Permaculture Principle #10

Use and Value Diversity

In Nature, diversity is expressed in ecosystems: a collection of different species that exist cooperatively to create stability in the natural system.

Permaculture works to systematise diversity and thereby promotes cooperative, complex relationships between the diverse parts that constitute a system.

In contrast to monocultures which degrade in integrity over time, if you leave a stable biodiverse polyculture on its own, it will increase in stability and resilience as the number of harmonious relationships between the different species increases as time passes.

Rather than many and diverse parts resulting in chaos, nature shows us that the resulting order that emerges from the individual parts and their relationships to each other is exponentially less energy intensive to maintain.

“…we should not confuse order with tidiness.... Creativity is seldom tidy. Perhaps we could say that tidiness is something that happens when compulsive activity replaces thoughtful creativity.” ~ Bill Mollison