Review of Ecovillage Living by Hildur Jackson and Karen Svensson
Ecovillage Living is an excellent overview of various aspects of ecovillages. The 180-page book is a collection of 2-3 page articles and interviews from a variety of people related to ecovillages. From interviews with a fundraiser who has collected millions of dollars for foundations to articles on waste water treatment systems, the book covers a variety of topics in significant detail while giving a good overview. Jackson and Svensson edited the topics enough to keep authors on topic while letting them have their say. The book was an easy read with lots of pictures and illustrations of ecovillages.
One question that wasn’t answered until fairly late in the book was what an ecovillage is compared to other communities like cohousing. In one of the many articles written by Hildur Jackson, she explained how cohousing projects are usually built by typical developers while ecovillages are built with the sustainability in mind by atypical developers – often the founders of the group. Typical developers usually aren’t concerned with the environment very much, so the ecovillage causes atypical developers to get unusual permits to produce energy and process waste in different manners than governments usually mandate. Because of special requests, several communities mentioned in the book had to spend considerable time in bypassing the standard building procedures and seek out special developers or abandon their dreams of sustainability.
The authors discuss three primary aspects of ecovillages that include ecological, social and cultural-spiritual. Ecological topics cover perma-culture to renewable energy and discuss many topics related to sustainability. The social aspects were covered lightly and the articles discussed alternative currencies and living and learning centers instead of social aspects of the community like social benefits of living in ecovillages. The spiritual/cultural section discusses various ecovillages like Auroville, India that has over 1,500 inhabitants. These three sections cover charters of villages and how spirituality can give ecovillages a higher dimension. The ecological, social and cultural-spiritual aspects of an ecovillage give a good description of the key features of these special places.
After cover these three features of eco-villages, the authors have special sections on ecovillages in the southern hemisphere, creating an ecovillage and expanding the ecovillage concept. The southern hemisphere section shows the global desires of the author and discusses special topics related to villages that start with minimal resources and cultural differences. The section on creating an ecovillages discusses how financial aspects of ecovillages and methods to overcome common pitfalls of ecovillages. The final section of the book covers concepts to expand the reach of ecovillages by working with the United Nations, Non-Government Organizations and the author’s Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) that operate around the world.
One of the strengths of the book was that it interviewed or included contributed articles from several ecovillages. The largest example of ecovillages were from Sri Lanka where the Sarvodaya Movement for Peace has converted 13,000 village into ecovillages by following a 5-stage process that culminates in the village becoming economically independent and working with other nearby villages to make them eco-friendly and economically friendly. From South Africa to Mexico, the book covers a variety of villages and cover various aspects that aren’t redundant and keep the book interesting.
While the book was written in 2002 and is a little dated, the book provides a good overview of the philosophy and goals of ecovillages and many references that can be investigated online. The authors were earnest in getting their points across and they let contributing authors share their viewpoints while keeping them focused on ecovillages. The book provides a nice overview of ecovillages and how to get connect with ones around the world.
Reviewed by Scott Kipp ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )
