THE PLOWBOY INTERVIEW BILL MOLLISON

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Sector placement, on the other hand, governs the energies entering the system from the outside: both disruptive forces like fire or flood . . . and beneficial ones like sunlight and wind. Such factors can be either screened out or filtered into the system, according to the design. The aim is to channel external forces in such a way that they'll efficiently serve the needs of an evolved permaculture.

Now a fascinating concept comes into play here, called the "edge effect". Ecologists have long recognized that the area of intersection of two systems is a highly complex — and extremely productive — region where species from both systems can coexist comfortably . . . along with other species that are peculiar to the "edge" itself. Gross photosynthetic production is higher at the interface, and this richness of plant and animal life is very valuable to us as permaculture designers. So — when we plan the zones and sectors — we try to allow for a maximum area of interface between land and water, tree and lawn, open country and dense vegetation.

That's the basic plan. Then — having set up the zones, sectors, and interfaces — the designer tries to make the highest possible number of functional connections among the species he or she has to work with. Each plant or animal should — in itself — serve a number of functions, and it should also interact with other species in a variety of ways.

PLOWBOY: Why is the principle of multifunction so essential?

MOLLISON: Because it's part of the system's array of checks and balances. A single species can operate in an almost infinite number of ways, you see, and its yield is directly controlled by the designer's discovery of all the ways in which it can function. His or her imagination, then, can literally take the lid right off what are commonly presumed to be the maximum possible yield figures for any particular species.

Here's an example I like to use: I call it my chicken model. Take four separate elements: a hen coop, a greenhouse, a pond, and a small forest. Now you can have these on your farm . . . and place them wherever you like, in no particular relationship to each other. In that situation each one functions individually, and they all consume energy. But if you make the forest a forage range for the chickens by putting the coop in or near that forest . . . if you attach the greenhouse to the front of the chickens' shelter . . . and if you set the pond in front of the greenhouse — as illustrated in Permaculture Two — well, then you've got a nice system of interrelating functions, the familiar checks and balances.

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