Too often, the pastoralist blames the weeds and seeks a chemical rather than a management solution; too seldom do we find an approach combining the sensible utilisation of grasshoppers and grubs as a valuable dried-protein supplement for fish or food pellets, and a combination of soil conditioning, slashing, and de-stocking or re-seeding to restore species balance.

Few people today muck around in earth, and when on international flights, I often find I have the only decently dirty fingernails.

Once you've said to yourself, "But I'm not using my physics in my house," or "I'm not using my ecology in my garden, I've never applied it to what I do," it's like something physical moves inside your brain. Suddenly you say, "If I did apply what I know to how I live, that would be miraculous!" Then the whole thing unrolls like one great carpet. Undo one knot, and the whole thing just rolls downhill.

Compressed air can provide limitless amounts of clean energy using technology we have had for hundreds of years.

We ourselves are part of a guild of species that lie within and without our bodies. Aboriginal peoples and the Ayurvedic practitioners of ancient India have names for such guilds, or beings made up (as we are) of two or more species forming one organism. Most of nature is composed of groups of species working interdependently.

I probably lead a very spoiled life, because I travel from people interested in permaculture to people interested in permaculture. Some of them are tribal, and some of them are urban, and so on.

Most modern homes are simply uninhabitable without electricity - you couldn't flush the toilet without it. It's a huge dependency situation.