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Exploring Ecovillages

By Hildi Flores University of Washington Professor Karen Liften spent several years traveling the world visiting several ecovillages - intentional communities on the cutting edge of sustainability. She recently published a book on her studies, Ecovillages: Lessons for Sustainable Community, and gave two presentations in Olympia, January 7-8 at Orca Books and The Evergreen State College.

In her book, Liften documents how each ecovillage functions with the intent of providing examples of how sustainable local economies can be designed.

"We are a part of the web of life," said Liften. "We weave the web through an integrated approach to sustainability." Liften says this is done through a Do-It-Yourself politics of 'Yes', in which "you're not protesting against what you oppose but are engaging in what you want."

Each of the communities Liften visited was unique and include a range of diversity. Religious and secular, high-tech and low-tech, urban and rural, these communities are located as widespread as Los Angeles, New York, Scotland, Germany, Italy, Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Japan, and Australia.

Though each ecovillage is unique, most revolve around some degree of agriculture, spirituality, or both. Compared to the global capitalist society in which most people live, ecovillages are far more egalitarian and democratic.

Sarvodaya, which means "awakening of all by the sharing of labor," is a Ghandian organization working with villages in Sri Lanka through participatory engagement. Their mission is to produce "no poverty, no affluent society." The community decides what they need and Sarvodaya provides the materials.

Another community Liften visited in Damanhur, Italy, built an elaborate series of underground temples without any architectural knowledge. She said the residents had dreams at night, and would gather in the morning to decide how to build. Darmanhur is also an example of a high tech ecovillage with an intimate relationship with nature. Liften said the village is equipped with a molecular biology lab to test for genetically modified food. She also noted the artwork in Damanhur represents plants and insects as being larger than humans.

Sieben Linden, Germany, offers an example of full-circle living, in which building materials are used on site and draught horses are employed as opposed to machinery. Through its frugal use of resources, Liften said Sieben Linden has managed to reduce its carbon footprint to one planet, meaning, if everyone in the world consumed at their rate, it would only take one planet Earth's worth of resources to sustain that standard of living for everyone.

Liften acknowledged her travels created a large carbon footprint and expressed regret about having to consume so much jet fuel to have these experiences. To respond to this sentiment, she quoted a review of her book by author Joanna Macy, who wrote, "If you can't take a year off to visit ecovillages around the world, this marvel of a book is the next best thing. It's actually even better for the carbon it saves, the questions it asks, and the wisdom it shares."

After examining the range of examples for sustainable living offered by ecovillages, Liften said the next step is to "scale it up."

"Given we have a global economy that's unsustainable, nothing can truly be sustainable because sustainability is something that happens in a system. It doesn't happen in an individual life."

Despite any short-comings, Liften said we need to move forward with sustainability as our "core intention."

"We will re-localize in one way or another," said Liften. "If we do it consciously we have the possibility of preserving some semblance of ourselves as a global species...we have more resources at our disposal than any other civilization in the past. The way this is going to happen is if we leverage today's resources to create another way of living."

Hildi Flores is the Managing Editor of the South Sound Green Pages.


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Updated 2015/01/07 21:14:22