The History of GEN, 1990-1995
The History of GEN, 1996-1999
The History of GEN, 2000-2001
The initiative
The impetus which brought a number of environmentally-conscious intentional communities together as the Global Ecovillage Network came from Ross and Hildur Jackson, the founders of the Gaia Trust in Denmark. "In 1990, the Trust asked itself how it best could use its resources to further the movement towards sustainability" Ross Jackson says. "We concluded that, more than anything else, the world needed good examples of what it means to live in harmony with nature in a sustainable and spiritually-satisfying way in a technologically-advanced society."
From 1982-1989 the Nordic Alternative Campaign (initiated by Norwegian Erik Damman, The Future in our Hands) linked 100 Nordic grass roots movements with the best of the scientific community in order to create a vision of how to solve the global social and environmental problems. Hildur worked in the Danish group all these years and unofficially also as a Nordic coordinator. Preliminary projects, seminars on all possible subjects, exhibitions, competitions were made. The movement applied to the three Nordic parliaments for 100 million kroner each to fund the project. In Norway the funds were allocated, while in Denmark they were one vote short.
What became clear to the grass roots participants of this project was that we have all the knowledge and tools we need to change the world. We do not need more reports and studies. But we in the North have to put our own house in order, build sustainable communities, and give up exploiting the rest of the world.
This was the background for creating Gaia Trust in 1990 and for formulating the Gaia Trust "yin/ yang" strategy. For 400 years technology and economics (yang) have determined how society was organized. Now it was time for people to decide how they want to live in harmony with nature in a sustainable and spiritually-satisfying way that is also globally just. This was the yin part of the strategy. The yang part was to develop technologies that were supportive of this vision.
Accordingly, Gaia Trust commissioned Robert and Diane Gilman of Seattle, editors of In Context magazine to survey the field and identify the best examples of ecovillages around the world. The Gilman's report to Gaia Trust, which appeared in 1991, showed that although many exciting and vastly different communities existed, the full-scale ideal ecovillage did not yet exist. But together the existing projects made up a total vision of a different culture and lifestyle that could work.
The First Ecovillages
Who were the first "ecovillages"? It is a difficult question because many of the current members of GEN were founded before this word existed. In the 1960's several spiritually based projects were initiated in different parts of the globe: Findhorn in Scotland, Auroville in India, The Farm in Tennessee, USA, Sarvodaya in Sri Lanka, and the NAAM movement in Bukino Fasso. It may have been the impulse from the Indian philosopher and sage: Sri Aurobindo and his French counterpart the Mother- we will never know for sure.
Based on the Gilman's report, twenty people from some of the best communities, including spiritual, ecological, and social orientations, and a few broad thinkers with a global social interest were invited to Denmark by Gaia Trust and the Gilman's in September, 1991 to discuss a strategy for developing and spreading the ecovillage concept. The latter included Karl-Henrik Robert, founder of The Natural Step and David Korten (who later wrote When Corporations Rule the World) who saw ecovillages as part of a broader sustainability movement. "Links were established between people who had not known each other before but found that they had common ground on which they could work enthusiastically together", says Ross Jackson, adding: "It became clear that forging links was vital to the success of any global strategy."
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Three of GEN's Vision Keepers: Helena Norberg-Hodge, The Ladakh Project; Hildur Jackson, The Gaia Trust; Marti Mueller, Auroville. |
The First National Network
It also became clear that Denmark was ahead of many other countries in developing the ecovillage concept, perhaps because of twenty years of experience with cohousing. In 1993, Gaia Trust brought together a number of established and embryonic ecovillages as the Danish Association of Sustainable Communities:
Second Meeting in Denmark, 1994
The global ecovillage strategy was clarified at a second meeting in Thy, Denmark. A network (GEN) was informally initiated with a secretariat in Denmark funded by Gaia Trust under the daily leadership of Hamish Stewart. Early members included the Findhorn Community, Scotland; The Farm, Tennessee, USA; Lebensgarten, Steyerberg, Germany; Crystal Waters, Australia; Ecoville, St. Petersburg, Russia; Gyûrûfû, Hungary; The Ladakh Project, India; The Manitou Institute, Colorado, USA; and the Danish Association of Sustainable Communities.
The Findhorn meeting, 1995
At the Findhorn Conference on Sustainable Settlements in 1995, group photo of some of GEN's start-up members. Front row, from left: John Talbot, The Findhorn Foundation; Max Lindegger, GEN Oceania/Asia; Declan Kennedy, Lebensgarten, Germany; Albert Bates, GEN Americas, The Farm, USA. Second row, first from left, Robert Gilman, In Context Institute, USA; fourth from left, Linda Joseph, Ecovillage Network of the Americas (ENA) President . Third row, second from left, Hamish Stewart, former GEN Secretary; fourth from left: Ross Jackson, Gaia Trust co-founder. Top row, first from right: Hildur Jackson, Gaia Trust co-founder.
The movement took two major steps in 1995. One was the establishment of its website by Stephan Wik, who moved from Findhorn to Denmark with his family. The other was a conference at Findhorn: "Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities for the 21 Century" which was organized by the Findhorn community and GEN (John Talbot and Diane Gilman) with financial assistance from Gaia Trust. "It was a great success", Ross Jackson says. "The week-long meeting was attended by over 400 people from forty countries, and we had to turn down another 300 who would have liked to have been there."
During this meeting it was decided to establish three autonomous regional networks to cover the globe geographically, with administrative centers at The Farm (USA), Lebensgarten, (Germany) and Crystal Waters (Australia). Gaia Trust committed to covering the expenses of the networks for 3-5 years, and to act as coordinating secretariat from its Danish office.
At the same time the goal was set to create global services that would operate across regions as soon as budgets and manpower permitted.
References:
Robert and Diane Gilman, "Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities: A Report for Gaia Trust, (Gaia Trust, 1991).
Proceedings from the Findhorn conference: "Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities for the 21 Century" 1995
