in society e.g. poverty, wasting talent, loosing social and economic resources to the few, wage slavery and so forth that permaculture practitioners can recognise and seek to remediate through effective design.

When people think a group or movement is being effective aka obtaining a yield, these systems will spread (radical analysis may add that ineffective systems may also spread when perceived as being effective, without actually obtaining necessary yields), therefore how we obtain a yield is important. At the beginning of the campaign design process it may be worth deciding as a group what a yield is to the group and how it can be measured.

Catch & Store Energy

The proverb make hay while the sun shines reminds us that we have limited time to catch & store energy before seasonal or episodic abundance dissipates (Holmgren). This could also be translated to resistance work. We often have little time to get infrastructure in place, particularly when building defensive campaigns and so making the most of energy & resources while we have them is really important. We may have short time frames in which to act in time, or have sudden abundance (like a large group of people available for an action) and therefore need to capitalise on these opportunities. For anyone who has been involved in high-pressured campaigns or social movements, there are clear cyclical energy highs and lows. How we catch energy in the sense of how we save energy in our organising approaches depends on how strategic we are e.g. how effective our design and implemented system is. Being strategic means we can save wasted time and energy e.g. knowing what is effective in achieving our aims can reduce energy expenditure in certain areas and save it for other areas of work. Catch & store energy also relates to personal energy and burnout for individuals within campaigns and movements. The infamous 80/20 rule could be applied - what do we do thats most effective with our lives or within a movement context? Is it the scientific research or the weekly street stalls? The 80/20 rule implies that 20% of our effort tends to lead to 80% of our results. It is an interesting analysis. Organisers can also recognise flows of energy moving through our systems that we can capture - for example people, who could be valued and become very useful if recognised, donations, contacts and support for example. Catch and store solidarity may be a better phrase!

Observe & Interact

Observation before action is the main premise. Campaign groups are incredibly action-orientated and therefore this principle plays a role in reminding groups about the need for observation before careful interaction - hopefully encouraging more time spent on deeper design thinking around campaigns strategies before diving into action - to save time, wasted energy and even potential harm. This principle can be integrated into every aspect of campaigning and resistance work. For example: *Outreach - who are we trying to reach or influence? We need to become familiar with the culture of our target groups, whether thats conservative local councillors or young people, taking time to observe will impact on our campaign design decisions. *Strategy - observing accurately who our target is, that is which company, institution or individual powerholders are in the position to meet demands of the campaign. *Group systems - we also need to observe power relationships in our own group systems, for example are we perpetuating oppressive practices e.g. racism, sexism, gender imbalances and so forth. How well are we functioning as a group? Through use of careful observation & thoughtful interaction we can make more effective use of human capabilities and hopefully function better. *Learning - This principle could also be seen as part of the action learning cycle, for example taking time in campaigns for reading, critique, analysis, observing

Obtain a Yield

This is a clear one - be effective! Obtaining a yield means getting results, and if we are not obtaining yields, why are we investing energy and how can we re-design to ensure we do? David Holmgren emphasises that we should design to provide for self-reliance at all levels. How is our organising working for self reliance? Even when doing defensive work (such as campaigns against fracking) how are we working for alternatives that build self reliance and community autonomy? In the book Winds from Below. Radical community organising to make a revolution possible, by the Team Colours Collective, the emphasis is on building movements that are self-reproducing. This is not only a political project, this is a project for existence How can we use resistance work to support existence? In the fracking campaign, functions have been stacked so that the campaign also promotes positive energy solutions that can genuinely meet community needs for example. David Holmgren also highlights that, Systems that most effectively obtain a yield, and use it most effectively to meet the needs of survival, tend to prevail over alternatives Ultimately, successful systems spread. Ever wondered why groups that are super active (even if being perceived so) explode and spread e.g. occupy, the transition movement, breeder campaigns in the animal rights movement in the early nineties.

Apply self-regulation & Accept Feedback

If there is one thing campaigns and movements should generally be aware of, its adapting to feedback - this tends to be a constant process whether its feedback from the general public, internal feedback, police and state repression, media coverage - all of these are feedback measures. However accepting feedback and using it as a tool for becoming more effective may not always be consciously practiced. This principle highlights the need for campaigns and movements to get into the habit of regularly reviewing our progress and strategic organisational processes. This is inherent to the design cycle e.g. evaluating biweekly or monthly can be effective. On a personal level and people care point of view, this can also be about being aware of burn out and accepting our bodies feedback when what we are engaged in is becoming unhealthy or harmful to ourselves. Being welcome to feedback - from others, from people within groups, recognising ideas of people newly involved are all important, how we remain open to feedback can be a key factor in growth or stagnation in strategy. On a movement level feedback can very seriously be about government repression, having this awareness at the start of campaign about what feedback could be likely and how we can be resilient in the face of it would be a very practical application of this principle.

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APPLYING PERMACULTURE PRINCIPLES & ETHICS

Apply self-regulation & Accept Feedback continued
By thinking about feedback from targets we can be more adequately prepared, what are we challenging? What power or influence to the people we oppose have e.g. mining companies. Repression of effective movements is never a surprise - we can design for this getting solid repression, self-care and prisoner support infrastructure in place. In terms of creating self-regulating systems, in groups we can design our systems to reduce the work involved in corrective management e.g. having adaptable leaflet templates, good record keeping systems, functional administration and so forth. This principle also emphasises the need need to increase self reliance of all players to make a more self reliant system e.g. having effective local groups all over the place rather than just a strong central one. This is one of the reasons investing in local group infrastructure can be so effective. is often the key limiting factor. Grants are generally a non-renewable source of income, usually one-off or short term, whereas building your movement or supporter base is hopefully renewable! The parable of let nature take its course as attributed to this principle by David Holmgrn may also bring humbling realisations and re-emphasise that total control of nature is not possible or desirable, neither is total control of movements - they are systems with their own unintended effects.

What are we wasting within our cultures and movements? Where is the wasted potential or under-utilised groups of people? Another proverb of this principle is a stitch in time saves nine - how can we intervene before its too late? In resistance and community organising work the stitch is what is often most effective what can we do that really saves more spirals of erosion? On a smaller level than this, a stitch in time may mean spending the time and energy sorting out internal conflicts & strategy so that we can effectively save time and energy being lost e.g. preventing burn out or group dispersal through effective dialogue & facilitation.

approaches e.g. in a super conservative area, pitching a radical anarchist organisation may not be as skilful as starting a local green group, which then builds radicalism. By looking at all the local patterns we can more skilfully use place elements to create workable systems. Recognising patterns is also a core part of anti-oppression work - unlearning oppressive attitudes inherited from growing up in a matrix of patriarchical oppressions (sexism, racism, speciesm and so forth). Recognising patterns is also fundamentally about acknowledging relationships. We can build our collectivity on co-operative and symbiotic relationships.

Produce no waste
Waste could mean several things in respect to resistance organising. Waste can mean being ineffective. How are we wasting time/energy/ money? Waste could be anything from money and donations to actual materials we use to organise e.g. large print runs of leaflets that soon go out of date. Burnout of individuals also involves producing waste - loosing valuable people and their inputs. Waste could be seen as pollution, which in this case may be causing harm, what is harmful and what is not is obviously contentious. Waste can also be about wasting time on ineffective or unproductive projects (because our funders dictate them and so forth) or because cultural pressures disallow feedback to say this isnt working e.g. this is how its always been done. Another aspect of this principle is seeing wastes as resources e.g. mass unemployment could lead to unprecedented working class resistance, something as awful as fracking may threaten our landbases but may also trigger a widespread revival of energy/ climate change concern and ecological resistance. How we turn problems into solutions will be the down to the skills of community organisers and permaculture practitioners.

Integrate rather than segregate Design from patterns to details

This principle may be about looking at the bigger picture in all of our settings. We can bring analysis and awareness of wider political patterns on the macro level to the micro level, whether that is talking about food sovereignty in a local community garden or looking at extreme energy in a local campaign against fracking. This principle can also act as a way of evaluating our projects and placing them in this bigger picture e.g. Where do we fit in a wider context? What is the pattern of our movements? Are we being effective? In comparison to the many group meetings that focus on the details of projects often without zooming out. When we think about patterns its also useful to think of bioregional and demographic-specific This principle highlights that connections between elements are just as important as the elements themselves. In relationship to organising, this may show that its the relationships between groups and people that generate the real yields. Radical community organising is based on relationships and recognising their importance. Another part of this principle is that each element in a system should perform many functions and that each important function should be supported by many elements. In social movements this may mean recognising diversity and that we need a spectrum of groups to achieve each goal. Having single national campaigns for example is not the most resilience model, leading to vulnerability to repression. I see this principle also as the one emphasising mutual aid, as a foundation of anarchism as in our ecosystems cooperative and symbiotic relationships are linked to ecosystem health.

Use & Value Renewable Resources & Services

In jujitsu, opponents power is used against them. While this may seem different to using solar power, it is actually a simple principle - we are being strategic with our energy use. By using the power holders power against them we are effectively being energy efficient! Minimum input for maximum output. Humans are essentially renewable resources - the energy drivers behind campaigns and movements they should be honoured and supported. Non renewable organising is when we take and take and take, treating people and their time like they are dispensable. In terms of economic resources of groups and movements, this can be one element that lacks resilience. For example the not for profit industrial complex used to describe the myriad of not-for-profits, that have their advantages and disadvantages, funding

Bill Mollison defined a pollutant as an output of any system component that is not being used productively by any other component of the system.

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APPLYING PERMACULTURE PRINCIPLES & ETHICS

Recognising lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/ transsexual and queer struggle is also a part of people care and as such discrimination or violence needs to be challenged. In designing systems, whether they are small community gardens or major international networks, recognising diversity at every stage should be an explicit part of the design process. conserved but the expansion of these aspects can increase system productivity & stability. Therefore by optimising our edges - creating more diverse, accessible movements we can create the healthy communities we need in working for social change. However we do not need to sacrifice our radical politics or principles, as Holgrem highlights, the most common, obvious and popular is not necessarily the most significant or influential. We need to push our own edges and use the edge effect to achieve liberation.

Use Small & Slow Solutions

David Holmgren describes the key part of this principle as the benefit of systems performing at a small scale that is practical and energy efficient for that function. Scale and resistance is a key point of leverage. Despite the global reach of capitalism and industrial civilisation, our points of intervention on a global stage are limited unless we want to work in lobbying frameworks at an international level (which evidence shows is generally ineffective). Therefore looking at where we can use our power is important, and for many this means working on a more local or bioregional scale as part of a bigger constellation. Small and slow solution also implies attention to speed - of observation, design implementation, decision making and more. For example, there is sometimes the necessity to make fast decisions, however by commiting to talking through group options at a slower pace we may make better decisions. This principle also triggers us to question scale and the often unrecognised disadvantages of size and excessive growth, for example recieving feedback and loosing resilience. Therefore when we design organisations working for social change it is worth thinking about scale and our own limits to growth. The common story of the tortoise and the hare can show that slow and steady wins the race - we need to design projects, organisations and movements to grow and change at a pace we can keep a handle on.

Use & Value Diversity

For many involved in resistance work, this principle could be the most beneficial in helping placate that only one solution mindset. Seeing diversity as a strength suddenly makes movements for social justice and ecological regeneration seem really quite resilient. Strategic movements need diverse organisations, a diversity of actions and approaches, whether its direct action or letter writing. We can all occupy niches of a functional movement ecosystem. Part of this is also recognising the personal is the political, raising children, growing, farming and so forth are all exercises in politics and we need this diversity to function well! This principle can also invite us to commit to working with others better, whether its other movements or diversifying our own movements. Anarchists need to build relationships with non-radicals for example and we all need to avoid the ghettoisation of radical ideas into subcultures. Valuing diversity also means adopting diverse approaches when working with different groups of people, and framing issues differently for different audiences. The one size fits all is never used by corporate marketers, why should we only stay with one approach? Diversity is also clearly about actual diversity in our human cultures, about embracing multiculturalism and resisting fascism or nationalist tendencies. We can resist the dominant paradigms of racism, sexism, homophobia, able-bodiedness and so forth.

Use Edges & Value the Marginal

In land-based systems, the primary edge that we honour in permaculture is the soil - it is the foundation of ecosystem health. What is the soil of our social movements? Of our cultures of resistance? I personally believe that relationships are the foundation and just like soil they need nourishing and protecting from erosion. Therefore this principle highlights to me the importance of interpersonal relationships, group structure and processes. It is also about accessibility and valuing the marginal, which means looking at the mainstreams and margins in our groups and ensuring that privelege is not just perpetuated, so looking at ethnicity, class, sexual identity, gender and so forth. Abundance in ecosystems is often where to systems meet, and therefore working together in more diverse groups and networks will most likely bring benefits. David Holmgren also emphases that the marginal and invisible aspects of any system should not only be recognised and

Creatively Use & Respond to Change

David Holmgren explains this principle as designing to make use of change in a deliberate and cooperative way. I think we need to start using change to our advantage more, designing for it more explicitly, recognising groups are temporary, movements, tactics and everything else change, and so do we as individuals. To turn this into an advantage we can design for succession and think long term ahead. Its also important to recognise what is beyond our control and influence in terms of system behaviour and what we have to creatively respond and adapt to. This principle also reminds me of the role of pioneer plants, and how in working for radical social change we need pioneer people too people with radical ideas, creativity and new thinking. They can create the conditions for others to follow and place their existince in a longer timeframe of the longterm work back to ecosystem health.

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