Let's live in harmony with the earth

11:06am Wednesday 14th March 2007

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THERE'S no shortage of buzz-phrases surrounding green issues - ecological, organic, sustainable, biodegradable, carbon footprints, renewable resources, to name a few. It's enough to make your head spin.

Permaculture is the latest word to come to prominence - and in many ways it is one of the most important.

"It's about finding ways to live in the future," says Graham Burnett, of Rayleigh Avenue, Westcliff, who has written and illustrated two books on the subject.

"Permaculture is about recognising the way we have consumed. It's is about taking responsibility for our actions and for our planet, then turning around our behaviour."

The idea was pioneered by two Australians in the Seventies and is now being adopted all over the world, although its principles are hardly new.

"It's about living in harmony with the earth," explains Graham.

"Climate change is happening, that's accepted now. One way or another, we are suffering from an energy descent and we're hitting the peak. We've reached the point where we're using more energy than we have."

Supporters of permaculture grow their own food, use pushbikes as their only form of transport and recycle waste.

"The despondency and hopelessness of inner city destructoculture can be replaced with a low-input, high-yielding, self-sustaining, ecologically harmonious human-scale community," suggests Graham's first book, Permaculture A Beginner's Guide.

It goes on: "This is the essence of Permaculture - literally a permanent culture'. But it is not a static culture - more and more elements and concepts can be added as time goes on: community meeting places, collectivised back gardens, grey water recycling systems, compost toilets, holistic health care centres, reed-beds, ponds, forest gardens, eco-schools, solar greenhouses etc."

Graham works with adults with learning difficulties and lives in a terraced townhouse with partner, Debby, and four children.

"When I left school I was inspired by the punk thing," he explains.

"A lot of songs were about injustice, so that made me aware of big protests. Animal rights was my background - I wanted to make a difference."

Graham spent 15 years campaigning and admits: "I got to that point where it didn't matter whether we won or lost on a particular thing.

"There would always be the next thing that came along.

"Permaculture was the big thinking switch. It enabled me to make a shift and work towards what I was in favour of, rather than always being against one thing or other."

Graham's family grows some of its own food in the garden and more on a nearby allotment.

"We try to avoid supermarkets," he adds. "If we don't grow the food, we buy it from local suppliers and at farmers' markets.

"We're vegans too. Vegans support the environment, because the argument is land grazed by animals is land which could be used for our direct consumption. If everyone was a vegan, we could feed the world on just 25 per cent of the Earth's land.

"We also try and catch as much water as we can and we don't have a car. We try and cycle everywhere, which is probably the best thing I ever did. I get everywhere a lot quicker than before and there's also the health benefits.

"I have also started to make my own furniture out of old wood. I made a basic table from off-cuts from a cherry plum tree."

In his spare time, Graham teaches permaculture to groups in Essex and London, explaining its benefits and principles.

He has just published a second book, Earth Writings, which goes into greater detail about how to live a greener life and help create a more environmentally-friendly world.

"Every journey of a thousand miles began as a few steps," Graham says, paraphrasing the old Confucian proverb.

The point is, if everyone does a bit to help, then a lot can be achieved.

Earth Writings explains things such as how to make a mulch garden, how to build your own furniture and even how to build a compost toilet.

Graham also talks about his life before taking up to permaculture, and illustrates the pages with his own drawings.

As well as being an ambassador for permaculture, Graham is the man behind Westcliff Freecycle, a system set up to encourage local people to swap unwanted items via a website, rather than throwing them away.

So how green should we all be?

Graham says: "It is possible for someone to live a totally sustainable life, but they'd have to forget having a partner, kids, or a life - there wouldn't be any time for all that!

"People shouldn't feel guilty about how much or how little they contribute. Guilt is destructive and negative and everyone can do their bit.

"Anyone can start to grow their own food with a little tub in a window box."

In Graham's case, however, permaculture has changed his life.

He says: "It has given me the confidence and self-belief to take responsibility for my own actions, rather than moaning and complaining about things I can't change."