Ecovillages: a viable idea constrained by poor rural economies

Max Lindegger had a good idea - why not, he proposed, set up a community that brings all of the benefits of life in a village as well as sound ecological design? It just so happened that he was setting up such a place in the hills behind Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

The idea sounded a good one. He 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 possibility in Australia? After a few years of proselytising, Max's village was set up. It became known as Crystal Waters 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 of existence behind it, is Max's rural village a model that could help revitalise rural Australia?

So what's different?

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 an outcome of this minor demographic shift. While many collapsed or faded away as residents sought livelihoods elsewhere, some still persist today. These were the more organised, more socially cohesive communities.

Crystal Waters learned from the experience of these early intentional communities. The project was set up in a professional manner and, unlike many of the earlier land-sharing communities, Crystal Waters offered freehold title to residents, not simply a share in the land.

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 of rural development, so they produced a comprehensive landuse plan that was based on ecological design principles and 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 village model became known as an 'ecovillage'. Crystal Waters gained council approval.

Making the leap, creating livelihoods.

As Crystal Waters attracted people ready to make the leap from city to country, potential residents knew that developing a livelihood might be a challenge. Those with appropriate skills envisioned making a living from home while others with experience in government or service industries 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 of 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 have now tapped into an international tertiary education market involving a number of overseas universities, whose students spend time at Crystal Waters as part of their studies, and which recognise their courses.

"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," Morag says.

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.

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.

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 and similar developments include plans for the Aldinga Ecovillage near Adelaide and, south of Perth in Western Australia, Rosneath Farm, which is already underway.

Not so successful for all.

Max, Morag, Evan and the Michaels are the success stories of creating livelihoods in the sometimes isolated rural settings of ecovillages, but not all who have moved into Australia's slowly growing number of settlements have been so successful.

Part of the reason is that ecovillages have so far failed to develop internal economies. That process is just getting underway at Crystal Waters, however with declining employment and economic prospects in rural Australia limiting the potential for work outside the community or for small-business development, creating a livelihood is the biggest challenge faced by prospective inhabitants.

It has taken Crystal Waters almost 15 years to establish a small number of naescent 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," Morag says. Earlier attempts to set up a small shop - Maleny is 30 minutes drive away - were unsuccessful because residents did their shopping when they went 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," she explains. 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.

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

Jalanbah.

It was the unusual number of 'for sale' signs which caught my attention as I walked through Jalanbah. There seemed to be too many so I asked a one-time actor from Sydney who, with his wife who makes a living as a translator, has lived on Jalanbah for more than 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 explains.

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 than 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 clients and markets. Rivendell, he says, will learn from previous ecovillages and try to address some of their shortcomings.

Nigel knows that he must be patient and that attracting people to Rivendell will be a challenge. The area remains one of high unemployment and there is the problem of the reputation of Nimbin. People would have to have a strong desire to live in the area even if they can work from home rather than locate in some rural area closer to the city and their markets. It might take more than cheaper housing costs.

The livelihood issue.

It is the lack of economic opportunity and employment; of weak rural economies limiting the potential for small business development that is putting the 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. This means that the people attracted to ecovillage living are likely to be those with a guaranteed income or those who are fortunate enough to possess a skill still in demand in rural areas.

Economically depressed rural areas - where many of the ecovillages have been built - offer ecovillage developers and residents cheap land but at the same time limit their viability as a model for development. But what about siting an ecovillage in an area with a viable economy? While the problem might be the exclusion of less affluent residents because the higher cost of land would make the entrance price too high, 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.

It seems, then, that the best place for new ecovillages would be on the edge of coastal towns with a healthy tourism economy and that are experiencing growth.

Now proven viable, the potential of the ecovillage model of higher-ensity 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.