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GEN Columnists
- Diana Leafe Christian
- May East
- Ross Jackson
- Max Lindegger
C.A.S.A. Ecovillage Network Born in Latin America!
Diana Leafe Christian
In early January in Colombia, in a long sunlit room filled with people in bright colors speaking rapid Spanish, a brand new ecovillage network was born — C.A.S.A.! An acronym in Spanish for Consejo de Asentamientos Sustentables de las Américas (Council of Sustainable Eco-Settlements of the Americas), C.A.S.A. is a network of ecovillages and other eco-projects in South America, Central America, and México. (C.A.S.A. includes Brazil, and the letters create the same acronym in Portuguese too.)
Diana Leafe Christian is author of Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools To grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities and Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community (New Society Publishers, 2003 and 2007, respectively), and editor/publisher of the free online Ecovillages Newsletter. A member of Earthaven Ecovillage in North Carolina, US, Diana teaches workshops and speaks at conferences internationally.
Gaia Education Worldwide - Guizhou, China
May East
Meanwhile, the economically driven development trend threatens the survival of Guizhous’s rich and diversified ethnic cultures. EDE Guizhou is expected to host 30 participants coming from Guizou Academy of Agricultural Sciences, officials from the Environmental Protection Bureau, PCD staff from field offices of the region and NGO members working in both urban and rural contexts. Read Full Story
May East is a Brazilian social change activist who has spent the last 30 years working internationally with music, indigenous people, women, anti-nuclear, environmental and sustainable human settlements movements. Since 1992 she has lived at the Findhorn Ecovillage in Scotland where she is the Ecovillage Education Coordinator. May is a sustainability educator and works internationally as Programme Director of Gaia Education.
Breakaway - Living Beyond Our Means
Ross Jackson
What does it really mean when we say that our global civilisation is living beyond its means—living off its natural capital? What are the possible consequences to humankind when we weaken the ecosystem? How will Nature react to this intrusion—this assault on its integrity? The short answer is that we just do not know. Nature’s complexity is orders of magnitude beyond our comprehension. But react it will, and sooner or later it will collapse if we continue on this path. That much is for certain. We are carrying out an unprecedented experiment with our very survival at stake.Ross Jackson, PhD, has for many years been an innovative leader in both the business and NGO worlds. He is chairman of Gaia Trust, a Danish-based charitable entity he co-founded in 1987 to promote a more sustainable and spiritual world. In his capacity as Gaia Trust Chairman, Ross, together with his Danish wife Hildur, is co-founder of the Global Ecovillage Network, (GEN) and Gaia Education and has supported hundreds of sustainability projects in dozens of countries over the years.
Ecovillage Musings - Mulch Gardens
Max Lindegger
Mulch gardens are to permaculture what flat breads and chillies are to Mexico. Wherever I work, I introduce compost making and mulch gardens. The go so well together and are the beginning of abundance. While the gardens come in all shapes and sizes and need to be managed to suit the environment, they are easy to build and not much can go wrong. Read Full Story
Max was a primary partner in the design and development of the Award -winning Crystal Waters Permaculture Village, where he lives. He is a respected and sought-after teacher in the disciplines of sustainable systems. His reputation is born of 20 years of hands-on experience and leadership in the design and implementation of practical solutions to the challenges of sustainability. As the founder of the Global Ecovillage Network Oceania & Asia and the Ecovillage Research Group, Max participates in and contributes to the international flow of current thinking and best practice in the fields of sustainable systems design and education.
The municipality of Cajibio, Colombia, was the site of Call of the Mountain 2012. Participating were 421 persons from 26 countries, of whom 126 were able to participate with the gathering’s economic support agreements. A festive and efficient convergence of mutually supportive work, community living and respect that brought together people from Germany, Ecuador, Chile, Japan, Spain, Argentina, United States, Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil among other countries, bringing proposals and activities in the areas of ecology, social action and the arts.
"Nobody goes hungry anymore, not even at the end of the dry season. Our children are healthy because they get a diverse diet. And the money that we save by not using chemicals helps to buy their school books." Nancy Oppelle is the proud speaker of the women´s initiative Maili Saba in Kitale, Western Kenya.
At the end of 2011, Africans from many different countries and backgrounds attended The Ecovillage Conference: Empowering Communities for Sustainable Development in Northern Africa.
It was held at SEKEM, a model farm site for sustainable businesses, located near Cairo, Egypt.
The Conference was put together by GEN and sponsored by the German Foreign Ministry.
A central permaculture principle is to turn a problem into a solution ... US urban planner and energy activist TH Culhane has done just this, turning organic waste into a valuable raw material. His work shows one bucket of organic kitchen waste can produce enough gas for two hours of cooking (as well as producing liquid fertilizer as a by-product).
20 years after its founding, the ZEGG community in Belzig, Germany, has become a ‘blessing’ for the district, said politician Wolfgang Blasig at the inauguration ceremony for ZEGG´s new, ecological heating system.
The community of 100 people of all age groups has come a long way since establishing themselves in a former East German secret police training camp.
"Tuwa - The Laughing Fish" is an eco-homestead, living and learning center and green bed and breakfast inn nestled right in the middle of the vast rice fields of a small farming town in the Philippines.
What makes it unique is that it was created by two Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) alumni all in a short span of two years.
There’s an estimated 100 million tons of garbage lying around the world. The growing Let’s Do It! movement (which began in Estonia in 2008) is inviting people and organisations to join forces for World Clean-up 2012.
An extensive EU-funded collaboration project with the name ECOVILLAGES, recently started operations and will run for a three-year period 2011-2013. It focuses on a survey of eco-villages around the Baltic Sea with a view to promoting ecovillages as innovative sustainable rural development.
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