Biomass fuels from sustainable land use: A Permaculture perspective

In the early years of promoting permaculture to food gardeners, Bill Mollison used to quip, “you don’t have a snail problem, you have a duck deficiency”. Mollison’s penchant for changing the perspective on a known problem, and identifying how it might represent an unacknowledged resource, reflects ecological thinking: identifying empty niches that can be filled to make gardens or any other (eco)system more resilient and productive. Often the perceived problem can be interpreted as a message from nature – nature’s first step in correcting imbalances.