Free eBooks Archive

• Plants For A Future: Survey and Research Project on 'The Field' - A report is now available of the recently completed survey and research project on the 'The Field', the experimental site of Ken and Addy Fern ( Plants For A Future founders) in Cornwall, where they carried out research and provided information on edible and otherwise useful plants suitable for growing outdoors in a temperate climate. Over time they planted 1500 species of edible plants on 'The Field' in Cornwall, which was their base since 1989.

• Farmers of Forty Centuries: Organic Farming in China, Korea, and Japan - Professor King provides intriguing glimpses of Japan, China, Manchuria, and Korea, with information about the customs of the common people; utilization of waste; methods of irrigation, reforestation, and land reclamation; and the cultivation of rice, silk, and tea. An invaluable, profusely illustrated resource for organic gardeners, farmers, and conservationists.

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• Organic Gardener's Composting by Steve Solomon - Two subjects in one book: a basic, how-to-make-compost book in Part One; and an analysis of the nutritional consequences of soil fertility management choices and how to make really good compost in Part Two.

• Gardening Without Irrigation by Steve Solomon - This is a guide to growing food without dependence on irrigation. It was written entirely from personal observations and original research between 1979 and 1993, all in western Oregon, a climate that has virtually no rainfall from June through September, a guaranteed four months of drought every year. It has broad applications to anyplace where the rains can't be depended upon and to anyone who is using a well, off the grid, or etc. There's another facet to this book too.

• Peak Oil and Climate Change Activist Toolkit

• The Cob Builders Handbook: You Can Hand-Sculpt Your Own Home - A step by step, user friendly guide on how to make your own hand-sculpted earth home! 180 pages with lots of illustrations. Cob (an old English word for lump) is old-fashioned concrete, made out of a mixture of clay, sand, and straw. Becky Bee's manual is a friendly guide to making your own earth structure, with chapters on design, foundations, floors, windows and doors, finishes, and of course, making glorious cob.

• Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan

• The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century - tells us just what to expect after we pass the point of global peak oil production and the honeymoon of affordable energy is over, preparing us for economic, political, and social changes of an unimaginable scale. Riveting and authoritative, The Long Emergency is a devastating indictment that brings new urgency and accessibility to the critical issues that will shape our future, and that we can no longer afford to ignore.

• FREE permaculture eBooks & free environmental eBook downloads - Permaculture is all about one part of a system trying to help another, so this is our attempt to help replicate that, by sharing permaculture knowledge as freely and as widely as we can. 
• In this section you'll find a selection of completely free eBook downloads on permaculture and wider environmental topics, including the fantastic Farmers' Handbook series by Chris Evans and Jakob Jespersen, which provides a complete grounding in key permaculture techniques in a simple, easy-to-read e-book download format. 
• On top of that, we are also offering free download copies of Gaia's Education's brilliant Four Key series, including the indispensable instruction manual for anyone looking to apply permaculture techniques to communities, Beyond You & Me, and Gaian Economics - a penetrating look at how economics can be made to work in harmony with nature, not against it. 
• Of course, we'd also love it if you took at look at our great range of paid-for permaculture eBooks as well - we're sure you'll find something there of interest too!

• Best of the Permaculture Drylands Magazine - Now Online! - Founded by Scott Pittman circa 1986, PDJ was (and remains) the only publication in the world with the specific focus on Drylands Permaculture. Published for 11 years (1986 - 1997) by the Permaculture Drylands Institute, operating out of Arizona and New Mexico, this publication has lots to offer to permaculture students even 10 years after its final issue was delivered.

• Small is Successful - Creating Sustainable Livelihoods on Ten Acres or Less - examines eight smallholdings with land-based businesses on 10 acres or less. The smallholdings demonstrate that economically viable and highly sustainable land based livelihoods can be created on holdings of this size.

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• DIY Permablitz Kit

• Permaculture Design Course (given by Bill Mollison in 1981, Transcript)

• The Local Exchange Trading System (LETSystem) Design Manual

• Murray Bookchin - 1962 - Our Synthetic Environment - is a book published in 1962 that was written by Murray Bookchin under the pseudonym of "Lewis Herber". The book warns of the dangers of pesticide use and it predates Silent Spring, a more widely known book on the same topic.

• How to Run a Regional Gathering

• Participatory Analysis for Community Action Training Manual

• Unplanning Livable Cities and Political Choices by Charles Siegel - Environmentalists have not moved beyond the modernist faith in city planning. They say that our cities' environmental problems are caused by lack of planning. When they see problems that were obviously caused by planning, they blame them on insufficient planning - on "piecemeal planning" that looked at transportation or at zoning in isolation.

• Earthship Planbook

• Peak Energy, Climate Change, and the Collapse of Global Civilization: The Current Peak Oil Crisis - This report is a synthesis of the current state of knowledge on energy resources and global climate and environmental change. The findings clearly indicate that the convergence of peak energy resources and dangerous anthropogenic climate and environmental change will likely have a disastrous impact in the near- and long-term on the quantity and quality of human life on the planet.

• The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure, 3rd Edition

• Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching - Ecodefense is a historical artifact. It be argued that it is the most controversial environmental book ever published; more importantly, though, it is a key exhibit in the legal history of freedom of the press in the United States. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1791.

• Guerrilla Gardening -- Beneath the Concrete (zine)

• Radical Mycology - Spore Liberation Front Primer - A new zine from the Spore Liberation Front exploring the numerous uses for mushrooms and their implications for ecoactivists and other Earth friendly folk. From food to medicine to paper and dyes to the amazing new field of mycorememdiation (the use of mushrooms to clean up oil spills and restore damaged habitats), this zine gives a thorough overview of the greater fungi with a novel, radical perspective."

• Walking by Henry David Thoreau - Walking is an essay which was presented in a lecture in 1861, and published posthumously. It is the source of the quote: " In wildness is the preservation of the world. "

• Seasonal Planting Guide - This gardening calendar outlines major gardening tasks and what flowers and vegetables to plant for each season. It is specifically written to help gardeners in cool temperate, subtropical and tropical areas of Queensland, Australia but gardeners living elsewhere in similar climatic regions may also find it useful.

• Permaculture, a Beginners Guide

• [COMICS] "Jolly Roger - a history about copyright in cyberspace" - From the historical background of "intellectual property" to ACTA, through Free Software, Napster and much more. Told in a simple and funny way, this comic (under Creative Commons) is available in downloadable CBZ and EPUB formats or to be read directly on the site. 

• If an Agent Knocks: What to do when Targeted - Federal law enforcement agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have a dark history of targeting radical and progressive movements. Some of the dirty tricks they use against these movements include: the infiltration of organizations to discredit and disrupt their operations; campaigns of misinformation and false stories in the media; forgery of correspondence; fabrication of evidence; and the use of grand jury subpoenas to intimidate activists. Today’s activist must know and understand the threat posed by federal law enforcement agents and their tactics as well as several key security practices that offer the best protection…

• Permaculture Ethics and Design Principles + Essence of Permaculture with David Holmgren - A 16 page summary of permaculture concept and principles taken from Permaculture Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren. It contains an introduction to permaculture, thoughts about the future of the movement and the values and use of the permaculture principles. A great way to expand your knowledge in preparation for the full length book.

• The Climate Movement Is Dead: Long Live the Climate Movement is a must-read for anyone left disenchanted by the mainstream climate movement, and all who are ready to step it up and fight for climate justice.

• The Family Seed Saving Book - Written by Rosemary Morrow and Illustrated by Susan Girard

• The Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) News in Permaculture Magazine

• Soil and Health magazine - Free Online

• Biodynamics Journals Online Archive

• The Farmers’ Handbook - The links to follow are to individual chapters of a Farmers’ Handbook created by Chris Evans (UK) and Jakob Jespersen (Denmark), who have spent considerable time in Nepal, helping to develop locally appropriate methods and technologies that can help the people of Nepal live better lives, and sustainably so.

• Companion Planting Guide from IDEP

• The Food and Farming Transition: Toward a Post Carbon Food System - Our new food system will require more farmers, smaller and more diversified farms, less processed and packaged food, and less long-distance hauling of food. Governments, communities, businesses, and families each have important parts to play in reinventing a food system that functions with limited renewable energy resources to feed our population for the long term.

• Operation Backfire: a Survival Guide for Environmental and Animal Rights Activists - The National Lawyers Guild has created a great new resource, “Operation Backfire: a Survival Guide for Environmental and Animal Rights Activists.” It’s a booklet on how environmental and animal rights activists have been targeted by the government and branded as the top domestic terrorism threat.

• Guerilla Gardening - Urban Permaculture: A Reader Compiled for DIY Skillshare

• HEATING WATER WITH THE SUN: A Thermal Drainback Solar Hot Water Heater Demonstration - This solar hot water heating system is designed to heat water with the sun using a non-pressurized open loop of plumbing that is not tied into the plumbing of the bath house. In this indirect system, roughly 200 gallons of water gets pumped from a special solar thermal storage tank (see next photo) to the panels and back to the tank several times a day getting hotter with each cycle.

• Beyond You and Me Inspiration and Wisdom for Building Community (ecovillages) - A practical people care anthology for anyone seeking to rebuild existing fragmented villages and communities, establish new group enterprises and ecovillages, and heal the wounds of conflict and social division. Written by an international group of social and ecological pioneers, this is the first volume of Gaia Education’s Four Keys to Sustainable Communities series and is an official contribution to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.