Ecovillage - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Ecovillages are intentional communities with the goal of becoming more socially, economically and ecologically sustainable

Sustainability

Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...

. Some aim for a population of 50–150 individuals. Larger ecovillages of up to 2,000 individuals exist as networks of smaller subcommunities to create an ecovillage model that allows for social networks within a broader foundation of support. Certain ecovillages have grown by the nearby addition of others, not necessarily members, settling on the periphery of the ecovillage and effectively participating in the ecovillage community.

Ecovillage members are united by shared ecological, social-economic

Triple bottom line

The triple bottom line captures an expanded spectrum of values and criteria for measuring organizational success: economic, ecological, and social...

and cultural-spiritual

Spiritual ecology

Spiritual ecology is a recent term that refers to the intersection between religion and spirituality and environment . Practitioners of spiritual ecology fall into three categories: the scientific and academic, spiritual or religious environmentalism, and religious or spiritual individuals who...

values. An ecovillage is often composed of people who have chosen an alternative to centralized electrical, water, and sewage systems. Many see the breakdown of traditional forms of community, wasteful consumerist

Consumerism

Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...

lifestyles, the destruction of natural habitat, urban sprawl

Urban sprawl

Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a multifaceted concept, which includes the spreading outwards of a city and its suburbs to its outskirts to low-density and auto-dependent development on rural land, high segregation of uses Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a...

, factory farming

Factory farming

Factory farming is a term referring to the process of raising livestock in confinement at high stocking density, where a farm operates as a factory — a practice typical in industrial farming by agribusinesses. The main products of this industry are meat, milk and eggs for human consumption...

, and over-reliance on fossil fuels, as trends that must be changed to avert ecological disaster. They see small-scale communities with minimal ecological impact as an alternative. However, such communities often cooperate with peer villages in networks of their own (see Global Ecovillage Network

Global Ecovillage Network

The Global Ecovillage Network is a global association of people and communities dedicated to living "sustainable plus" lives by restoring the land and adding more to the environment than is taken...

for an example). This model of collective action

Collective action

Collective action is the pursuit of a goal or set of goals by more than one person. It is a term which has formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences.-In sociology:...

is similar to that of Ten Thousand Villages

Ten Thousand Villages

Ten Thousand Villages is a nonprofit fair trade organization that markets handcrafted products made by disadvantaged artisans from more than 120 artisan groups in more than 38 countries....

, which supports the fair trade

Fair trade

Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as higher social and environmental standards...

of goods worldwide.

Definition

In 1991, Robert Gilman

Robert Gilman

Robert C. Gilman is a thinker on sustainability who, along with his late wife Diane Gilman, has researched and written about ecovillages. The Gilmans’ work was important in giving definition to the ecovillage movement and shaping the direction of the Global Ecovillage Network...

set out a definition of an ecovillage that was to become a standard. Gilman defined an ecovillage as a:

"human-scale full-featured settlement in which human activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world in a way that is supportive of healthy human development, and can be successfully continued into the indefinite future."

In recent years, Gilman has stated that he would also add the criterion that an ecovillage must have multiple centres of initiative.

History

The modern-day desire for community was most notably characterized by the communal movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which became more focused and organized in the cohousing

Cohousing

A cohousing community is a type of intentional community composed of private homes supplemented by shared facilities. The community is planned, owned and managed by the residents – who also share activities which may include cooking, dining, child care, gardening, and governance of the...

and ecovillage movements of the mid-1980s. Then, in 1991, Robert Gilman

Robert Gilman

and Diane Gilman

Diane Gilman

Diane Gilman , was a painter, potter, writer and co-founder of the Context Institute. She played a key role in the initial development and coordination of the Global Ecovillage Network, a support network for model communities to show how to live more sustainably on the planet, in urban, rural,...

co-authored a seminal study called "Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities" for Gaia Trust. Today, there are ecovillages in over 70 countries on six continents.

The ecovillage movement began to coalesce at the annual autumn conference of Findhorn

Findhorn Ecovillage

Findhorn Ecovillage is an experimental architectural community project based at The Park, in Moray, Scotland, near the village of Findhorn. The project's main aim is to demonstrate a sustainable development in environmental, social, and economic terms...

, in Scotland, in 1995. The conference was called: “Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities”, and conference organizers turned away hundreds of applicants. According to Ross Jackson, "somehow they had struck a chord that resonated far and wide. The word 'ecovillage', which was barely four years old at the time, thus became part of the language of the Cultural Creatives

Cultural Creatives

Cultural Creatives is a term coined by sociologist Paul H. Ray and psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson to describe a large segment in Western society that has recently developed beyond the standard paradigm of Modernists or Progressives versus Traditionalists or Conservatives...

." After that conference, many intentional communities, including Findhorn, began calling themselves “ecovillages”, giving birth to a new movement. The Global Ecovillage Network

Global Ecovillage Network

The Global Ecovillage Network is a global association of people and communities dedicated to living "sustainable plus" lives by restoring the land and adding more to the environment than is taken...

, formed by a group of about 25 people, from various countries, who had attended the Findhorn conference, crystallized the event by linking hundreds of small projects from around the world, who had with similar goals but had formerly operated without knowledge of each other. Gaia Trust, Denmark, agreed to fund the network for its first five years.

Characteristics

Ecovillages are "urban or rural communities ... who strive to integrate a supportive social environment with a low-impact way of life." Although there is no blueprint for realizing this goal, ecovillages may integrate various aspects of ecological design: ecological building, alternative energy, environmentally benign manufacturing or production, permaculture (landscaping designed to mimic nature and to provide the community with food, fibre and fuel), and community building practices. The hindrance of restrictive policies such as zoning and building codes to the development of sustainable housing and infrastructure in urban areas in particular is discussed. It is argued that the ecovillage movement provides some of the most relevant work and knowledge available for moving into a more sustainable future.

The principles on which ecovillages rely can be applied to urban

Urban area

An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...

and rural

Rural

Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...

settings, as well as to developing and developed countries. Advocates seek a sustainable lifestyle (for example, of voluntary simplicity) for inhabitants with a minimum of trade outside the local area, or ecoregion

Ecoregion

An ecoregion , sometimes called a bioregion, is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than an ecozone and larger than an ecosystem. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural...

. Many advocates also seek independence from existing infrastructures, although others, particularly in more urban settings, pursue more integration with existing infrastructure. Rural ecovillages are usually based on organic farming

Organic farming

Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm...

, permaculture

Permaculture

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of modern agriculture...

and other approaches which promote ecosystem

Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....

function and biodiversity

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...

. Ecovillages, whether urban or rural, tend to integrate community and ecological values within a principle-based approach to sustainability, such as permaculture design.

Johnathon Dawson, former president of the Global Ecovillage Network, describes five ecovillage principles in his 2006 book Ecovillages: New Frontiers for Sustainability:

They are not government-sponsored projects, but grassroots initiatives.
Their residents value and practice community living.
Their residents are not overly dependent on government, corporate or other centralized sources for water, food, shelter, power and other basic necessities. Rather, they attempt to provide these resources themselves.
Their residents have a strong sense of shared values, often characterized in spiritual terms.
They often serve as research and demonstration sites, offering educational experiences for others.

An ecovillage usually in corporates components of "green" infrastructural capital

Infrastructural capital

Public capital is the aggregate body of government-owned assets that are used as the means for private productivity. Such assets span a wide range including: large components such as highways, airports, roads, transit systems, and railways; local, municipal components such as public education,...

; autonomous building

Autonomous building

An autonomous building is a building designed to be operated independently from infrastructural support services such as the electric power grid, gas grid, municipal water systems, sewage treatment systems, storm drains, communication services, and in some cases, public roads.Advocates of...

or clustered housing, to minimize ecological footprint

Ecological footprint

The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It is a standardized measure of demand for natural capital that may be contrasted with the planet's ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area necessary to...

; renewable energy

Renewable energy

Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...

and permaculture

Permaculture

. The goal of most ecovillages is to be a sustainable habitat

Sustainable habitat

A sustainable habitat is an ecosystem that produces food and shelter for people and other organisms, without resource depletion and in such a way that no external waste is produced. Thus the habitat can continue into future time without external infusions of resource...

providing for most of its needs on site. However self-sufficiency is not always a goal or desired outcome, specifically since self-sufficiency can conflict with goals to be a change agent for the wider culture and infrastructure. An ecovillage's organization usually depends upon some instructional capital

Instructional capital

Instructional capital is a term used in educational administration after the 1960s, to reflect capital resulting from investment in producing learning materials....

or moral codes - a minimal civics

Civics

Civics is the study of rights and duties of citizenship. In other words, it is the study of government with attention to the role of citizens ― as opposed to external factors ― in the operation and oversight of government....

sometimes characterized as eco-anarchism, which involves local purchasing

Local purchasing

Local purchasing is a preference to buy locally produced goods and services over those produced more distantly. It is very often abbreviated as a positive goal 'buy local' to parallel the phrase think globally, act locally common in green politics....

so as to support the local economy; local food

Local food

Local food or the local food movement is a "collaborative effort to build more locally based, self-reliant food economies - one in which sustainable food production, processing, distribution, and consumption is integrated to enhance the economic, environmental and social health of a particular...

production and distribution; moral purchasing to avoid objectionable consumption

Consumption (economics)

Consumption is a common concept in economics, and gives rise to derived concepts such as consumer debt. Generally, consumption is defined in part by comparison to production. But the precise definition can vary because different schools of economists define production quite differently...

; consensus decision-making

Consensus decision-making

Consensus decision-making is a group decision making process that seeks the consent, not necessarily the agreement, of participants and the resolution of objections. Consensus is defined by Merriam-Webster as, first, general agreement, and second, group solidarity of belief or sentiment. It has its...

for governance and a choice to respect diversity

Respect diversity

The prerogative to respect diversity, often said to "begin with biodiversity" of non-human life, is basic to some 20th century studies such as cultural ecology, Queer studies, and anthropological linguistics....

. Ecovillages should not be confused with micronations, which are strictly legal, not infrastructural, entities.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Definition

History

Characteristics

See also

Further reading

External links