It takes an ecovillage

Recently, I received a real estate brochure, promoting a new subdivision in the mountains of Baguio. I read it and wept. The developers built almost 700 units on a nine-hectare piece of land! The leaflet shows a pathetic picture of a bald mountainside, exploited and populated by hundreds upon hundreds of townhouses!

Yet we do have other choices. We can choose to do the right thing. Imagine a small village hugging five hectares of land up in the mountain of Rizal overlooking the beautiful sunset of Laguna Bay. It will have its own organic farms using the ancient knowledge of Perma-culture. We are developing this land slowly by hand, one stone at a time, taking into account the importance of bio-diversity and the natural beauty of the environment. This will be a village where the butterflies and the birds roam freely and where man can be at peace with nature, in harmony with earth.

The term Perma-culture, short for permanent agriculture, is about waste and resources- management including water and energy conservation, sustaining natural ways of food production while maintaining bio-diversity. The practitioners understand that there is an unseen energy, which spirals gently throughout the universe, through and from all objects, both animate and inanimate.

Our forefathers practiced Perma-culture long before the invention of herbicides, chemical fertilizers and now genetically-modified plants. Recently I sent someone to the market to buy some red-hot chili peppers – labuyo. We crushed these tiny, powerful and spicy peppers and mixed the pulp with water to spray on the vegetation in our village to protect them from harmful insects. Mang Romy, an Igorot who assists us in designing our Ecovillage, taught me this ancient knowledge.

Humans cannot take for granted the necessity of plants. We cannot live on earth without them! Plants purify water, air, build soils, recycle organic wastes, provide food, fuel and medicine. And they surround us with boundless beauty, feeding our souls and cleansing our spirits! In our village, connecting ourselves with the plant world and building a culture with respect to the natural world will be one of our main goals. Our small community will learn to assume our place on Earth as caretakers of Life.

Feng shui is a term that seems so profound to most people but its origins are simple. It offers us to follow a natural way of life where man creates a balance and harmonious existence with himself and his environment.

There is hope. There are signs of a paradigm shift; awareness and demand for organic fruits and vegetables, natural building materials, herbal and alternative medication; along with a movement to promote Perma-culture and ecological communities are increasing.

In our dream village, which we will call Akasha, we are fortunate to have a group of gifted, hardworking men from the Mountain Province. Their noble forefathers built one of the world’s wonders, the Banawe Rice Terraces, with their bare hands, over 2,000 years ago.

For "fencing," we used the generous availability of stones and volcanic rocks in the area, resulting in a stone wall, over one-kilometer long enclosing the property. They have also built a road four-and-a-half meters wide, which will eventually be topped by stone.

Normally in commercial subdivisions, the first thing developers do is bring in the bulldozer to clear the land, completely killing every plant and tree. This is devastating to earth and mankind! So my husband Steve and I decided to build our own village, create our own small community in order for us to live in harmony with nature. I only wish there were more people who would embrace this vision.

I have instructed our workers to please respect the beauty of the land and its wilderness. I said, "No one is allowed to destroy any tree or animal. You are only allowed to kill snakes if you are going to eat them. Otherwise leave them alone."

During the development of Akasha, we have had to ask many plants to give up their sacred lives. It is our responsibility to accept these gifts with respect and deep gratitude. In return, we have generously restored plants in the areas we disturbed. We know that plants are our greatest allies, for they heal air, water, earth, animals and humans.

In the last eight months, my husband and I have planted hundreds of seedlings of narra, mahogany, acacia, coconut, mango and various species of bamboo and palm, working on Saturdays through storm, rain and shine. We have added to the landscape tropical flowering plants and plenty of fern trees and other fern varieties. We have also allotted plenty of space for fruits and vegetables. We plan to terrace a section of steep terrain and, using the natural flow of water, contain some water for a tilapia farm.

Soon, we will build a house using local materials and I cannot wait to show people that using brick, stone, Vigan tiles, wood and other indigenous materials will produce a beautiful home.

A big portion of the land will be dedicated to organic farming and another separate section will be subdivided to allow construction of only 20 houses. All these homes must be built using local materials to complement nature, not abuse it. The beautiful, spiritual and pure essence of the environment must be preserved. It must be respected!

When I told Dorota Owen, a British citizen, of this dream during our last meeting she said, "Marlene, you are building an ecovillage. That is my dream, but you are actually doing it!" She gave me a website that encourages and offers guidance to people like me with the same vision. Apparently there are at least 20 countries in the world with ecovillages, including three in Asia.

According to Ted Trainer, an Australian sociologist from the University of New South Wales, the power of the vision should not be underestimated. He wrote: "Would it be an exaggeration to claim that the emergence of the Ecovillage movement is the most significant event in the 20th century? I don’t think so."