This is the title of a recent book by Ross Jackson, PhD, which tells the story of his part in the development of the ecovillage movement. The rallying call “We can do it, we will do it, and we ARE doing it” was coined at the Findhorn Ecovillages and Communities conference of 1995 – the conference where the Global EcoVillage Network was born.

And we do feel that we ARE doing it. We are proud of our new EcoCentre. Building it has been a pretty involved, but still enjoyable, process. We see it as another step in the growing process of Crystal Waters as a village.

The EcoCentre completed and ready for business.

Transformation
This is an opportune time for us to look back at where we have come from, and to gaze into the future as well.

The idea of building a new village was something quite radical back in 1985, and required some innovative solutions from local and state governments of the time. There was some disbelief from government that people wanted to work from a place this far away from a major city. The telephone provider, Telstra, even doubted back then that we would want phones at all…. How times have changed! Today, with email, faxes and cheaper phone rates, telecommunication is very popular here and Telstra have had to come back several times to increase the lines into the village.

Dreams achieved – partly!
Bob Sample, the legal owner of Crystal Waters in 1985 whose vision it was to see more people settled on this land (and for it to be used holistically), said recently how pleased he was to see the forest which was only high on the ridges now reaching in parts down to the riparian zone, and expanding from the river and creeks. In the years ahead we plan to develop this work further and diversify the selection of plants now growing there, and to eliminate some of the many weed species which keep us busy now. Over the years many of our students have helped us with this task, and I’m sure that the students attending courses at the EcoCentre will continue to willingly provide labour.

The Hon Rod Welford presented a plaque to commemorate the opening of the EcoCentre. He commented that he found the lack of curtains to unveil the plaque an excellent example of the “no-waste” approach of our organisation….!

Economic improvements
Fifteen or so years ago, this area of the Upper Mary Valley had a high unemployment rate. Labouring was rewarded with wages as low as $4 an hour. That was a minimal wage even back then. Unemployment is still a cause of concern. Even the increasing number of private initiatives will not be able to keep pace with the demand for jobs. GENOA’s involvement in education and educational tourism does bring people to the area, and creates quite a number of interesting jobs. The flow-on effect is rather amazing, and as we have a policy of supporting our bioregion whenever possible, not only do Crystal Waters people benefit but the nearby town of Maleny does too.

However, the commercial part of Crystal Waters has developed slower than expected. And we dream of a Enterprise Centre some time in the future - adjacent to the EcoCentre, with offices, a library, an email room and a pleasant space to hold small meetings.

Today we have, so it seems, turned a corner in the development of the commercial area of the village. It now has a café, an information centre, a gold-medal winning cheesery, a sourdough bakery with a brand-new wood-fired oven, the rural fire brigade building, the village dairy, and the EcoCentre.

An alternative to globalisation
Visitors indicate surprise to find such a collection of innovations “beyond the black stump”, amazement about the quality of our produce, and support for this alternative action to globalisation.

We don’t see the EcoCentre as a protest against globalisation as such. For us it is a way to survive in a rural environment and to pass our message on to as many people as we can.

Disappointments
Yes, we believed that what we were doing fitted the Federal Government’s initiatives for regional areas perfectly. We were wrong - there are communities in even greater need than us - fishing villages without fish to catch, timber towns without trees to cut. Yes, we had hoped that some of the Community Fund from the gambling industry would surely come our way. Well, it hasn’t so far. And we couldn’t believe that we, who brought in foreign currency through providing educational programmes to university students in Japan and the USA, would have to pay the government a Goods & Services Tax on these earnings. We were taxed, making us less competitive in the world market, but we have still survived.

Yes, sometimes we get angry because we believe in what we are doing, and we can’t believe that some politicians don’t agree with us. But we go forward in the belief that we have here quite a unique example, which is approaching a reasonable level of “sustainability” - at least we believe that we have excellent examples of solutions for energy use, water needs, waste water treatment, building design and material choice, which point the way towards a greener future. A future where our standard of living will be enviable and the quality of life quite excellent.

Support
Support, voluntary labour, imagination and innovation from many people have gone into the EcoCentre and the colour EcoCentre booklet. Read it, enjoy it – and, if you can, act on it!