reforesting farmland and permaculture

my goal is to start a conservation business that does logging, recreational, fish and game and maple syrup leases to generate money to buy and acquire more land for conservation purposes. does permaculture yield more food per acre than conventional farming? if so do you think it would be a good idea to bring back all the drained wetlands back and turn millions of acres of farmland into forests again? i think every state should have a big wilderness. i like farmland but think there is to much of it. if anyone has a good idea or advice please let me know and we can start a discussion.

[BlueSky]

Hi TB,
I actually started a permaculture thread a week or so ago so I was pleasantly surprised to see this one.
I'm in the educational and design stage with this subject with my yard being the first trial run.
I don't know a lot but I don't think permacultures goal is to bring back the forests.
I don't even think that is possible. They have been around for a while and that is the reason why they are such a valued and complete system. I think the goal is to leave the ones that are here alone and to see the importance of that.

Permaculture is about taking the land we have that is not frorest and recreating the systems that already exist in the forest and in nature in them.
Conventional farming doesn't do that well from what I have read. The book I am reading has some awesome before and after drawings of farmland converted over to permaculture and not only is it more productive, it works all by itself for the most part if you set it up right.
There is much to learn about all this and there are great leaders out there. Bill Mollison is one of them.
Read some of his stuff if you haven't already to get a real good picture as to why permaculture is better than conventional farming.
blessings, James

Thats a great idea!

A few books:

Gaias garden:a homescale guide to permaculture
ANything written by Bill Mollison
The one straw revolution

SOme movies:

...... The permaculture way (introduction to, harvesting water, and building a food forest)

Peak Oil - ITs a series that is shown on youtube, thers liek 100 videos.

Basicaly its not wholy about quantity. Its more about diversity, and aquiring enough to support you, and nature. Simply, youll have enough food dor yourself, and surplus. It doesnt matter if you get more then a conventional farming ( you get more variety in the same area then with monocrop farming), what matters is the amount of impact.

As for the wetland.... yes. In the "peak oil" videos, there is one about someone doing exactly that, the bollock brothers.

There is a difference between permaculture for us, and for bringing back nature. For us, a food forest is a natural system, designed by us, using food plants mainly ( of course supporting species and natives), but to reclaim land to a NATIVE and NATURAL forest, you have to stick strickly to native species, or at least species that have natrualized in your area. In that case, all you would do is lay the ground work ( some native trees, grasses ferns, vines etc), then dont touch it, and let nature do its thing. It isnt that easy, but more reading up on the subject will make it way easier.