I have always been interested in Agriculture, and Organics caught my attention years ago. So when I found Permaculture I was naturally drawn to it due to the significant aspect of conscious integrated system design. Sustainability is a concept that I kicked around Auckland University campus for three years. Now days I rather use the words ‘Systemic Health’, a term I believe has less ambiguity than ‘Sustainability’.

 Although I was interested in the classic Permaculture techniques and specializations I have always been captured by Permaculture Design Principles and Methodology, what they really mean and how to use them in solving design challenges.

During my Cert. 4 training these principles were pulled apart and examined with key ideas expanded on greatly. In particular classes and discussions focusing on ‘Integral Systems’ theory and ‘Pattern Dynamics’ were the chief concepts in the development of my understanding of Permaculture and Sustainabiliy. These concepts are part of Permaculture but in this course they were given much greater attention and examined and discussed more extensively with reference to other people who have put forward or used Pattern languages and integral frameworks. In light of these concepts I feel I have a much clearer understanding of what Permaculture and Sustainability are and how to use these concepts, how to choose the most appropriate techniques for a Permaculture or design, modify, adapt new techniques that are more appropriate to the specific context.

While studying at the Permaforest Trust the importance of Context has been a reoccurring concept that has shed new light and vision on Permaculture and sustainability for me. Context; the vital framework from which a system can be observed, designed and managed in order to encourage health in the whole ecosystem of which humans play a large role.

I now see Permaculture as a set of principles and ethics that with a little lateral thinking can be applied to a vast array of systems that have had a line drawn around them on paper but in reality social, economic and environmental subsystems are just interdependent parts of a larger system. The way I think about and approach a design challenge has been evolved significantly by Integral Systems theory and Pattern Dynamics, concepts that are coming to the forefront of second generation Permaculture and Sustainability.