THE PLOWBOY INTERVIEW BILL MOLLISON

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PLOWBOY: And did all your contact with the wilds have any effect on your perceptions of our modern agricultural system?

MOLLISON: Oh yes! Everything I did, either in research or in fieldwork, indicated that there was something fundamentally wrong with modern farming methods. For instance, every problem I found in commercial agribusiness was actually caused by the industry itself. Usually — when a farmer called in the CSIRO for a consultation — the results of our investigation pointed the finger straight at the grower him- or herself!

As I saw the same situation occur time and time again, I gradually came to the conclusion that most contemporary crop-raisers must be doing things the wrong way. So my last few years with the CSIRO were spent in the forest, observing the plant and animal species on location . . . and there I learned that everything in nature is self -controlled and self -balancing.

You know, a lot of modern thought suggests that the planet — as a living organismic — seeks to protect itself by rejecting any species that causes it harm. For instance, if cattle damage part of the earth, the harmed region will respond by growing thorn bushes and poisonous plants, thus rejecting the animals. Well, I think we — the members of the human race — are perilously close to being rejected by the earth in that same way . . . and quite rightly so, since we've created some terrible damage.

PLOWBOY: How did you consolidate such early observations into your theory of permaculture?

MOLLISON: Well, I guess the germ of the idea had been lurking in my subconscious mind for along time. For instance, I remember writing in a diary, many years ago, that we should be able to construct environments. But the theory didn't come to full consciousness until around 1969. I was thinking about the whole business of energy and of my opposition — as a conservationist — to strip mining, deforestation, and other forms of earth exploitation . . . and I concluded that it was time to devise a better way.

Actually, I guess it was rather a brave step to say, "Let's apply the principles of environmental science to our production systems." Up to that point, those principles had been taught as revealed knowledge . . . that is, a person would go into the forest, find relationships among the species, and formulate a principle or a law based on such observations. Then the individual had to showoff the "new" principle, so he or she would say, "Look, everybody, this is how it works."

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