This phrase of permaculture co-developer Bill Mollison (although he said “falling food”), kept running through Diana Leafe Christian´s head each time she almost bumped into limbs heavy with peaches hanging over the path. This happened last August in Davis, California, when it was her great pleasure to visit Village Homes with her friend Vince, who lived there at the time. Village Homes is 240-home subdivision in a college town in California’s Central Valley. Begun in 1975 by developers Mike … Read more
intentional communities
Community regenerates land and land regenerates community
Whenever Lucia Battegazzore from Uruguay thought about herself living in a community, she imagined herself in a beautiful place of untouched nature, with a stream of clean water, an old native forest where she could lose herself… However, the place where she has ended up is different. Lucia has experienced first hand that regenerating the ecosystems brings back community - and the other way around. I live in an old vineyard in an intensive agro-industrial zone, where a contaminated creek … Read more
the Great Unification Inspiration for the End: "Free Your Choice" - the Great Unification
Yan Golding, a yoga instructor, permaculture teacher, dancer, and community builder, co-founded a pioneering eco-community called Khula Dhamma in South Africa, organised and co-facilitated the first Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) in Brazil, and is now living in Southern Portugal where he intends to co-create another ecovillage. He is also part of the steering group that is spear-heading a bio-regional Transition Initiative of the Western Algarve. He unfolds his plan through this poem. Let … Read more
TRANSIT Change and Innovation in GEN: Results of the EU research project TRANSIT
Ecovillages are fascinating experiments, Iris Kunze first came across them in 1996. Ever since then, she has been keeping in touch with the ecovillage movement motivated by researching and teaching on sustainable ways of living, at university. Prompted by GEN's 20th anniversary, she and her colleague concluded a research study on 20 networks as initiatives for social innovation with the EU-Project TRANSIT (TRANsformative Social Innovation Theory). Here she summarizes their preliminary findings … Read more
Sociocracy in GENNA Sociocracy in North American Ecovillages and Intentional Communities
Sociocracy — which means “governance by peers or colleagues” (sometimes called “Dynamic Governance”) in the US — is an increasingly popular governance and decision-making method based on the principles of transparency, equivalency, and effectiveness. In Diana Leafe Christian´s experience, when an ecovillage or another kind of intentional community uses Sociocracy, their governance process tends to become far more effective and enjoyable than it was when they used consensus as their … Read more
Argentina Argentina: 13-day Wavespells at VelaTropa
In front of the largest football stadium in Argentina lies an intentionally sustainable community. This is the ecovillage VelaTropa, located in the city of Buenos Aires, on the other side of the River Plate football club’s home. Along with Boca Juniors, River Plate is considered to be the best Argentinian club and, due to their rivalry, they create a classic, world famous game. Reported by Henny Freitas, EarthCode Project. Referred to as the Paris of South America, Buenos Aires hides an … Read more
20 Years of GEN: ZEGG Says Thank You 20 Years of GEN: ZEGG Says Thank You!
The ZEGG community in Germany has been a genuine and integral part of the GEN network in Europe. Ina Meyer-Stoll was GEN Europe Executive Secretary from 2003-08, Achim Ecker was GEN Europe council member and president at the same period of time, and Thomas Heuser, the Managing Director of ZEGG is a current GEN-Europe council member. Artemis Zimt (member of Next GEN) interviews the three of them. Artemis: In 1996, two representatives from ZEGG, including Achim, went to Lebensgarten, … Read more
The Story of NextGEN The Story of NextGEN: Youth Perspectives Impacting the Ecovillage Movement
For the past several years, a group of empowered young people have been creating an inspiring movement within the existing ecovillage network. NextGEN is a youth-focused and youth-directed part of the Global Ecovillage Network. NextGEN is building youth-oriented projects in every region of GEN and its members represent a wide diversity of youth from around the world. This article by Ethan Hirsch-Tauber will share some of the different voices, in order to give a window into what NextGEN is, and … Read more
GEN and Gaia Education GEN and Gaia Education – a Story of Love and Collaboration
A crucial part of the GEN history was the wish to create a global education for resilience and sustainability based on the experience of ecovillage. Kosha Joubert, President of GEN International, shares the story of Gaia Education. What a joy it was for me to be invited to the 2nd founding meeting of Gaia Education, taking place in Findhorn in 2004! I was one of 24 ecovillage educators to integrate, synthesize and write the core curriculum of the EDE (Ecovillage Design Education). I even … Read more
Book about GEN GEN book published in July 2015: "Ecovillages Worldwide - Local Solutions on Global Problems"
The GEN 20+Summit in Findhorn is the occasion that Kosha Joubert, Leila Dregger and Clio Pauly took to write a book about ecovillages worldwide – with the help of many longterm ecovillage members who contributed thoughts, experiences, adventures, failures, learnings and success stories. The book will be published in German and English at the same time and be launched at the summit. Thanks to all those who helped so generously. Leila Dregger recalls the process of writing. When Kosha Joubert … Read more
