Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
purpose. Some have been overtly political and intentionally prefigurative; others have
been mainly meditative or mainly spiritual. Robert Gilman (1991), one of the main
founders of the Global Ecovillage Network, suggests an ecovillage community must
encompass the following:
•
Human-scale
: the upper population limit is about 500 persons, although many
contemporary communities have 100 persons or less.
•
Full-featured settlement
: all major functions of normal living - residence, food
provision, manufacture, leisure, social life and commerce - are present in a
balanced proportion, making the ecovillage a microcosm of a future society.
•
Human activities harmlessly integrated into the natural world
: humans do not
dominate nature but live within it alongside other creatures. Ecovillages adopt
a cyclic use of material resources - for example, renewable energy, the composting
of organic wastes and other strategies to minimize their ecological footprint.
•
A way that is supportive of healthy human development
: a balanced and integrated
development of the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual elements of
individual life and community living.
•
Able to be successfully continued into the indefinite future
: through the application
of the sustainability principle and incorporating a commitment to fairness and
non-exploitation of human and non-human persons and the natural world.
Gilman argues that we have the understanding, awareness, technological capacity
and knowledge to live sustainably, for cities to be sustainable by being composed
of a constellation of ecovillages and for these to last over time. To do so, putative
eco-communities must have the capacity to successfully negotiate a number of
challenges, including:
•
the biosystem challenge
: living in an ecologically sound manner;
•
the built environment challenge:
minimize transportation needs, always using
environmentally friendly building materials, balance of private and public space,
and so on;
•
the economic system challenge
: economically and ecologically efficient business
enterprise, equitable forms of property ownership or common use, and so on;
•
the governance challenge
: decision-making processes, leadership roles, conflict
resolution mechanisms, and so on;
•
the 'glue' challenge
: vision, internal and external social relationships, closeness
and cohesion, and so on; and
•
the whole system challenge
: 'to get an honest sense of the scope of the undertaking
and then develop an approach that allows the community to develop at a
sustainable pace'.
Many ecovillages, alternative and/or intentional communities have evolved and
developed. Rarely do they exist in a complete bubble isolated from the wider society,
and in many cases community members do not want or intend them to. However,
for many people living within these communities, a spiritual and ethical motivation
dominates, which contests the materialism of contemporary culture and its abstraction
from the natural environment. Ecovillages tend to reflect their cultural and ecological
