Agenda 21 and Local Government
Agenda 21 is a real attempt to specify what actions are needed throughout the world to reconcile economic and social development with environmental concerns...
Autonomous House
Robert Vale, together with his wife Brenda, a Professor of Architecture in New Zealand, built the first autonomous house in England a few years ago...
THE Global Eco-Village Network (GEN) - Beginnings
Background to the early years of GEN, including the founding of the organisation...
Life in the Bush
Agriculture, once a way of life, employs very few people today and in many cases can’t feed a family. Farmers are mostly retail buyers and wholesale sellers - they’re between a rock and a hard place...
Cohousing
The Cohousing movement offers a great model for the residential aspects of eco-village design, where the community is actively involved in the design and development of their living environment...
Community Size... A Numbers Game
My experience of community, both as a designer and as a resident, has led me to believe that different population sizes create different social pressures on the residents, and a variety of behaviour patterns emerge...
Community Land Trusts
Land is in short supply. Housing is expensive. Is there a way through this mess? Mortgages keep you in debt. Community Land Trusts offer an exciting way of building a pathway out of the land ownership quagmire...
Eating into the Future
Australia's first conference concerning food and the environment was well attended by leading health policy makers from around Australia and internationally including academics and Federal, State and Local Government representatives. Industry representatives also attended...
20 Ways to Reduce Your Ecological Footprint
Actions you can take to conserve biodiversity, from the Australian Conservation Foundation...
Energy Tips
When is off still on? Many household and office appliances and equipment consume energy even when turned off. These energy costs can be up to $140 for a typical household each year, adding as much as 15 per cent to electricity bills...
Natural Paints
Traditionally paints came from products from the Earth. Australian indigenous people have traditionally used ochres and ground stone to create wall paintings which survive to this day, thousands of years later. Whitewash and other natural products were common in the days of our grandparents...
Pattern Language
Many years ago the Whole Earth Catalog devoted a full page to reviewing this book. It was the only book which received this kind of platinum treatment. If you are at all interested in putting life into community, variety into a world which is being globalised, and detail to the everyday places that matter...
Rammed Earth
The market for rammed earth in this area back in the late 1980s was fairly small, but the people moving into Crystal Waters Permaculture Village were looking for alternatives, and rammed earth met many of their needs...
Renewable not nuclear!
Is nuclear power the answer to Australia's fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions? Definitely not, reports Sam van Rood. Renewable energy, not nuclear, is the answer to our country's pressing need to reduce greenhouse pollution...
Roof Top Gardening
In urban areas the idea of a vegetable garden may seem an impossibility. However, it is possible to grow surprisingly large quantities of food on balconies, window boxes and roof tops. There are many roof tops which are suitable for gardening...
Reclaiming Community
Local economies need a tough skin to protect them from being destroyed by outside economic forces, many communities in the industrialised world are trying to create such micro-economies in order to keep local resources working within the community. Here are 6 of the first steps a community can take to revitalise their local economy...
Sustainable Abundance
It is about lower consumerism, about a more equitable sharing of wealth, about protecting our environment. It is about the realisation that quality of life is derived from what we do rather than what we own or consume. It is about consumer control of corporatist pressure through careful purchasing decisions; not watching the advertising, nor buying the products...
Telecommuting
Morrison, who hails from the Island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, has been able to create 100 or so jobs "the sort requiring brains, not brawn" in a place typical of villages we find all around the world - communities in dire need of any work...
Urban Alternatives
If the population of a region is weighted too far towards small villages, modern civilization can never emerge; but if the population is weighted too far towards big cities, the earth will go to ruin because the population isn’t where it needs to be, to take care of it...