This is Irene. It may not be immediately obvious from my shoddy camera work and the microphone distortion from the summer breeze, but Irene is one of the happiest people in the world.
Irene is talking here about how she takes 2 - 3 hours to plant one tree. She takes her time, because trees take their time too. Irene is wise.
Irene is one of several families whose sites I visited with a few friends last weekend, building a "One Planet Development", land based projects supported by the Welsh Government under the conditions that they:
- Have a light touch on the environment – positively enhancing the environment where ever possible through activities on the site.
- Be land based – the development must provide for the minimum needs of residents in terms of food, income, energy and waste assimilation in no more than five years.
- Have a low ecological footprint – the development must have an initial ecological footprint of 2.4 global hectares per person or less with a clear potential to move to 1.88 global hectares per person over time – these are the Ecological Footprint Analysis benchmarks for all One Planet Development.
- Have very low carbon buildings – these are stringent requirements, requiring that buildings are low in carbon in both construction and use.
- Be defined and controlled by a binding management plan which is reviewed and updated every five years.
- Be bound by a clear statement that the development will be the sole residence for the proposed occupants.
The nitty-gritty of setting something like this up (finance, planning permission, building regulations, general bureaucracy) is the sort of information I find almost impossible to concentrate on, let alone understand; but the spirit and motivation behind it all is as clear as day. Live simply, happily, and in peaceful co-existence with nature. Work out a way to do that, in Wales, and the Welsh government will support you. If only the English government would do the same.
Irene and her partner have already built a beautiful barn...
...and a pond...
...and rows and rows of abundant beds where happy go pecky chickens roam free...
This was down in Pembrokeshire. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Wales, other happy people are working out their one planet livings in log cabins, straw bale houses, composting toilets, roundhouses and polytunnels:
These pictures are from the site we visited on Saturday, where three families have a plot of land together they have divided into three, each building their one planet development in a loose kind of "community with a small 'c'", as one resident described it. Some disagreements exist between them as to whether they should become a community with a big 'C' although in day-to-terms, this didn't seem to matter.
As part of the commitment to a sizeable percentage of their income (35 - 65%) directly from their land, mini businesses and economic relationships and formed between the "one planeters" and the locals, selling their produce and skills. (One resident is a qualified builder of musical instruments, using wood grown and harvested from the site).
The practicalities of all this, as I send tend to go in one ear and out the other, which is unfortunate because this is exactly the sort of life I would like to live back here in England. Fortunately, other people who understand this stuff are beginning to emerge, and plans, still vague - but exciting - are beginning to form.
Related posts
A Weekend at Earthship Brighton
A Day at LILAC
A Smaller World (Part One)
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