Ecovillages, Earth citizen

ecovillages, the earth citizen In Central and South America, citizens organize themselves to propose models for a sustainable life benjamin bĂŠchet / Odessa / Pictu re Tank

Creatives solutions for a sustainable world In Central and South America, citizens organize themselves to propose models for a sustainable life.

Context : Central and South America are increasingly seen as an eldorado by the occidental world. Any kind of economic resources can be find there: water (first world reserve), biodiversity, gas and oil.

Challenge : From northern Mexico to Argentinean pampa, more and more people organize themselves in ecovillages.

They want to respect the ecosystem wherein they lived.

Approach : Citizens’ initiatives are an answer to the ecologic breakdown of our societies. Reacting to environmental despoliation, ecovillages pave the way for another form of development and show us how to live outside the consumption system. Crossing of the continent and travel to the heart of those earth citizens’ daily living.

In a small autarkic ecovillage of Argentinean pampa, four families are already living in the post-oil age. They propose an exportable life model, exchange seeds with the rest of the world and practice the natural agriculture.

Their work is giving back to the pampa its fertility. Like them, hundreds of members of the ‘Global Ecovillage Network’ think that it is possible to live in abundance and to preserve natural resources two at a time. According to the ecosystem wherein they lived, they experiment several ways to reach that aim. Same purpose but different realities.

The key of their success? Working with and not against the nature. Just a stone’s throw from Sao Paulo: thirty years ago, ten young people started to share a bio-dynamic agriculture experiment. Today, five hundreds people are living in what became an eco-neighbourhood, which attract students and workers from the big city. Far-removed from Sao Paulo, in Colombia, in the middle of the coffee and bananas’ intensives plantations, Hernando has also chosen to resist to the model that small farmers are forced to follow: becoming a day labourer for the coffee bosses or sell their lands and migrate to the city. Hernando has kept his one hectare plot and has transformed it into a biodiversity paradise. He’s now able to feed his entire family. Autonomy, use of appropriated technologies, and reappropriation of the working tools: all those values connect the ecovillages we met.

Those citizens’ initiatives show us different ways to change our relation with the environment. More important, these severals models are adjustable and can be exported throughout the world.

Cecilia playing; in the background, we can see the coming common’s house and the Gaia’s office.

The midday meal at Gaia, a famous ecovillage near Buenos Aires.

Gustavo wash the dishes, Gaia, Argentina.

In Alicia’s room, the mother of Gustavo. Mudhouses offer perfect isolation to face argentinean pampa’ winter.

Cecilia in the soil ground of her room, Gaia, Argentina.

Jorge in his kitchen; the walls, the ground and the stove are in soil.

Students in seeds’ preservation at the end of the meal. Reputation and skills of Gaia’s inhabitants are famous in Argentina, and even as far as Brazil.

It is small hours. Ariel brings back some trays to light the wood stove.

Johan Van Lengen, at home. «There are things you cannot explain. If you have intuition, follow it! The time of analysis will come afterward.»

Johan wrote the first popular ecoconstruction guide in the earlies 80’.

In the streets of the Guayabos: a 300 ' inhabitants neighbourhood in Guadalajara, the 2nd most largest city of Mexico.

Straw and mud house under construction on the renovate farmland of the Caballero family, San Isidro Project, Mexico.

At San Isidro school, students learn how to recycle, cultivate and live together, Mexico.

The Viento Solar Project created cooperatives of peasants and fishermen, in order to impulse ecological creative solution in a traditionnal community.

The Viento Solar Project created cooperatives of peasants and fishermen, in order to impulse ecological creative solution in a traditionnal community.

The Viento Solar Project created cooperatives of peasants and fishermen, in order to impulse ecological creative solution in a traditionnal community.

Hernando has built his house in Bambu by himself; nine years of efforts and creativity, Granja de Mama Lulu, Colombia.

IPEMA is an ecological formation center for young people.

Gigante, Luis and Victor cooking, IPEMA, Brasil.

Victor is going to cultivate. Former student in agronomy, he interrupted his studies to put his knowledge into practice.

Gigante in Ipema’s garden. Associated cultures and land improvement licence, allow a good yield with minimum efforts.

Andres, poete and funder of Huehuecoyotl, the first mexicain ecovillage.

Morning bath, IPEMA, Brazil.

A new volunteer has just come to Ipema.