Permaculture Principles for beginners – No. 1
Story by Lorett a Leary, Permaculture Tasmania’s Secretary, extract from Spring 2025 newsletter
Permaculture Principle 1 is ‘Observe and Interact’
…emphasising the importance of understanding a system’s patterns and relationships before designing and implementing solutions. By observing natural ecosystems, you can gain insights to create sustainable human systems that mimic nature, leading to more informed decisions and effective course corrections through continued interaction.
What it means:
Observation is key: Take time to watch, listen, and learn from your environment and to understand how different elements interact.
Understand the context: Recognise that every solution is unique to a specific situation, and a “one-size-fits-all” approach rarely works.
Connect patterns and details: Observe the bigger patterns first (like sun movement over your garden and water flow from rain and watering) before focusing on specific details to fill in the design.
How to apply it:
Engage with your surroundings: Spend time in your garden or local environment to learn about its specific dynamics.
Understand natural cycles: Observe how sunlight moves, how water flows, and what plants and animals are present.
Learn from nature: Mimic natural processes to design human-centred systems that work with nature, not against it.
Iterate with feedback: After implementing a solution, continue to observe across your garden its effects and be prepared to adjust and improve the system based on the feedback you receive.
This underpins one of my favourite permaculture notions; work with nature, not against it. I learnt this the hard way, through trial and error rather than through observation and planning. My lack of patience used to get the better of me but now I see observing and interacting as a way of slowing down, connecting to Country and being present. A wonderful excuse to sit in the garden with a cuppa and watch the sun shine on pockets of it and cast shade on others. Not a bad way to pass some time. You may also encounter some wildlife that you didn’t know was there! Or even where that pesky, secretive chook has hidden her eggs!
