To: ecobalance@lists.ecovillage.org, "Permaculture List" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>, essa@csf.colorado.edu
Cc:
Subject: [permaculture] OUR Ecovillage
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 22:14:30 -0700 (PDT)
Aloha all,
I was recently on Vancouver Island briefly, at just the right time to get a
guided tour and Q&A session with one of the founders of OUR Ecovillage.
They have done amazing work, most notably (to my bureaucratophobic mind) in
that they have, through persistence and ongoing education of civil servants,
enabled the creation of a whole new zoning category very well suited to the
needs of ecovillages (as it ought to be, since they pretty much wrote it).
Besides that they've got the bureaucracy bought into cob, straw bale, round
wood and other hybrid natural building technologies, permaculture, etc. and
have got their larger community bought into what they're doing too. They get
donations up the wazoo. They even got government grants to work on getting
the government to appreciate and support lots of that stuff.
Plus they run some very exciting sounding learning opportunities in
permaculture, natural and alternative building, community-building, etc. with
all sorts of fun and interesting guest instructors/facilitators/etc.