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Friday, 7 September 2007

SOCIETY - fresh ideas...

The ecovillage - a viable alternative?

The idea sounded a good one. Max talked about how, as a child in his native Switzerland, he would walk to the village bakery to buy fresh bread. So why not recreate that in Australia?

After a few years proselytising, Max's village - Crystal Waters Permaculture Village - was established, but it would take nearly 15 years for Max to be able to walk to the local bakery to buy his bread.

Now with more than a decade and a half years of existence behind it, is Max's rural village a model that could help revitalise rural Australia?

The public building at Crystal Waters ecovillage

Learning from the past

There was something familiar with Max's idea, something that took me back to the 1970s when parts of the Australian countryside saw an influx of city youth searching for a new way of life. The 'intentional community' - rural settlements based on the cooperative, land sharing model - were the product of this demographic shift. While many collapsed or faded away as residents sought livelihoods elsewhere, the more organised and socially cohesive communities persist.

A domed earth construction home above a water storage at Crystal Waters

Max and his collegues went out of their way to get their proposal through their National Party dominated rural council. They wanted to appear as mature people interested in a new form or rural development, so they produced a comprehensive landuse plan that was based on ecological design principles which ensured there was room for both development and natural systems. Their houses were to be adapted to the subtropical climate, take advantage of solar energy and would be energy efficient. Wastes would be dealt with on site. These ideas appealed to the emerging environmental consciousness of the time and earned the project its environmental credentials, leading to Max's model became known as an 'ecovillage'. Crystal Waters gained council approval.

Creating livelihoods

As Crystal Waters attracted people ready to make the leap from city to country, potential residents realised that developing a livelihood might be a challenge. Those with appropriate skills envisioned making a living from home while others with experience in business or service industry thought they could find employment in the nearby town of Maleny.

Morag Gamble and Evan Raymond confronted the livelihood problem when they moved from Brisbane. With backgrounds in landscape architecture and community work and qualifications in coastal management, life was frugal at first and involved short periods working in the city. But they had plans and set about developing a livelihood as providers of residential courses, one of which focuses on the design of ecovillages. With Max Lindegger, Morag and Evan tapped into an international tertiary education market involving overseas universities whose students spend time at Crystal Waters as part of their studies.

"This summer we launched an internship programme for university students of various environmental planning, design, management and science courses. We arrange short workshops for international groups of public policy makers, architects, planners and the like who come looking for inspiration and guidance", said Morag.

Thanks to the success of their courses, Morag, Evan and Max have set up Crystal Waters College which is housed in its own energy efficient, solar powered building. This year, Morag and Evan have been invited to teach at Schumacher College in the UK. Max went on to develop a livelihoood as a consultant in ecovillage design and his work has now taken him overseas. A few years after setting up Crystal Waters, Max was hired to design a new ecovillage - Kookaburra Park - near Gin Gin in south-east Queensland.

Evan Raymond and Morag Gamble created livelihoods at Crystal Waters village through their training organisation, SEED

Two other people successful in developing livelihoods are Francis and Jeff Michaels, one-time Sydney residents with a background in horticulture. They built a house overlooking one of the water storage dams at Crystal Waters and, in a building next to the house set up a small business, Green Harvest, specialising in mail order horticultural supplies. Unexpectedly, Green Harvest became so successful they had to hire another Crystal Waters resident to help process the orders.

Crystal Waters residents Jeff and Francis Michaels operate a successful mail order horticulture supplies company, Green Harvest

Jalanbah was a later ecovillage on the edge of Nimbin in northern NSW designed by local woman, Robyn Francis and Maclean planner, Peter Cummings. Established in the early 1990s, Jalanbah won the approval of the local council and was cited as a desirable type of development for the future. More recent but similar developments include Rosneath Farm, south of Perth in Western Australia, and the planned Aldinga Arts Ecovillage near Adelaide.

Not successful for all

Max, Morag, Evan and the Michaels are the success stories when it comes to creating livelihoods in the sometimes isolated rural settings of ecovillages. But not all who have moved into Australia's slowly growing number of ecovillages have been so successful. Declining employment and economic prospects in rural Australia make finding work outside the community, or for small business development within it, the biggest challenge faced by prospective inhabitants. For some, it all ends with a reluctant return to the cities.

Ecovillages have not yet developed internal economies and it has taken Crystal Waters almost 15 years to establish a small number of nascent enterprises serving the village community. "The dairy, bakery and cheesery are the first businesses to establish in the village zone. The fetta is being made here at the biodynamic cheesery", said Morag.

Earlier attempts to set up a small shop - Maleny is 30 minutes drive away - have been unsuccessful. Residents continue to do their shopping when they go to town. But things are changing.

"Recently, a small shop has opened to provide a daily outlet for the community and regular visitors. Over time, the shop will include other local products, organic bulk goods, community crafts, cafe and village information", Morag explained. Bakers Les and James and their young apprentices are now baking enough bread for the 200 residents of the village and selling through a local organic cooperative and weekly farmer's market.

An ecovillage can support only so many bakers, cheese makers and builders, so a viable regional economy remains vital to future ecovillage development.

The Jalanbah experience

Visitors to Jalanbah, an ecovillage on the edge of Nimbin, might have noticed the unusual number of 'for sale' signs. The explanation was offered by a resident of the village, a one-time actor from Sydney who, with his wife who makes a living as a translator, has lived at Jalanbah for over five years.

"People come to Jalanbah with their preconceived ideas on what living in a community will be like. They leave when their ideas fail to match the reality. They also leave because they can't find a livelihood, an income", he explained.

Nigel Reid has bought land closer to Nimbin village where he one day hopes to set up Rivendell Ecovillage. With its smaller block, Rivendell will be more compact that Crystal Waters and Jalanbah. Acutely aware of the livelihoods issue, Nigel is looking to broadband access for future Rivendell residents so those with the skills can work from home but stay in touch with their suppliers and markets. Rivendell, he says, will learn from previous ecovillages and try to address some of their shortcomings.

Nigel knows that attracting people to Rivendell will be a challenge. The area remains one of high unemployment and there is the added problem of the reputation of Nimbin. He acknowledges that this may be a drawback. Potential residents would have to have a strong desire to live in the area, even if they can work from home. Attracting residents might take more than cheaper housing costs.

Crystal Waters public area and shop.

The issue: lack of economic opportunity

It is the lack of economic opportunity, of employment and of weak rural economies that limits the potential for small business development and that puts a brake on the ecovillage as a new model of rural resettlement. Rural jobs are in decline and so are markets for sole traders and small business people in rural areas. This means that those attracted to ecovillage living are likely to have a guaranteed income or be fortunate enough to possess skills still in demand in rural areas.

Economically depressed rural areas - where some of the settlements have been built - offer ecovillage developers and residents cheap land but at the same time limit their viability as a model for development. Siting ecovillages in areas with a viable economy might exclude the less affluent because of the higher cost of land, however the prospect of regular employment or of starting a small business is greater. Providing a regular income could be earned, this might offset the higher cost of buying in.

Now proven viable, the potential of the ecovillage as a model of higher density rural living is being held back by the economic decline afflicting much of rural Australia. It seems that not even carefully designed rural villages can escape our changing economic times.