Bernard Alonso - Human Permaculture

Praise for

Human Permaculture

In the times of rapid and deep transition that we find ourselves in, we need the right tools at our disposal. We need to be imaginative, playful, effective, resourceful, and we need to roll our sleeves up and do stuff. But at the same time, we need templates, principles, and a lens through which to see the possibilities before us. Human Permaculture provides that a distilled crash course in how to think in a way the future needs us to think. Vital reading.

Rob Hopkins, author, From What Is to What If,
founder, Transition movement

I am encouraged that so many permaculture practitioners, designers, teachers and activists are finding their voices in writing about permaculture and I am sure your book will make a contribution in that process and I personally wish you well with the book.

Dr. David Holmgren, Permaculture co-originator

By closely examining the second directive of permaculture people care this beautifully illustrated book applies design science to one of the oldest questions ever asked: what makes a good life? The younger you are, the sooner you need to read this.

Albert Bates, author, The Biochar Solution and Burn

This is an outstanding book bringing together the theory and the practice of the most enlightened way of growing food, harvesting energy, and living in harmony with our precious planet Earth. It is an inspirational, as well as a practical, book. It celebrates the soil, nourishes the soul, and sustains the human spirit.

Satish Kumar, author, Elegant Simplicity, founder, Schumacher College

This book could not have arrived at a more crucial time. The coronavirus pandemic has upended our food system, requiring us to rethink it quickly and in broad strokes. The principles for doing so, to the benefit of people and planet, are all contained herein. Accessible, well-grounded, and profound.

Richard Heinberg, author, The End of Growth,
Senior Fellow, Post Carbon Institute

We know how to bring massive change for the better to the whole world and its environments. It is the human element that blocks that progress. This book helps unlock that block so we can bring meaningful change for the good of this planet.

Stefan Sobkowiak, MSc, MLA,
teacher, presenter, and orchardist at Miracle Farms,
featured in the film The Permaculture Orchard: Beyond Organic

Human Permaculture expands the goal of creating self-sustaining agricultural systems towards the vision of creating regenerative human ecosystems. This book serves as a guide for anyone wanting to create a more sustainable lifestyle for their family, business, or community. Rather than working alone on self-sufficient homesteads, Human Permaculture outlines tools to bring people together towards collaborative solutions for all.

Thomas J. Elpel, author, Botany in a Day and Green Prosperity

Human Permaculture invites each of us to deliberately design our lives so we can more fully realize our own potential, while also contributing to greater collective abundance, and working with all other life forms to co-create regenerative ecosystems. People who understand the importance of the human angle and have been thirsting for more works along the lines of Looby Macnamaras People & Permaculture, will find Human Permaculture a welcome addition to their bookshelves.

Jenny Nazak, author, Deep Green, blogger, www.jennynazak.com

Human Permaculture opens up our minds with humour, well researched facts, fascinating examples of real-life permaculture projects, and interesting graphics to the idea that designing an environmentally respectful life is within our reach. We find out that permaculture is not just practised in agriculture, but that it is a set of life-principles we can learn to use, in order to become artisans of change, for the recovery of the planet. I highly recommend this book.

Elizabeth Serreau, head librarian, French American International School

Human Permaculture is the book that so many have been waiting for. It widens the territory of permaculture to more fully include the need to not just redesign what we manage in the environment but, more foundationally, ourselves and our ways of understanding and living in the world. This is an essential resource for all who want to make a meaningful, equitable, nurturing, and ecologically sustainable contributions to our shared future.

Stuart B Hill, Emeritus Professor, Western Sydney University, NSW, Australia

At last! This book establishes the design of the individual and collective human system firmly as a priority in permaculture! It also shows us many examples of how humans can learn and have learned from natures elegant solutions to systemic problems.

Jessie Darlington, permaculture trainer and designer

A must read for anyone exploring permaculture, looking to reconnect with their deep relationship with Mother Nature, and how we can transform ourselves and society with Her benevolence.

Krishna McKenzie, Solitude Farm, www.krishnamckenzie.com

I loved the part on diet, especially the summary of the many adaptations that other species have made, as guidance for our own dietary choices. This is vital information for our species, we now have such choice of what to eat that we seem to be lost at best, or worse still, engaged in our own destruction, via soil loss biodiversity loss and pollution of air, land, and sea.

Andrew Darlington, permaculture trainer and designer

This is the book for people who want to apply permaculture in their personal lives. It will join the canon of social permaculture together with Looby MacNamaras People & Permaculture.

Rosemary Morrow, Blue Mountains Permaculture Institute, author,
Earth Users Guide to Permaculture

Human
Permaculture

Life Design for Resilient Living

Bernard Alonso and Ccile Guiochon

Illustrated by Marie Quilvin
English translation by Scott Irving

Copyright 2020 by Bernard Alonso, Ccile Guiochon.
All rights reserved.

Les ditions cosocit, 2016, from the original French edition, Permaculture Humaine: Des cls pour vivre la Transition. www.ecosociete.org Cover design by Diane McIntosh. Cover image Marie Quilvin.

English translation by Scott Irving.

Illustrations by Marie Quilvin.

Printed in Canada. First printing June, 2020.

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of Human Permaculture should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below. To order directly from the publishers, please call toll-free (North America) 1-800-567-6772, or order online at newsociety.com

Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:
New Society Publishers
P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada
(250) 247-9737

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Title: Human permaculture : life design for resilient living / Bernard Alonso and Ccile Guiochon ; illustrated by Marie Quilvin.

Other titles: Permaculture humaine. English

Names: Alonso, Bernard, 1953- author. | Guiochon, Ccile, author. | Quilvin, Marie, illustrator. | Irving, Scott, 1986- translator.

Description: Translation of: Permaculture humaine. | Translated by Scott Irving. | Includes bibliographical references and index.