Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC), and a leading exponent of localisation, believes
that strengthening local economies is the single most effective way of resolving our so-
cial and ecological crises. “It is a win-win strategy,” she says, “for both people and the
Earth.”
In many parts of the world, locally based, steady-state economies could heal the dam-
age that has resulted from decades of harmful mainstream agricultural practices. In Bri-
tain, the countryside has suffered serious degradation since the early 1950s because of
a misguided farm subsidy system that has maximised food production at the expense of
human and ecological health. The vast majority of the British landscape is now farmed
with intensive inputs of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, to the extent that most of
Britain is now largely an ecological wasteland with severely diminished biodiversity.
Birds once common thirty years ago, such as song thrush, lapwing, house sparrow and
starling, are suffering precipitous declines, and many wild plants, insects, mammals and
amphibians are faring no better.
In a truly sustainable Britain, these trends could be reversed by means of a seemingly
paradoxical policy, namely by encouraging city dwellers to re-create vibrant eco-com-
munities in the countryside. Government subsidies, no longer needed to fund the defunct
death-dealing agriculture, would be used to help establish these new eco-communities,
whose members would be given financial and technical help with building their own
lowimpact ecologically sound dwellings out of straw bale, cob or local sustainably har-
vested timber, which would blend in well with the landscape. For those that wanted it,
the new eco-dwellings could be spread out to give space and the opportunity for silent
communion with nature. There would be a stipulation that a large proportion of the land
around each ecodwelling should be managed for wildlife or be allowed to regenerate
naturally, depending on the characteristics of each site. Every able-bodied community
member would be required to contribute a minimum amount of time to working on the
community farm, which would be managed by professionals with experience in ecolo-
gically diverse organic food production in what would look like a large-scale organic
market garden. Many crop species would be grown together in order to benefit from
the wellknown synergies which on-site diversity brings, such as increased biomass pro-
duction and pest resistance. Each community would have its own small school, and it
would also have its own doctor, bus driver, carpenter and craftspeople. It would care for
its own infants, children and elderly people, partly by encouraging rich and friendly in-
teractions between them. It would have its own renewable energy production systems
based on solar, wind and biomass. There would be at least one skilled community facil-
itator/counsellor to help social bonds between community members to mature and grow.
Surplus food would be sent to the cities, where local residents would grow additional
food in their own communal organic gardens, as has been done with great success in
