Re: ecovillage and sustainability

> ...referring to 'traditional villages.' Yea, sure, they are (or were) the
> ultimate models for sustainability: ecologically integrated into the
> landscape, self-reliant local economies, organic growth patterns and
> morphologies, size dependent on carrying capacity, social taboos limiting
> population and growth, equable distribution of resources, accountability
> of 'leaders,' deep knowledge of local biota, trans-generational decision
> making, place-based culture, etc., etc., etc....they certainly could be
> "continued into the indefinite future" but could we say they were
> "full-featured?"

what is a traditional village ?

many of them were fully participant in the diverse empires that have risen
on earth then fell , since the neolithic revolution . as such they have
activelly participated to the desertification of their regions (
mediterranean basin is the most striking ex ).
 the main technology used in those villages have been the cultivation of
soils with plow . it have the disturbing effect to hinder the natural
fertilisation process that is dependant on the integrity of the ecology of
soils .It can takes centuries , but tilling the ground is necessarelly
depleting soils overtime and in some more fragile conditions will
precipitate desertification .

monoculture of grains is also a decisive factor in depletion of soils (
removing the forest cover , compromising the biodiversity,  making peoples
addicted   to their opioids molecules and insatiably hungry and angry for
more allways more,  leading to a fear based culture ).

Other villages have been part of hunter gatherers cultures who have been way
more sustainable for way longer period of time than neolithic cultures but
have also participated to the desertification thru the misuse of fire (
australia ), extinction of games ( many species hunted by paleo hunters
disapeared .)

we didn't have to wait the industrial revolution to see allready a very
disturbed earth by human activity since we began to HATE the hunter gatherer
life style (This life style doen't allow hierarchisation of social structure
easelly ).
In fact inherently in traditional agriculturist villages there was the seed
for the madness of the industrial revolution .
work was so harsh , exploitation of womens chidrens and mens for the benefit
of few was the norm, health was desastrous, social arrangement so painfully
repressive of the aliveness .it was not sustainable and gave birth to the
industrial revolution to "progress"

now that we have reach a stage of realising the "poverty" of our
consciousness we are presented with a new revolution that is called the
information age that supposelly will deliver us from the misery of having to
be bound by our physical limitations ( virtual reality ) but in fact is
going to impoverish us even more from our god given attachment to LIFE and
will brainwash us into docile and willing servant of a sytem of exploitation
to an extent never seen before .

In all those progressive stages what we don't see it is what we have slowly
but constantly lost along the way ( each revolution giving a  false sense of
improvement)

To give a concret ex of this phenomenon :organic farming have seen
traditional farming as something to go back to . yet fertility of soils went
so down after centuries of exploitation of the fertility built up by forests
before deforestation, that chemical farming came at a rescue to "restore "
some fertility .
this didn't last long as now even chemicals start to not work anymore in
exhausted soils .

it doesn't stop organic farmers to believe to be sustainable despite having
to deplete fertility from somewhere else to concentrate on their land .(
organic fertilisers manure etc...).

from my point of view as long we don't question the fondation of agri
cultures that is reduction in biodiversity ,plowing of soils ,and
hierarchisation of social structure , there is no way to stop the
impoverishment of EARTH no matter which form human settlements takes.

jean-claude




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