America: Where Best for Permaculture?

So, I'm well aware that permaculture can be used almost anywhere, and that "best" is a relative term. But there are "ecologically sensitive areas" and areas that are less so...

Greening the Desert obviously has a big pull, because deserts are an obvious problem. Would it be wiser/less work/more cost effective on a national scale to work from the forests out into the desert or from the center of the desert out?

What about riparian and watershed areas? Chesapeake is in trouble, Mississippi has a dead zone... Permaculture can make great contributions to water quality and availability too.


Speaking of water availability, what about the water sources for the colorado river?


Obviously land cost, state issues and more arise, but if the United States was benevolent dictatorship run by Salatin, Wheaton, Holzer, Lawton, Mollison and Shepard... Where would we start, where do the "first dollars go" from an ecosystem wide look at the United States?

Apologies if there's a better thread for this, I did search and nothing quiet fit, but it's an odd search to come up with good terms for on a board like this one.

I would put California's central valley on the list.

How about just lift a line from Obama's energy policy and say "all of the above"?

From the mountaintops that have been removed in West Virginia to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico to the drought in the western states, there's no "best" place for permaculture, because all those places need to start applying sustainable principles. Permaculture needs to be more than small oases scattered throughout the land, it needs to become a fundamental approach to American life, like watching football, eating at McDonalds, and going to the mall.

While 2013 was a bumper crop year for American industrial agriculture, I have a feeling that the next drought in the midwest is going to severely test the system. And once people find they cannot rely on the industrial system to provide their food, you won't be able to print books on permaculture fast enough to keep up with the demand. Everyone and every place will be into it.

Alaska is a great place to get started and learn your skills. Cheap land in many places.

I agree with John E. Permaculture and peak oil don't mean everything has to be done within 100 miles square. Every place will have an advantage and be able to do something well. Central Canada and Northern Plains grow wheat with higher protein. Pacific Northwest and Great Smoky Mountains grow fungi more easily. Pomegranates, lemons, and cactus grow great in the SW. Vegetables grow more easily in the east due to heat all night and rain in summer. Fruit grows more easily in the west due to dry summers and less disease pressure.

We can grow all we need where we live, but we can trade for other things. Better to trade Eastern ORegon to WEstern ORegon than S. Africa to Western Oregon.

WE all have advantages. LEt's share them.

Another way of saying this is that in some places, homesteading looks easier, but in others it might help our country more to get people interested, even if it's not easier there.
JOhn S
PDX OR

all those places need to start applying sustainable principles

Sure, but dropping trees in an old growth forest, to setup an orchard would be a less good idea. I know that's not a sustainable principle.... But

I'm saying there are square miles here and there that are "Good".


There are also places you start on any project, so I don't want to be disparaging, but I want to avoid "Cheering" for permaculture and sustainability. I want to talk about what we can do to have the most impact using the concepts from permaculture.

For example, water. Many designs start with the movement and storage of water, and some idea of what happens to its quality. So, on a country wide scale, would we start with the country's water, and from the bottom or from the top, or just from the most problematic parts of discharge.

"Everywhere" may be true, but it's not great for direction. Some trees should be preserved, some can be cut for timber uses, and we need to figure out which is which to some extent. So, what's the greatest abuse of the land?

California's Central Valley, and Removed Mountaintops in WV make the list. Thoughts on why? I assume shortage, and contamination in that order, but feel free to expound on what you think the specific site related issues are there, and the principles of permaculture that would help as oppossed to other "more sustainable than agro industrial practices" like organic, or silvopasture, or just exclusion from use.

Central Valley

On more than one occasion, the California Supreme Court has noted that “[t]he scope and technical complexity of issues concerning water resource management are unequalled by virtually any other type of activity presented to the courts."[25][26] An example of this complexity is demonstrated in the case of National Audubon Society v. Superior Court.


Legally complicated place to start but certainly on with Water supply issues.