The Five Precepts of Peace: Using Permaculture to Make Peace

Here I propose the five precepts of peace, being a set of commitments that each of us can make to increase our ecological sustainability and improve our quality of life. These simple agreements sum up the whole of permaculture, and provide a basis for measuring our actions: Bioregionalism: Eat local, buy local, work local, local distribution of surplus food and farm supplies; Set a limit for yourself as to how far you want your resources to come from. Pay careful attention to the embedded energy in your food and supplies, and try to embrace a bioregional ethic. Land Stewardship: Placing the needs of the land and non-human species ahead of human needs; This can be quite a challenge for our anthropocentric culture, but the truth is when we care for the Earth she will care for us. The ethic of land stewardship may seem altruistic, but is in fact the most selfish thing we can do. Voluntary Simplicity: Reduce consumption, reuse waste, give up unnecessary amenities; Consider that humans thrived on this planet for several million years before the discovery of electricity. Perhaps you don’t want to return to the dark ages, but you can surely eliminate some of the most consumptive aspects of your life, such as extra vehicles and refrigerators. Ecological Design: Use thoughtful action to mimic nature and implement solutions; Through this approach we can create functional, holistic systems to fulfill our food, energy and material needs. Community Education: Promote exponential learning through shared resources, teacher training, and community organizing. Exponential learning is the key to the spread of these ideas: I teach you something, you teach ten people, they each teach ten people, and within a few generations, we have a global culture based on ecological ethics and mutual aid.