Mollison has said: Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labour; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system..
The juice of jewelweed is a traditional remedy for all sorts of skin ailments including poison ivy. An oft-repeated folk saying, Wherever poison ivy is found, jewelweed grows close by. To use it, you can simply crush the leaves and rub it on the itchy places.
A good home remedy for poison ivy is chlorox. It does no damage to the environment and is sometimes used to pour in well water to purify. You can spray it on at full strength or can mix with water to dilute and cover a larger area. Caution: it will kill other plants as well.