Zone vs. Zone

I don't know if this is anything that people get bugged by....but, there are two types of zones for permies. There is your ecological zone as described by your friends at USDA. And your zone as described by Mollison. I think that it may be worth while to explore the possibility of renaming one or the other to be more unique so that both could be use in the same sentence and not get confused. It's semantic of course, as all language discussion is, but worth thinking about.

Is this a point of contention for anybody else or is it just me?

That bothers me much less than the way Permaculture uses the word "sectors". The two zones are easily distinguished in conversation by useage and or context and both are logically zones.

Sectors bugs me because the way the term is used in Permaculture, they are talking about Vectors. Somebody chose the wrong word back at the beginning and it has been imbedded ever since.

How is sectors used in permaculture? (I'm sorry, I haven't read all the books)

The use zones for two different meanings was never very confusing for me, perhaps because I learned about both in very clear introductory chapters of books or something. I have only very rarely seen the word zone seem ambiguous or cause confusion on this site, even though most people use it for their climate zone here.

Rebecca, sectors is used to describe things that come onto the site from outside the site. The area your prevailing winds come from, for example; the direction you might expect fire to come from is another; vehicle traffic onto your property; noise from a highway or train track.

That is my understanding. If anyone more experienced wants to share another perspective I would love to read it.

I think that the USDA should change their wording... :