NOTE see detail of talks in Los Angeles 14 , Santa Barbara Oct 14, 15 and Oct 17 Lafayette  California
 details below

Contact: Margie Bushman
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
(805) 962-2571, email: margie@sbpermaculture.org

SANTA BARBARA PERMACULTURE NETWORK
Presents:
Eco-Villages and the Global Future

Evening Lecture Sat, Oct 14, 7:30 pm, 2006
Workshop, Sunday, Oct 15, 10 -4pm
Location: Santa Barbara City College

At the Environmental Summit in Rio in 1992, leading politicians from all over the world laid down principles for a sustainable lifestyle in the 21st century. What will promote and initiate this hopeful future?

The Eco-village movement has been at the forefront of an effort to design human settlements in a way that could transform our lives. Based on ecological design, they say yes to a positive future, while considering the possibility of less resources to maintain our present over-consumptive lifestyles.

Join Professor Declan Kennedy (www.declan.de) as he defines and explores the concept of Eco-villages and the Eco-village movement. An exuberant man in his seventies, Prof Kennedy has had many careers, beginning with dance and choreography, making the leap to architectecture and urban planning, then incorporating permaculture & Eco-village design into his life’s work.

An Eco-Village is a human-scale, full-featured settlement, in which human activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world in a way that is supportive of healthy human development and can be successfully continued into the indefinite future. Eco-Village design is based mainly on permaculture principles and is a way of thinking to create an abundant future. By conscious design, we can build homes and buildings that conserve natural resources, make agriculture ecologically sound, reforest the planet and restore community life in rural and urban areas

Prof. Kennedy is an Irish architect, urban planner, permaculture designer and ecologist, co-founder of the Permaculture Institute of Europe and of the Global Eco-Village Network (GEN). He has been teaching and practicing ecological urban design since 1972 and permaculture for the past 20 years and was Professor of Urban Design and Infrastructure at the Architectural Department of the Technical University of Berlin. He served as Secretariat to the United Nations for the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN). His present activities include working on the urban design for the first full-fledged ecological settlement in Ireland, and most recently assisting the Gaia University (www.gaiauniversity.org) in establishing its international advisory board. He lives with his wife Margrit Kennedy, in Steyerberg Germany, at Lebensgarten, an eco-village they helped co-found in 1985.

The evening lecture takes place Saturday, Oct 14, 7:30pm, at the Santa Barbara City College West Campus, in the Fe Bland Auditorium, 721 Cliff Drive. Cost is $10/$5 students, no reservations are needed. For more information, please call (805) 962-2571, email, margie@sbpermaculture.org, or visit www.sbpermaculture.org.
Sponsors: Santa Permaculture Network, Santa Barbara Ecological Education Coalition SBCC Adult Education Series(SBEEC), ,Hopedance Media, and For the Future.

***Workshop, Sun Oct 15, 10am-4 pm, $30/$20 Students, Location, SB City College Earth & Biological Science Building (EBS), Room, 309, East Campus, 721 Cliff Dr, Santa Barbara.

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Declan Kennedy Upcoming Talks In California Oct 2006


Tuesday, October 10, 2006 at 7:30 pm at L.A. Eco-Village
DECLAN KENNEDY
gives a talk and slideshow on Urban and Rural Ecovillages Around the World
Fee: $10 (sliding scale ok)
Reservations: 213/738-1254 or <crsp@igc.org>
About Declan
Prof. Declan Kennedy is an Irish architect, urban planner, permaculture designer and ecologist, co-founder of the Permaculture Institute of Europe and of the Global Village Network (GEN). He has been teaching and practicing ecological urban design since 1972 and permaculture for the past 20 years and was Professor of Urban Design and Infrastructure at the Architectural Department of the Technical University of Berlin. Presently, he is doing the urban design for the first full-fledged ecological settlement in Ireland. He now teaches eco-village design from the ecological community Lebensgarten Steyerberg, G

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FRIDAY OCT 13 RADIO INTERVIEW WITH DECLAN KENNEDY (9AM- 10AM)
Sustainable World Radio: Friday mornings at 9:00 am PST, and Monday afternoons at
12:00 pm PST on KCSB 91.9 FM in Santa Barbara, California. Also, streaming live
worldwide on www.KCSB.org.
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Oct 14 Sat 10am Complementary Currency! Myth or a Must solution for your community?
with Prof Declan Kennedy Donation $5-$10
Santa Monica Public Library, The Martin Luther King Auditorium
Designing Complementary Currencies. Applications, practical implementations and issues will be discussed. Learn how to benefit from techniques successfully implemented in Europe and in more than 2700 communities around the world and the USA.
This informative presentation will be followed by a game simulating the use of local money as a permaculture tool to create community, jobs and fight inflation. He will use Silverlake neighborhood as a model.
The library is located on Santa Monica Blvd. at 6th street in Downtown Santa Monica. Parking, entrance on 7th street
Contact David Kahn <info@sustainablehabitats.org> 1-323-667-1330
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ECOVILLAGES AND THE GLOBAL FUTURE WITH PROF DECLAN KENNEDY

Sat Oct 14 7:30 pm Urban and Rural Ecovillages Around the World Slide Show and talk with Declan Kennedy
Santa Barbara City College West Campus, Fe Bland Auditorium, 721 Cliff Drive . Santa Barbara $5-10 Donation

Sunday Oct 15 10-4pm (Urban & Rural) Ecovillages and the Global Future Workshop with Declan Kennedy,
Cost $30 /student $20

Santa Barbara City College Earth and Biological Science Building, Room ESB 309 East Campus Santa Barbara 721 Cliff Drive
An Eco-Village is a human-scale, full-featured settlement, in which human activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world in a way that is supportive of healthy human development and can be successfully continued into the indefinite future. Eco-Village design is based mainly on permaculture principles and is a way of thinking to create an abundant future. By conscious design, we can reverse desertification, make agriculture ecologically sound, reforest the planet and restore community life in rural and urban areas.

Prof. Declan Kennedy www.declan.de is an architect, city planer and permaculture designer and lives in Lebensgarten Ecovillage Germany. Professor of Urban Design and Infrastructure at the Architectural Department of the Technical University of Berlin. He has been teaching and practicing ecological architectural design since 1970 and permaculture design since 1982, both in various universities.He did research on implemented examples of main stream ecological settlements in Europe for the European Academy of the Urban Environment, Berlin. European Secretariat of the Global Eco-village Network (GEN) and is Founding Chairman of the GEN Board and Advisory Board Chairperson of Gaia University www.gaiauniversity.org

Contact margie@sbpermaculture.org 805-962-2571 www.sbpermaculture.org

Cosponsored Santa Barbara Permaculture Network, Santa Barbara Ecological Education Coalition/SBCC Adult Education Series, and Hopedance Media and SB City College Students for Sustainability Coalition

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Oct 17th - Tues at 6:00 PM DECLAN KENNEDY - Designing eco-villages around the world
Potluck dinner, presentation and discussion with the founder the European Permaculture Institute and one of the most enthusiastic promoters of sustainable living.
Sponsored by: Friendly Favors and Institute of Noetic Sciences and Gaia University Network and Global Ecovillage Network
Location: At the Swatts - 1234 Cambridge Dr, Lafayette, CA - 925-932-0434
For RSVP , directions and carpooling go to www.favors.org/FF > Events
www.declan.de/Englische/index_en.htm
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ARTICLE

Eco-village Movement


Declan Kennedy
Dublin, Ireland & Steyerberg, Germany


".... anything a human being or animal does, whether it is just to make a sound or take a step, leaves permanent, never-dying impression on the processes and physical substrate of the Earth. Because humans exert so much more power than animals, the lasting impressions we make on the planet are much greater than theirs. Consequently, whenever we make some permanent change in the Earth, disturb some harmony, it is our responsibility to make some other change that will restore the harmony."
Life in the Next Millennium - David Ehrenfield



What is an Eco-Village?


At the Environmental Summit in Rio in 1992 , leading politicians from all over the world laid down principles for a sustainable lifestyle in the 2lst. Century. The Eco-Village movement rose to these challenges and in implementing Agenda 21 - the Earth Summit's plan for action - those involved in building up their own eco-village took it upon themselves so to say - to practice a detailed Agenda 21 on a day-to-day basis.

An eco-village can be seen as a modern settlement where humans live in harmony and co-operation with nature, testing new experiments, new technologies and new skills designed to create a more endurable, peaceful and diverse way of life.

The criteria for an eco-village is based on the five Elements of
• Fire,
• Water,
• Air,
• Earth and
• the quintessence of these first four which might be called the Ether.
These include:
- celebration and ritual;
- environmentally friendly production of goods and food;
- ecologically benign jobs and working conditions;
- building biology - creating buildings that enhance our health;
- democratic decision-making by the members and
- service and education to the larger surrounding community.

When building up an eco-village, ecology like architecture can be design-oriented and include social and political strategies. Using an ecological approach many elements come together to achieve abundance, diversity and wealth. When these different ecological streams converge, they call for integration and holistic action.

Many eco-villages around the world have been organising themselves for a possible breakdown of economic and societal systems. This could result from our current economic thinking, which is based on greed and scarcity and is playing havoc with our environment and the basis of all life ( see www.margritkennedy.de)

Ecovillages are like pioneer plants and nurture the idea of sustainable abundance. They spring up at a place where the potential already exists for their healthy growth. They grow slowly but surely and let their fruits and leaves fall off around them to enrich their surroundings and to create the basis for new growth. When the climax of the forest comes they have already become Main-stream, bringing their process and power into the whole system.

"What is an eco-village?" is an on-going discussion within the Global Eco-Village Network. You are welcome to send your contribution on this subject to the GEN-Europe secretariat in Scotland. Contact: Jonathan Dawson, GEN-Europe Secretariat, Findhorn Foundation, Forres, e-mail: info@gen-europe.org or consult: www.ecovillage.org

Sustainable Design for Life Support Systems

The term "Sustainable Design" defines a design method which enhances the linear sectoral organisation of human support systems (such as: agriculture, energy and water management, architecture, urban planning, education, recreation, administration, etc.) - in order to create linkages between the various elements needed for each specific task. Thus each element endeavours to support the function of all others - similar to the way in which highly developed organisms work. The results are often stunning.
Both in urban and rural settings, as in Permaculture, sustainable villages demonstrate how the optimisation of the overall "yield" saves work (i.e. time and energy) and creates beauty, flexibility and responsiveness. Applied on a larger scale, with the help of the eco-village movement, we could create abundance everywhere in the world. All we need is human intelligence, courage and insight.
Eco-Village design, based mainly on permaculture principles, is a way of thinking to create an abundant future. By conscious design, we can reverse desertification, make agriculture ecologically sound, reforest the planet and restore community life - even in urban areas. The contribution of these intentional communities is vital. An eco-village concept could be called a system for creating productive, diverse and sustainable communities - and for creating ecological architecture both of which are essential to support stable life on this planet. It is based on the observation of nature and traditional building systems, but uses modern methods and technologies as long as they are benign.
The essence of nature is abundance. Nature is generous. Not because she feels good to be generous, but because she is in her being generous. Nature does not worry if the children or the animals (she provides for) are morally okay or not. Nature allows everyone a share in her wealth. That is unless these people cut themselves off from their share by expecting too little or taking too much.
If lots of people manage to take things into their own hands and improve their relationships to Nature - through permaculture, citizen participation in ecological rural and urban renewal or any other similar awareness system - if they begin designing with Nature, with abundance in mind - which is there all the time - then the provision of food and shelter for all people on this planet could be improved immensely.
Daily the media remind us of the world’s ecological and economic crises, and of the serious disparities between the rich and poor peoples of the world. An eco-village - as a solution - not only speaks about ecology - but has a very strong economic emphasis. What is less apparent - is that the present money, land and tax systems create a societal framework that directly contributes to these problems and to the exploitation of nature and our fellow human beings. Thus the solution to our problems must involve fundamental change.
(1) How our present monetary system creates or contributes to the chronic poverty of developing regions and the economic and environmental ills of industrialized regions;
(2) That introducing a circulation fee or demurrage instead of interest is an alternative that has been successfully tried in different areas of the world;
(3) How complementary reforms in monetary, land, and tax systems contribute to the solution of these problems, especially the unemployment and under-employment situation arising out of globalization.
Social justice, ecological survival, and human freedom are threatened where societal structures tend to work against these goals. The proposed reforms combine the advantages of capitalism and communism. They promote freedom and enterprise while at the same time promoting social justice and ecological protection.
Some eco-villages or the bio-region around them - in the not-so-industrialized world - would be very good places to do a regional experiment - and there is very little for them to loose, at present, seeing as how the interest payments to the so-called developed world are ruining their economies. The inhabitants of these areas could show the world how it could be done. The concentration of central powers is historically a land, tax and money problem rather than racial or social-class one. If these eco-villages succeed in creating a balanced system, the incentive for self-reliance would be greater for whole regions.

Designing as a game
Designing is a big game - and gaming is also a way to get a new understanding of solutions. By gaming I mean to go at things in a playful way. To play with the design tasks, for instance, or to play at running your own decision-making processes, can mean to improvise and/or just let things happen. We can set up rules - or subordinate ourselves to certain regulations, knowing well that they are not absolute or binding forever, but have a certain value within the game we are playing. Playing is the highest form of activity - it is one of the original activities of the universe. It is the way it came into being.
Gaming means then, here, to pull down the level of seriousness - especially with what we are doing at the moment - or that which lies directly ahead of us, i.e.
- for the tasks that have to be mastered, here and now,
and
- for the things we expect to happen in the immediate future.

Eco-village design can also mean doing things in quite a different way that we are used to, for example:
• looking at a problem from another angle;
• transforming problems into solutions;
• putting them on another level of understanding or
• bringing them together in a new realm of action.
Although eco-village design has to do with “doing” and with “uses”, this type of playful approach could be defined as doing something that makes connection between needs and action.
In childhood you had certain times and certain situations where you did useful things playfully. It often contributed later to your ability to understand or learn something. I appeal to you to include this type of gaming - of playfulness - in your ecological design. It helps people to empower themselves to do what they think is good for Nature. It shows that we can do something new - in a complete way - on this playing field. There is really nothing that binds us down. Everything that seems to bind us, we have created ourselves
- partly, to create stopping points
- partly, to make the game more interesting - but
- partly, to create our own barriers so that we can show our prowess, as the architects seemingly need to do continually.
But the great news about playing with ecological practices is that we begin to recognize the extent of our freedom.

Nature is our freedom - and freedom is our nature.
This is a time at which the need for major structural change in the world’s ecological systems is becoming evident to increasing numbers of people. The reforms proposed here will not solve all the world’s ills. They could be, however, a critical component of the necessary social and economic transformation of local areas and of the planet.



Prof. Declan Kennedy www.declan.de is an Irish architect, city planer and permaculture designers. He is founding member of the Permaculture Institute of Europe. He has been teaching and practicing ecological architectural design since 1970 and permaculture design since 1982, both in various universities and in special seminars organized in many European countries. He works in private practice as ecological urban planner and consultant, and is, at the same time, implementing all five zones of permaculture in a project in Steyerberg, Germany, where he is member of the eco-village Lebensgarten. In the 1990’s, he did research on implemented examples of main stream ecological settlements in Europe for the European Academy of the Urban Environment, Berlin. Later, he ran the European Secretariat of the Global Eco-village Network (GEN) and is Founding Chairman of the GEN Board. At present, beside his activities as a spiritual healing and mediator, his is assisting the Gaia University in establishing its International Advisory Board www.gaiauniversity.org