Permaculture Principle #8: 'Integrate Rather Than Segregate'

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." - Aristotle

Integrate Rather than Segregate

You know how we tend to try and make things simple by keeping different components apart? Like having separate sections for vegetables, flowers, and herbs in the garden?

That segregation approach does make things easier to manage in some ways, but it also creates inefficiencies and wastes potential connections.

Nature doesn't really work like that though. In a forest ecosystem, you've got the trees providing shade, moisture, and nutrients for all the understory plants and critters. The animals spread seeds, pollinate, prune stuff back.

Everything is totally interconnected in complex relationships. That integration allows the whole system to function at a higher level.

This principle says we need to start designing human systems - like gardens, communities, businesses - with that same mindset.

Instead of just trying to minimize competition, we should be intentionally engineering cooperative, symbiotic relationships between elements.

That could mean combining edible plants with insect-attracting flowers or having gray water from houses irrigate gardens. The possibilities are endless once you start looking for those connections.

It's definitely more complex than just simplifying and segregating, but that complexity is what creates efficiencies, resilience, and regenerative cycles.

Integration in Nature

So you know about photosynthesis where plants use sunlight to make their food, right?

Well, the waste product from that process is oxygen, which is exactly what we need to breathe out carbon dioxide - which the plants then use again!

In forests, the trees basically fertilize the rivers. They drop nutrient-rich leaves and matter into the water.

Then the fish that swim upstream from the ocean bring those ocean nutrients back into the forest when animals like birds eat them.

Flowers produce nectar, which is a sweet liquid that contains sugars and other nutrients.

This nectar is extremely attractive to many insects. However, the flowers don't just give away this nectar for free - there's a cooperative exchange happening.

As the insects feed on the nectar, they get dusted with pollen from the flower's male reproductive parts (stamens).

Then when that insect moves to the next flower to feed on more nectar, some of that pollen rubs off onto the new flower's female reproductive part (stigma).

Without this integrated partnership, many flowering plant species would struggle to reproduce effectively, and many nectar-feeding insects wouldn't have a reliable food source.

All these integrated relationships allow for efficiently shared resources and zero waste because everything gets recycled.

In segregated, disconnected systems, you inevitably have leaks, surpluses, and shortages. But in an integrated web, everything gets continuously looped around.

It makes you rethink how we've designed our human systems to be so disconnected and segregated, you know? There's definitely a lot we could learn from mimicking nature's integration principles.

Integration in Design

The basic idea is that every element in a system - whether it's a plant, animal, structure, whatever - has all these different characteristics, needs, and outputs that we often overlook.

A chicken, for example, doesn't just provide eggs and meat. It also produces manure, body heat, feathers, can till soil by scratching, etc. There are all these other potential functions.

The principle says we need to do a really thorough "functional analysis" to understand all the dimensions of each element. Then we can intentionally design ways for those elements to integrate and overlap functions.

It's about creating relationships where one element's outputs feed another element's needs in an ongoing cycle. Like using chickens for pest control in the veggie garden - their need for food is met, the garden gets natural fertilizer, you get eggs, and there's no waste!

The ultimate goal is for every element to perform multiple functions, while also having redundancy where multiple elements contribute to each key function from different angles. That's what builds in resilience and efficiency.

On a bigger scale, it's about designing integrated land uses rather than segregated zones. Like not just having a veggie patch, orchard, pasture and woodlot separately, but looking for ways those elements can interconnect and support each other's needs.

The key is not getting hung up on single-purpose design, but really analyzing how we can maximize connections and relationships. It takes more work upfront, but it creates these elegantly looped systems with no wasted outputs

Patterns of Competition and Co-operation

Here's the basic idea: when a system is young, there's usually a lot of competition. It's like everyone is scrambling to get the resources they need.

You know, like in a forest after a fire, all the plants are racing to grow and grab the sunlight, nutrients, and water first.

It's a bit like when a new technology comes out, and all the companies are trying to be the first to grab a share of the market.

But as a system matures, it starts to settle down, and you see more cooperation. In a mature forest, for example, the trees and plants have found their own place, and they start helping each other out.

There might be trees that provide shade for smaller plants, and those plants might help keep the soil healthy for the trees.

It's like they're all in it together. In human societies, you can see it too. Once things are established, people or groups start working together for a common goal.

Now, there's also this thing about internalizing cooperation and externalizing competition. It's like how a family or a tight-knit community works together (internal cooperation), but they might still compete with other families or groups (external competition).

It's a pattern you see in self-organizing systems—when you get a bunch of individuals or smaller groups that come together to form a larger, more cohesive unit, they tend to cooperate more within their own group, but might compete with others outside it.

Integration in Community

See, I've come to realize that a lot of the systemic problems we face stem from this mindset of segregation and atomization in how we've designed our living situations. We've become so disconnected from each other, from food production, from managing resources directly.

The core premise is keeping things local, operating at the bioregional scale, and leveraging diversity as a resilience strategy. Not this monoculture approach of isolating single functions into disconnected zones and supply chains.

It's like a return to integrated village living, but weaponized with modern design principles and a regenerative philosophy. A way of prototyping wholly new societal operating systems, bottom-up.

Designing for Integration

One of the core concepts is "stacking functions" - basically looking at how multiple elements can be combined so that each one meets different needs of the others.

Like having chickens foraging and fertilizing within a food forest garden area. The chickens get food and shelter, the garden gets pest control and fertilizer - it's an integrated, reciprocal thing.

Another key is this idea of "relative location" - very intentionally positioning elements in specific relationships to each other so they can create beneficial connections.

Like putting a greenhouse on the sunny side of a home so it can absorb warmth from the thermal mass. Or locating animals near tree crops so they can be rotated for grazing, fertilization, etc.

Instead of just plopping elements anywhere convenient, you map out the flows and needs each one has, then nest them together accordingly in these harmonized, mutually-supportive arrangements.

"Zone and sector planning" which basically means organizing the whole system elements based on two factors - how much human observation and interaction each one needs, and how exposed or sheltered it needs to be from natural elements like wind and frost.

Conclusion

This whole "integrate rather than segregate" thing is about looking at how different parts of a system can work together instead of separating them out.

Nature is crazy efficient because everything plays a role and feeds into multiple cycles. By designing stuff like gardens, communities, and tech to be multi-purpose and complementary, we reduce waste and create resilience.

It's complex for sure, but that complexity is what allows for awesomely sustainable, thriving systems. At the end of the day, integration is just a way smarter approach than trying to isolate and control everything.

References

1. "Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability" by David Holmgren

2. "Permaculture: A Designers' Manual" by Bill Mollison

3. Picture: Honey bee - pixabay

4. Certain images in this article were created using AI.