Tao Orion is a permaculture designer, teacher, homesteader, and
mother living in the southern Willamette Valley of Oregon. She
teaches permaculture design at Oregon State University and at
Aprovecho, a 40-acre nonprofit sustainable-living educational
organization. Tao consults on holistic farm, forest, and
restoration planning through Resilience Permaculture Design, LLC.
She holds a degree in agroecology and sustainable agriculture from
UC Santa Cruz, and her interest in restoration was piqued when
studying botany, wildcrafting, and herbalism at the Columbines
School of Botanical Studies in Eugene, Oregon. She has a keen
interest in integrating the disciplines of organic agriculture,
sustainable land-use planning, ethnobotany, and ecosystem
restoration in order to create beneficial social, economic, and
ecological outcomes. When she is not writing, she is busy keeping
up with her toddler and wrangling a diverse array of plants and
animals on her 6.5-acre homestead, Viriditas Farm.
David Holmgren is best known as the co-originator with Bill
Mollison of the permaculture concept following the publication of
Permaculture One in 1978. Since then he has written several more
books, developed three properties using permaculture principles,
conducted workshops and courses in Australia, New Zealand, Europe
and Japan. Within the growing and international permaculture
movement, David is respected for his commitment to presenting
permaculture ideas through practical projects and teaching by
personal example, that a sustainable lifestyle is a realistic,
attractive and powerful alternative to dependent consumerism. As
well as constant involvement in the practical side of permaculture,
David is passionate about the philosophical and conceptual
foundations for sustainability, which he explored in Future
Scenarios: How Communities Can Adapt to Peak Oil and Climate
Change (2009), and Permaculture: Principles and Pathways
Beyond Sustainability (2003). With an increasingly high profile as
a public speaker, David Holmgren provides leadership with his
refreshing and unorthodox approach to the environmental issues of
our time.
David lives with his partner Su Dennett and their son Oliver at
"Melliodora", a one-hectare permaculture demonstration site at
Hepburn Springs, Central Victoria, Australia. Visit his web site at
www.holmgren.com.au.
Choice- "Emphasizing a holistic use of what is present in the
landscape, rather than what managers presume should be there, Orion
(Oregon State Univ.) delves into the somewhat controversial
field of invasive ecology, using both plant and animal examples in
ecosystem restoration. She thoughtfully discusses the ethics
of restoring function to ecosystems and looks at species migrations
and movements in a broader context than would most land managers
having conversations on landscape scales. She also points out
many examples in which understanding the roles and relationships of
problem species could lead to multiple solutions for ecosystem
health and society. A permaculture perspective is not widely
seen in restoration science; however, Orion calls for managers and
scientists to recognize destructive patterns, especially with
changing climate, habitat shifts, and society's attitudes toward
conservation. This thought-provoking book is an interesting
read for anyone dealing with natural resources or agricultural
sciences who aspires to be an environmental steward of a healthier
planet. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers, graduate
students, researchers/faculty, and
professionals/practitioners.”
Library Journal, Starred Review- "Here is a brilliant, alternative
way of dealing with nonnative, invasive species. Oregon State
University permaculturist Orion’s emphasis is on plants, and her
survey of relevant literature is a virtuoso incorporation of books,
journals, electronic resources, and personal communications,
written in commendable expository prose. In the face of
overwhelming political correctness, which dictates that invasive
species should be eliminated, the author offers ways to exploit and
adapt to them in addition to extolling the virtues some of the
species exhibit. As an instructor, Orion teaches ways to manage
ecosystems with an eye to long-term results, free of herbicides and
destructive attempts to remove species seen as undesirable. She
pays special attention to the behaviors of ‘primitive'
societies in relation to their surroundings. In her view,
pre-Columbian America was already far from pristine; it underwent
many changes wrought by Native Americans, especially through fire.
This thoughtful, controversial, and well-documented book is
guaranteed to infuriate many and to provoke us into rethinking our
attitudes about what is natural and best for the land. With essays
such as 'The Myth of Wilderness,' the reader is challenged to
confront revolutionary ideas about our landscapes.
VERDICT: Ideal for all interested in natural history,
agriculture, chemicals, climate change, ecology, and
anthropology.”
Booklist- "Ecosystem restoration, broadly defined as reinstating
native flora and fauna by controlling invasive species, is a noble
goal. But in the case of plants, it is often achieved through the
use of harsh pesticides. This irony is not lost on botanist
Orion, who encourages fellow environmental professionals to factor
in the larger picture and “turn on the macroscope” to meet
desired end goals. Systematically pointing out avenues for
improvement in our approach to restoration, from consuming more
local foods to changing how we work with “pristine” nature,
Orion provides us with a practical worksheet that takes
the permaculture view, a holistic way of looking at habitat.
This slender volume might be too “textbookish” to be accessible to
the lay reader but Orion’s reminders that the very definition of
“native” is in flux (a process exacerbated by climate change) and
her eco-friendly suggestions about what to do with “unwanted”
species should be essential reading for all. Plenty of real-world
instances of invasive flora and fauna (e.g., kudzu, zebra mussels)
make the case effectively.”
“Some of our most productive and tasty plants in the permaculture
landscape are vilified as invasive weeds that need controlling.
This is a mindset that also promotes a delineation between
conservation and agriculture. My personal response is to cultivate
fewer conventional annual vegetables and grow and eat as many of
these weeds as is appropriate, creating an extensive, diverse, and
resilient forage system in my own backyard. It is time to stop
putting land management into boxes and create wildlife habitats and
food in stacked systems. "Tao Orion explains how to take advantage
of the vigor of ‘invasive’ edible and useful exotics and harvest
them. This is how to bring ecosystems back into balance. This is
adaptive permaculture thinking at the broad-scale level. Chelsea
Green has produced yet another pioneering book, demonstrating how
permaculture is way ahead of conventional land-management
practices.”--Maddy Harland, editor of Permaculture magazine,
cofounder of The Sustainability Centre in the UK, and a Fellow of
the Royal Society of Arts
“An interesting and valuable contribution to the ongoing refutation
of invasive species ideology. Detailed and wide-ranging, Orion
extends and deepens several analyses of invasionism, and offers
several interesting new perspectives. She points to holistic
systems management as an alternative to the current war on
invasives. Land managers and invasionists would do well to give it
a careful read.”--D.I. Theodoropoulos, author of Invasion Biology:
Critique of a Pseudoscience
“Beyond the War on Invasive Species creates an essential
pathway for deeper care of the Earth. The holistic perspective of
invasives is shared through deep experience and thoughtfulness and
ultimately leads us to a greater and more aligned role in
restoration of our home’s ecosystems in these changing times. This
book offers a critical role in civilization’s evolution and
highlights actions that recognize deeper values that benefit our
society as a whole.”--Katrina Blair, author of The Wild Wisdom of
Weeds: 13 Essential Plants for Human Survival
“In her fascinating and highly readable book, Beyond the War on
Invasive Species, author Tao Orion points out the shortcomings of
our current approach toward landscape restoration and invasive
species. Rather than seeing these exotic plants and animals simply
as invaders that need to be eradicated, she argues, we should
recognize the beneficial role they play in the environment and the
many essential services they could provide to human beings.
“Embracing rampancy,” as Orion exuberantly puts it, turns the
perceived problem of invasive species into practical solutions that
also allow us to make peace with both the land and
ourselves.”--Larry Korn, author of One-Straw Revolutionary: The
Philosophy and Work of Masanobu Fukuoka
“This book brings much-needed balance to the overheated debate
about so-called invasive species. Tao Orion’s meticulously
researched yet engaging work shows that the true culprits are
nearly always human-caused disturbance and development, and that
species shifts are a symptom, not a cause, of this habitat
destruction. Beyond the War on Invasive Species is an important
book that offers a path away from unsuccessful restoration
efforts—based on poor science and policy—and toward new,
ecologically sound programs for building and preserving
biodiversity.”--Toby Hemenway, author of Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to
Home-Scale Permaculture and The Permaculture City: Regenerative
Design for Urban, Suburban, and Town Resilience
“Beyond the War on Invasive Species is part of a new, much more
nuanced conversation about ‘invasive’ species that is taking place
in science, agriculture, and land management. It provides an
analysis of the new science that looks for ecosystem function as
well as harm from newly arrived species, looks at species migration
in the context of climate change, and broadens our conversation to
look at these organisms in the context of the human ecological
footprint. Orion offers land management guidelines, based in
permaculture design process, that help to chart a new way forward
in our new land of novel ecosystems.”--Eric Toensmeier, author of
Paradise Lot and Perennial Vegetables
“Tao Orion has brought together personal experience, careful study,
and visionary thinking to turn us toward becoming useful people of
place. Her exploration widens the narrow concept of invasion (so
often repeated but seldom carefully thought through) and elucidates
the trouble of short sightedness. We are not threatened by
aliens, but rather we are turning our backs on the big
picture.”--Tom Ward, author of Greenward, Ho! Herbal Home
Remedies and cofounder of Siskiyou Permaculture
“A gathering body of evidence against the scale of chemical
interventions in both agriculture and wild nature is fueling a
battle of geopolitical proportions. In the process of asking the
questions about how best to restore nature, Orion exposes a deep
ethical corruption at the heart of both ecological science and the
environmental movement.”--David Holmgren, from the Foreword
“Beyond the War on Invasive Species is a devastating
exposé of the military industrial invasive species complex and
a sorely needed and impeccably researched volume that should become
one of many as we recover from self-destructive attempts to
eradicate parts of nature instead of acting with an understanding
of the whole.”--Ben Falk, author of The Resilient Farm and
Homestead and founder of Whole Systems Design
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