Relating to aboriginal peoples

Dear Friends,
Greetings!
The image here is of Jeff and me at our local marae, or Maori centre. We were attending Matariki, the celebration of the New Year.

I'll give you a little of our news, and then get into the substance of this blog, which has to do with relating to aboriginal peoples. This is an essay I finished this afternoon (though it may undergo further revision.) Why should you look at it? Most readers of this blog probably live in one of my previous two homelands - Australia and Canada. Both of these, and my present homeland, together with the United States, have incompletely reconciled relationships with their aboriginal populations. (It's also the case that these were the only four countries who voted against adoption of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.) I'm a slow learner; it has taken me a long time to come to grips with this. Working on the issue of Reconcilliation , as I am currently, has created a context for this exploration.

So, first a little chat. Would you like a cup of tea?

Jack and I.
We're well. Jack has become a tramping addict, and we're now equipped to do overnight tramps.We have lovely sleeping bags, and backpacks so complicated you pretty much need a weekend workshop to learn to use one. The visit from Germany of our dear friends, Nicola and Ralph was a wonderful excuse to take time off and go tramping. Under the skilled mentorship of our friend Katerina, we went on our first overnight tramp. New Zealand has a system of government-maintained huts on major tracks, so you don't have to carry tents. Some even have gas stoves, although most don't. I had fun working out food that would be delicious after a long day's walking, and also very light to carry. After this wonderful few days, we celebrated Christmas together, and then went on a tent-camping trip on the Abel Tasman Track, reaching our starting point by water taxi.
Jack and I have since done another overnight on the Abel Tasman by ourselves, staying in a hut that was a farmhouse 100 years ago.
Working on designing the house still takes a lot of time. The earthworks are finished and it all looks rather like a moonscape.

Last month I went to Australia to help celebrate my mother's 90th birthday, which was done in three parties, all of which she greatly enjoyed. I was delighted to be present when my niece, Sky de Jersey, chaired the first meeting of a Transition Town in her part of Sydney. The group will set about creating vegetable gardens on footpath verges. In Sydney, I met up with our son Jeff, who is now in Paris, Ontario, to work on a film with friends.

OK, now for the essay.

Because I fear I might lose some of you before you get to the end of the essay, I'll say goodbye now, and how very much I appreciate the comments many of you make about the blog.

Very warmest wishes,
Joanna

Maori-Pakeha Reconciliation

Introduction
There are many situations throughout the world where two or more peoples living alongside each other and interacting with each other have a history of having harmed each other. Usually there is a power difference and one side has hurt the other disproportionately. Post-colonial relations are one category of such situations. Seen in North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, Africa, the Basque areas of Spain and France, the relationship may have involved superiority in military technology and manpower, with domination of indigenous people and their culture backed by violence of various kinds.
Background
Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand. It is thought that they came to the islands of New Zealand, also called Aotearoa (Land of the Long White Cloud) from Polynesia in about the 13th century Common Era. Beginning in the early 19th century settlers, mainly from the British Isles at first, began arriving. Later other Europeans immigrated to New Zealand, from Germany and Scandinavia, and later still, from the Pacific Islands. Initially, Maori mostly welcomed the newcomers, seeing benefits in new technologies and plant varieties. They agreed to land sales, envisaging a cooperative relationship with, at that point, small numbers of new settlers, known as ‘pakeha’.
But things were changing rapidly in ways they could not foresee. The British were interested in protecting their access to the timber, flax, seal and whale resources of New Zealand. They were aware of growing French interest in the country, and of a private company forming with the purpose of taking boatloads of settlers there. They wanted to secure their sovereignty there and, it should be said, there were those in the Colonial Office in London, who were genuinely interested in protecting the indigenous people from abuse by Europeans. (These same people were involved in the anti-slave trade movement at the time.) These several motivations led to the presentation to certain Maori leaders of a document devised by James Busby, the appointed British Resident, called the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand. In signing it in 1835, the Maori aristocracy affirmed their sovereignty over the territory of New Zealand. A further step was the forging of what came to be called the Treaty of Waitangi (after the place at which it was discussed and signed) in 1840.
The Maori version of this treaty, which was discussed by several score tribal leaders at Waitangi, and eventually signed by hundreds of Maori leaders, gives the right to govern the land to Britain, (likely assuming this applied to the two thousand sometimes rather lawless Europeans). Maori retain the right to govern their own communities, lands, forests, fisheries and ‘treasures’. Land sales, it was agreed, should be strictly voluntary, and only to the Crown. The English version was somewhat different. In it, sovereignty is ceded wto the British Crown, in exchange for protection. The signing of this ambiguous treaty opened the country to a massive influx of Europeans and an incessant hunger for land. Maori were overwhelmed, and lost control of land transfers.
Only a few years after the signing of the treaty, Maori armed resistance to what were regarded as inadmissible land deals had begun. Maori were initially successful in these encounters. They also used nonviolent land occupations to resist land transfers. The imperial response was to call for troops from Australia, until, in the 1860s, the Governor of New Zealand had 20,000 troops at his disposal, including settler volunteers. This was at a time when total Maori population of both islands was fewer than 56,000 people. Imperial force eventually prevailed. The government imposed crippling punitive land confiscations on the Maori in the most turbulent areas, depriving them of means of living.
Resistance to one of these confiscations was the scene of the most famous of Maori nonviolent actions. Prophets Te Whiti and Tohu regularly preached nonviolence in the village of Parihaka , on the west of the North Island. In 1881 they sent out teams of women to pull up survey pegs at night and teams of men in the day to plough and fence the land soon to be taken over. Again and again these teams were arrested, and more were sent to replace them. Eventually the government sent a force of 1600 men to enter the village. They were met by hordes of singing, skipping children who offered them food. Nonetheless, the village was destroyed, the leaders arrested and imprisoned without trial , the people dispersed and the land taken over.
Throughout the 19th century, population numbers of Maori steeply declined, from about 100,000 at the time of first contact to about 45,000 at the end of the century. This disastrous decline had many causes. Two major causes were not deliberate aspects of the quite explicit settler intention to dominate and assimilate Maori and their resources. Maori had poor immune resistance to European diseases, and died in large numbers of measles, influenza, whooping cough and tuberculosis. Maori fertility was affected by syphilis and gonorrhoea.
Maori culture included intense intertribal competitiveness. Once it became possible to acquire European firearms, there was an arms race between tribes, and the so-called Musket Wars in the 1820s and 1830s caused a loss of a large proportion of the population.
Maori considered that the promises of the Treaty of Waitangi were broken many times over. The Treaty was, in fact ignored by government institutions for the following century. In 1877, Chief Justice, Sir James Prendergast, ruled that ‘the whole treaty was worthless – a simple nullity [which] pretended to be an agreement between two nations, but [in reality] was between a civilised nation and a group of savages…’ Land continued to be transferred from Maori control in huge amounts.
In addition, land transfers often included promises to Maori to reserve land for them, to build hospitals, churches and schools. Many of these promises were not kept.
In the second half of the 19th century, Maori life expectancy was affected additionally by malnutrition, as the remaining land was insufficient for their sustenance, and their initial successful adoption of European agriculture and horticulture was economically overwhelmed by larger farms.
Who and what was hurt?• Having a population decline in numbers to less than half over a century translates into all living members of a population having to deal with sickness and death and the pain of childlessness, and into watching villages depopulate. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was expected that Maori were a dying people and that the end was near.
• The remaining population suffered hunger and malnutrition, unemployment, lower state benefits or none, substandard housing.
• Maori cultural and spiritual traditions declined for many reasons – voluntary adoption of the dominant culture, assertive missionary activity, deliberate suppression of Maori language in schools, suppression by law of aspects of Maori culture, urbanisation of Maori in the 20th century, and demoralisation.
• Weakening of community functioning meant the loss of community support, a vital social and spiritual resource for Maori.
• Deprivation of their resource base of land, forests and fisheries meant most Maori suffered poverty.
• While Maori health has improved through the 20th century, there is still a life expectancy differential of 11 years compared with the Pakeha population. The loss of 11 years of life is a very significant deprivation .
• Loss of trust and goodwill for the Pakeha portion of the population after repeated infractions of the solemn promise between the peoples in the Waitangi Treaty and many other promises.
• Currently many Maori perceive that they must resign themselves to persistent racism in the Pakeha population, and know that this impedes their life chances. Some continue to feel angry over all that has happened to them and their ancestors.
• It is possible to consider that this racism, derived from 19th century colonialist encounters, also harms those who hold such attitudes, although few would feel aware of this harm, and its effects are far less painful than those suffered by the object of racism.
Who hurt whom?
Parties particularly responsible for the many injuries to Maori and their lifeways were settler companies, land developers, the government, the military, missionaries. Maori killed settlers, soldiers and a few missionaries in the course of the several wars. In the 21st century, harm continues to be done by Pakeha ignorant of the necessity of redressing historical injuries. Such people see compensatory actions to Maori as unwarranted favours to a special group. This strand of sentiment is strong enough to create anti-Maori backlash at times, and the potential to be cynically used by political opportunists.
Process of healing
The Maori population did not die. There was a resurgence in population numbers, in language and in culture. There were improvements in physical health and a surge in fertility. Maori representation in Parliament steadily increased. A Maori party formed, and is part of a ruling coalition at the time of writing. There was a renewed focus on the promises of the Treaty of Waitangi, and it came to be seen as the founding document of the nation, to be incorporated into relevant legislation. The Waitangi Tribunal came into existence for the purpose of settling and redressing wrongs in failures to observe the terms of the treaty. Numbers of Pakeha learned to speak Maori; many attended workshops on the Treaty to deepen their understanding of the injuries of history that required reconciliation. School curricula changed to incorporate learning that would help all New Zealanders understand the history of the relationship between Maori and Pakeha.
How did all this come about?
Firstly, Maori never submitted to the injustices perpetrated on them. There was no historical period in which they paused in their attempt to protest their grievances, especially the removal of almost all of their lands. Before the Land Wars of the 1860s, a powerful Maori grouping had proposed parallel parliaments, shared sovereignty and cessation of land sales. In 1894 there was a Maori attempt to introduce a Maori Rights Bill into Parliament. Maori communities set up committees to abolish the Native Land Court which facilitated land transfers away from Maori. They used their disproportionately small parliamentary representation to struggle for successive improvements in Maori rights and lives throughout the early decades of the 20th century. Many of these efforts failed at the time, but created momentum for the next attempt.
The role of parliamentary action in this long struggle highlights the importance of democratic functioning in adjusting the relationships between peoples. But only after the introduction of a proportional representation system of parliamentary elections in 1996, did Maori begin to have numbers of parliamentary representatives proportional to their population. Their influence accordingly increased.
The courts too have played a role in recovery of a just relationship. For example, a successful legal challenge led to the requirement that the government spend significant amounts of money on promotion of the Maori language.
In addition, civil society organisations, such as the Maori Women’s Welfare League , the New Zealand Maori Council and urban protest groups, played a crucial role. Highly effective Maori leadership was an important element, including remarkable women leaders. The ability to adapt the means of protest, using mass media to convey the message, was a significant factor.
In the 1970s these protests became more insistent. In 1975 there was a great Land March from the northern tip of the land to Wellington, the seat of Parliament. This politicised Maori with a unity of purpose in the struggle against colonisation. There were several notable land occupations resulting in removal of occupiers by police and army. These nonviolent actions made clear the degree of unrest in the land. Equality of rights, restoration of land and language were the major themes of protest.
In 1975, the Waitangi Tribunal was set up by an Act of Parliament, in order to examine any future challenges to Treaty provisions. Among its helpful activities, the Tribunal recommended action to promote Maori as a living language, eventually to become an official language. After a decade of Maori agitation on Treaty issues, and motivated by a desire to retain the Maori vote, in 1985 the government made the scope of the tribunal retrospective. This initiated an avalanche of claims against the Crown. As each major settlement has been made, an apology has been issued by the Crown, in the person of the Prime Minister. When decisions have been appealed in courts, an evolving understanding has developed that the Treaty was ‘essential to the foundation of New Zealand’ and is ‘part of the fabric of New Zealand society’.
Efforts to regenerate Maori education began in the 1960s, but surged in the 80s with the established of language immersion from infancy. In the same period, Maori schools and universities began. Many refer to a Maori Renaissance.
Concepts of identity are changing. Some refer to ‘tangata whenua’, the people of the land (Maori) and ‘tangata tiriti’, the people of the Treaty (Pakeha). There is the idea of a bicultural society within a multicultural society. Historian Michael King questions the concept of a bicultural society, because of the actual and desirable interpenetration of each culture with the other.
These latter changes imply that the Pakeha population of New Zealand have changed over time too, from an unquestioned attitude of superiority supporting dispossession, towards greater understanding and respect for Maori. Needless to say, this shift is not universal. Backlashes flash from time to time, racism is still endemic at a lower level.
Why the change? The 20th century was one in which the value supports of colonialism and racism were repeatedly challenged and partly demolished. The idea of the universality of human rights became firmly established. New Zealanders displayed an astonishing degree of civil protest in response to a rugby tour of an apartheid South African rugby team in 1981. This turned the attention of some to the racism in their midst. If the Treaty had not existed, there would be moral imperatives for these changes, but the treaty had standing in law, and this helped immensely.
What is yet to be done?Maori do not think full redress for past wrongs has been made. The Waitangi Tribunal is still plodding through hundreds of claims and will be for some time ahead. Maori think that the promise of self-determination over their lands, forests and treasures has not been fulfilled. There are several Maori propositions for a dual system of power-sharing, in the belief that this will constitute a just relationship. In moving towards a just and generous relationship, it is important that New Zealanders learn from an early age the history of the relationship, the progress of reconciliation so far, national values of justice, cooperation, generosity and rejoicing in diversity, in order that they might carry it forward.
In such a large-scale, long-term reconciliation process, it can be seen that all the elements of reconciliation run in parallel over time. The demand that society and the offending group (in this case one and the same) hear the grievances is not yet fulfilled. The Waitangi Tribunal has a long list of cases which will take years to clear. This demand also requires that the injuries against Maori as a people be recorded and learnt as a common history of New Zealand for generations ahead. The acknowledgement of these grievances (in this case as in many others, the heart of the process) must proceed as the grievances unfold. Apologies are formally proffered as settlements are arrived at. In 1996, Queen Elizabeth II apologised to the large tribal group who had been subjected to invasion by imperial troops and punitive land confiscations in 1860. Reparations proceed as settlements are made. Some of these are monetary, some are land returns, some involve rights to resources, such as fisheries, and some involve reversion to Maori names of places. There are more to come.
Has there been forgiveness by Maori of Pakeha harm? Hard to say. The process of acknowledgement, apology and reparation is not yet complete, for one thing. Another issue is that for some Maori, the harm of endemic racism continues. Yet many Maori-Pakeha relationships appear free of the burden of the past.
The process of reconciliation received a major setback in 2004 when, despite massive protests by Maori and others, and a contrary recommendation by the Waitangi Tribunal, the government passed a law assuming sovereignty over the foreshore and seabed of New Zealand, traditional Maori resource areas. This Act has been successfully challenged in court and awaits revision or repeal. The government is said to be moving toward a form of co-management, an interesting shift towards a Maori worldview of non-ownership. This issue, one imagines, must signal to Maori the need for continuing vigilance over transfer of land and resources. Yet, unlike the depradations of the 19th and 20th centuries, this one was halted in three years after passage, and may lead to working with a blending of values about the resources of Nature.
Further comments
The harm to indigenous people in colonising relationships backed by power to kill and other kinds of violence is very severe, and continues for centuries after the active phase of colonisation. For example, the appalling numbers of sad and hopeless Canadian Inuit boys who have committed suicide in the last decades can be linked to the history of harm in colonisation. The cumulative suffering is enormous. There are current situations in which the colonisation is active and acute, for example, Israeli colonisation of Palestine and Chinese colonisation of Tibet. When the acute harm is ended we can expect the time of healing to be very prolonged, a task to be carried out for many generations ahead, as in the case history above. This case illustrates the typical situation in which it took nearly a century and a half to begin to have grievances acknowledged formally. An intergenerational task must be carried forward by education and value transmission.
It is foreseeable that the century ahead of us will be one in which the impact of population growth, peak oil and climate change on sea level and food production is likely to cause much movement of peoples. There are no new territories to occupy, so those who move will necessarily move in on the land and resources of others. In many of these cases, the immigrant people will probably be the less powerful, vulnerable to resistance by the indigenous to use of their possibly scarce resources. Sea level rise causing Bangladeshis to move inland is one of the most worrying future projections. It is also conceivable that armed invasions could occur, particularly where land has been purchased by one state for food production in another. For example, China and the Gulf States, among others, are engaged in systematic very large land purchases in every continent for food provision to their populations.
We would do well to try to minimise future suffering by planning now to act on both the causes and effects of these foreseeable human movements. Better to learn the lessons of the suffering incurred by population movement in the past and apply them to prevention than to address centuries of suffering with reconciliation in the future.
Sources for this section were:
Consedine T., Consedine J. Healing our History: the challenge of the Treaty of Waitangi. (2nd edition) Penguin, 2005.
King, Michael. The Penguin History of New Zealand. Penguin, 2003.
King, Michael. Being Pakeha Now: Reflections and Recollections of a White Native. (2nd edition) Penguin, 2004.
Website of Network Waitangi Otautahi: www.nwo.org.nz

Well, if you got this far, you are a devoted reader, indeed! My congratulations! Of course, I welcome comments on this, as on other material.

More warm wishes,
Joanna

Grans and Gramps against Greenhouse Gases

Dear Family and Friends,
Warmest greetings to all.
If the image placed here gets through to you, it's of our new group - Grans and Gramps against Greenhouse Gases. We were singing in Nelson on a Climate Action Day early December. The Climate Change Minister invited us to sing to a gathering he held the night before he left for Copenhagen next day. So we made it pretty pointed.


News of us.
We've continued to spend rather more time than we wish on designing this new house. Our plans have been sent to the Council for approval. Meanwhile, large machines reshape the land at the housesite. A few days ago our much-appreciated engineer, Gil, rescued ten tree-ferns from being crushed and replanted them near the house-to-be - our first garden plantings. We must now organise the brickmaking.
Jack continues to complete the huge hillside mulching project on the windbreak; he was shovelling bark today.
Jack also continues to spend a lot of time on the management of the project.
We've enjoyed guests in the last few weeks, including Jeff and his partner, Katy. Jeff made a film of the Grans group. You can see it on Youtube on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voZjohITqAs
Jeff is now in Brisbane, Australia, and then will fly to Canada to make a film with his buddies.
Jack and I continue to find things we want to write about. Jack just had an article published in the new US journal, 'Solutions', edited by Bob Costanza. I worked with Peace through Health colleagues in Denmark, Norway and Canada on a paper on the role of health workers in relation to violent conflict. I've contributed in a minor way to articles written by a new group of physicians, Ora Taiao or Climate and Health. This is a tremendously dedicated and active group, working over e-mail on climate change issues.
I've learned new things in this period. I attended a workshop on scything, bought a scythe and its appurtenances and now use it. One friend who took the workshop with me says it's as fast as a weed-eater doing the same job. It's an aerobic workout, and very pleasant exercise. It's best done in the early morning when you can hear the birds singing along with the swish-swish of the scythe.
The fragrance of the air at this time of year is wonderful. This morning's meditation was scented by clover, lavender and mint.
Recently I attended part of a workshop on the 'invisible structures' in communities - the people side. We discussed types of communities on a spectrum of communal to individualised, legal aspects, consensus decision-making and conflict management. I need to go much further in this area of knowledge.

Village issues Jack and I have done some work on the covenants of Atamai Village - those provisions that will be mandatory on residents.
The village is slowly growing. Jurgen and his wife and toddler have moved on to the land in two little buildings as a temporary home. One of them was previously Jeff's little home when he was with us. The earthworks for the home of Tracey and Craig Ambrose and their baby has now been completed, and we held a potluck there to celebrate.
We have potlucks about every two weeks. Everyone seems to enjoy them a lot.
One of the very big houses on the top of the ridge changed hands recently. The new folk want to be part of the village. I understand they can buy into the Commons. They have five kids and are expecting the 6th. All home-schooled.

Here is Jurgen Heissner's New Year summary of Atamai progress:
Here is a little stock taking from the Atamai project:

The land

The last months have seen tremendous progress on the land. Kerry started working for us two months ago with a focus on the Atamai landscaping and maintenance and Adrienne has been busy with huge compost piles for the community garden. The orchard is looking very tidy now and the trees are thriving.

The goat herd has settled in nicely at TeMara and Cheryl is producing some great cheese from the milk. Growing has indeed been a challenge this year with the weather but production is picking up now. The irrigation system in the Mediterranean garden is now nearly complete which will help a lot with the watering later on in the year.

Food security is very high on our list of priorities and is receiving the bulk of current investment in terms of commons and effort on the land. Not that it will impact New Zealand a lot but the world-wide food supply situation is deteriorating rapidly and we are very conscious of our responsibilities there for the village and beyond. An excellent summary of the situation can be found here but be warned, it’s not a pretty picture nor a good outlook.

Building projects & Sections

The first temporary accommodation is now on the land and the areas around them are being enthusiastically landscaped. One of the cottages is themed along a ‘French Country Style’ and the proud owners of the 10 square meter abode are tossing about the names ‘Versailles Cottage’ or ‘Dragonfly Cottage’ (lot’s of ponds nearby). No votes are taken J, humour or romance will decide.

Village community

Seven of the twelve sections available at this stage have now sold and two more sales are likely to close within the next few weeks from the pool of four parties keenly interested. We are now looking at mid 2010 or spring for the next batch of 12 to 18 to become available. We welcome Graeme and Kath from Auckland to the village!

Business Opportunities

The brick making operation will be set up next. Initially the bricks required for Jack & Joanna’s and Kyoko and Jurgen’s house and subsequent projects and then as an independent business. Our next priority is to the get a more commercial setup for the nursery operation going. We are already purchasing a lot of plants now and this will steadily increase as sections will get landscaped and gardening ramped up.

Shifting and Contacting us

Our offices are now housed in the engineering workshop at TeMara. To contact us there use the usual email address or the temporary phone number 03 526 7002.

Atamai has now got an official RD address and mailbox:

Atamai Village Council
Mytton Heights
Pangatotara
RD 1 Motuka 7196

Those of you how are looking at shifting onto the site soon and haven’t had their property numbers issued by council you can use this address as a c/o address in the meantime.

Earthworks

The earthworks for the first section (Lot 4) have now been completed and title issue is in the final stages. Our engineer is very proud to have received a ‘no issues whatsoever’ verdict from the Tasman District Council engineer. High quality indeed. Earthworks on Jack’s section are in progress and should be complete by mid January by which time the next six lots will be started.





Transition Town Motueka. Momentum has slowed a bit. Partly this is because I'm devoting a lot of time to Climate Change issues, and no one else does the coordinating role. I continue with the radio show, and have recently interviewed people about Ora Taiao, eco-architecture, and new developments in the Transition Town idea. The Scything workshop was a considerable success. Three sessions were filled. We used the meadows at Te Mara, our food-producing property, for this. The teacher was Austrian, a former airline pilot, who greatly prefers to farm and teach scything.

Global work. Copenhagen has come and gone, leaving a trail of disappontment in its wake. Now we must consider what to do.
I would like to put time into shaping ideas about organic farming as a significant nay of reducing emissions and sequestering carbon. I understand that, at a certain scale, this could make a large difference. Switzerland's government subsidises organic conversion and they now have a considerable proportion of organic farms. There needs to be a research side of this too.
Even further, the ideas being put forward by WEs Jackson of the Land Institute and Wendell Berry (one of my lifetime favourite writers of fiction, nonfiction and poetry) on perennial polyculture, closely related to Permaculture ideas, seem very important. The focus is soil preservation for long-term sustainability of agriculture, as well as carbon sequestration.
Next weekend we hope to get some of the most energetic of the local activists together for a strategy meeting. Some of the options to be reviewed are:
* calling the politicians to account
* public education linking climate change, economic growth, the money system, modes of agriculture
* focus on creating low-carbon alternative living, as in our sustainable village and Transition Towns
* focus on the money system and steady state economy
* focus on organic conversion plus no-till plus perennial crops in Permaculture design plus (perhaps) biochar use as carbon sequestration and soil (and civilisation) preserving strategies.
*focus on making personal carbon quotas workable and widespread

Warmest wishes to all the widespread readers of this blog.
Joanna

Images to go with next post

Grandchildren, Jackson and Charlotte with Jack.
















Grand-daughter Bianca.






















Tom, the turkey, displaying to the goats and anyone else around.

Some of the dear little kids.









Text will follow in next post.
Warm wishes,
Joanna

Dear Friends, First, the images.
At the top is the reason we went to Canada in August - to see our three grandchildren, and frolic with them on the grass. Jack is with Jackson and Charlotte, Josh and Tracey's kids, 7 and 4. The other is sweeet Bianca, 18 months, Penny and Jonah's daughter.

Next is Tom Turkey, a new arrival on our farm, Te Mara (the garden). He displays incessantly and gobbles continually. I don't know where he gets the energy.

He and his partner live with the goats, who have been busy giving birth to lots of kids. There are 15, and perhaps two to come. They are pretty, gentle, sweet little animals.

The last image, at the bottom of the page, is from a piece of street theatre several of us generated for the Global Day of Climate Action last weekend.
( I think these images have not succeeded, so I've sent them separately in another post. The image of the street theatre may have failed again - sorry.)

Now, let me organise myself a bit better.
A word or two about us.
We remain healthy and 'toughening up' a bit to farm labour. The huge job we undertook this week was to mulch the 'Hillside of 1000 Trees' we planted as a windbreak to the house we'll build. We're getting there, but there are a few creaks and groans in the evenings.

I reckon I'm moving toward qualifying as a New Zealander. Two iconic aspects of the national image are wearing gumboots, and being able to fix anything with number 8 wire. Tick both of those boxes. Add in this. For the street theatre piece, I was asked to play the former Prime Minister, Helen Clark. Of course, she has a pronounced NZ accent, and also a very deep voice. Thanks to Youtube for the coaching! I got a clap every time!

We've almost finished the design of our house. The architect is working on the drawings. Earthworks will begin in a few weeks. It will be built of pressed brick. The inside brick layer will be made of the earth here, if all goes well. The outside includes earth plus sawdust, and currently is only made on the north island, so we'll get it from there. The insulation will be wool, I think. It's passive solar oriented. We've designed the roof to acommodate the the solar hot water device, but the photovoltaic panels will be a separate installation. Attention has been paid to the thermal mass that will retain absorbed heat. There will be underfloor pipes, heated with water from the wood stove. This serves to cook, bake, provide hot water and central heating. The solar heated hot water will have supplementary heating if needed from an 'on-demand' gas heater. Water will be supplied by roof colection. There will be two large tanks downhill from the house. Grey water will drain to the orchard area. The gardens will have a Permaculture design, with perhaps more flowers than usual.

In thinking of the design of this house, we have considered it should last several centuries and accommodate many different families.

We have half resented needing to spend so much time on this. But I found I became deeply absorbed in the design process when I sat down to focus on it, and enjoyed it. Visually, the house is nothing special, quite plain. I hope it will be welcoming and comfortable for all who shelter in it over a long duration.
Global issues. Jack helped to edit Richard Heinberg's latest work, 'Waiting for a Miracle', just out. It's about the quantitative mismatch between demand for energy, and what will be available from renewable sources. It makes the point that conservation, learning to use less energy, is our best strategy.

Climate change has been my preoccupation over recent months. A friend, Katerina Seligman and I decided to give public seminars on the subject, so we had to learn a great deal fast. We also generated the street theatre piece illustrated below. In the photo we are performing it at a lovely country fair in the neaby village of Ngatimoti. The drama centres on the Kotuku, or White Heron, gardian spirit of Motueka. It weaves together Maori themes with a serious message, humour and the beauty of the great bird's slowly flapping its wings. We worked with a wonderful Maori playwright.

Katerina and I also plan to pull together a group of singing Grannies, modelled on Canada's Raging Grannies. We'll call ourselves Gutsy Grannies or Gumboot Grannies or something like that. We'll perform at Climate Change events,

I'm very pleased that a group of health workers, mainly public health doctors, have come together to form OraTaiao, or Climate and Health. They've already published a couple of articles in NZ's medical journal.

Transition Town Motueka Lots of gardening workshops going on. Rudolf Steiner's Biodynamic methods have a huge following in this part of the world. There is a workshop this weekend on that. I'm helping to organise a workshop on scything in a few weeks' time. It seems like a period of skill building.

Finally, Atamai Village At last, there is a real sense of forward movement. More than half the lots have been sold now - for the first phase of building. The earthworks on the first dwelling are to begin tomorrow. People are beginning to come together identifying with the village. Now we share a meal together every one or two weeks. These occasions are very pleasant, with kids running in and out of the adults. Craig and Tracey Ambrose host a pizza potluck
where they provide the pizza dough and the oven. Jurgen and Kyoko do a sushi potluck, where everyone brings a designated sushi ingredient, and Kyoko provides the nori. This was excellent.
Several couples are creating temporary dwellings on their piece of land while they build their houses. Some of the young couples are intent on doing a fair bit of the work themselves.
The cute little sleepout Jeff lived in while he was here will move across to the other side of the hill tomorrow, where it will become part of a cluster for Jurgen, Kyoko and 2 year-old Yuuki to live in while their house takes shape. They will build a Japanese-type house.

The Te Mara gardens are being readied for another season of planting.

So, that's life in Motueka this Spring. May the Kotuku keep us safe, and may we keep her safe.

Warmest wishes to all,
Joanna

Climate grief, family joy

Dear Family and Friends,

The images here are of our prospective house site, in which you can see some of the recent tree planting (small pale green plastic rectangles on left), a recent chainsaw safety seminar involving all who are using these devices on the properties; and of sunrise from our house. On the plain you can see the lights of the town, Motueka.

I write to you from Auckland Airport, en route to see family and friends in Canada. Such mixed feelings accompany this voyage. Uppermost is longing to see loved ones, especially the little ones. Beneath that is awareness of the ethical conflict of flying in a time of dangerous climate change. I can tell myself that the thousand plus trees we’ve planted recently offset many such flights by usual calculations, but I know this is insufficient moral balance. Underneath this is fear that at some point, who knows how soon, it may become impossible to fly across the planet, or unaffordable. Perhaps it will still be possible to do it by boat, but when I priced the cost of this in 2007, it was unaffordable. So deep down is the awful thought, is this the last time?
News of the village
We are near to having titles available for sale. All that remains to be done is to do the earthworks to prepare the sites for building, and to put roads to them. Finances have recently become available to move ahead on this. A young couple, Tracey and Craig Ambrose, have moved to Motueka with their very new baby, ready to buy a site and begin their home. They bring lots of ideas, youthful energy, many skills, and experience living in an urban ecovillage – Earthsong in Auckland. They liked Earthsong, but realised they wanted land to grow food, so have come to Atamai. They will also value the balance of privacy and community that seems to be what Atamai will offer.
A significant amount of our time is used hosting people interested in Atamai. Many of them are couples with young children, which is very encouraging. All of them have impressive knowledge and skills to bring to an ecovillage, although the manual and practical skills they bring tend to be amateur rather than professional eg woodworking, gardening. A surprising number are involved in IT, probably because it’s a job that can be done from any site.
Jacques will begin Spring planting before long. We are trying to work out whether to plant for a food-box scheme or not. Jack and Jeff have been talking to a number of people with organic gardens to examine possibilities. We are still living to a fair extent on last season’s vegetables – potatoes and pumpkins of many varieties as the staples, with kale, broccoli and a little lettuce.
News of us.
We’ve got serious about building a house. The site is a few hundred metres from our present house, and with mainly mountain and river valley views, with a little segment of ocean. A corner of the pine forest must be cut down to enable clear sun on the solar panels to be erected. Unlike Canada, here this is regarded as a good thing. Pines are not indigenous, and are regarded by ecologists as a pest species. Of course they are regarded by plantation owners as a cash crop. These will be replaced by indigenous species of less height.
Jack and Jeff often work together felling, hauling and processing trees. Jeff also spends time helping the work at Te Mara, most recently tree-planting.
Jeff will remain at home while we travel, and will be joined by his friend, Katy from Brisbane soon. I have a feeling that he’ll receive many dinner invitations while we are away.
This is the rainy season in NZ, so we have done no tramping lately. It’s surprisingly cold in the early morning, often frosty fields are visible as I look down on the coastal plain at dawn. I light the fire and toast my toes as I drink my morning latte. By noon, however, I’ll be stripped to a T-shirt.
I continue to enjoy the Riverside choir. Recently we contributed to a sort of local opera to celebrate the Maori New Year, marked by the rising of the star formation, Pleiades over the horizon. It’s called Matariki, and is a time of reflection on the past year, looking ahead, and awareness of our oneness with Nature. Jeff and I celebrated it on the marae – the local Maori settlement. There was a formal welcome, or powhiri where our credentials of good faith were established and we were accepted on to the marae with speeches and song. It’s customary to respond with speech and song from the visitors too. This is an admirable aspect of Maori formalities – each speech is followed by a song. (Imagine if parliament ran this way – so much more pleasant than the present mixture of speeches, insults and taunts.) Then a wise young man talked to us about the meaning of Matariki (using powerpoint). A bell from the wharekai (foodhall) called us to the meal of traditional food, mussels, cockles, seaweed sauce, fried bread. It was quite a moving occasion.
In the evening, at Riverside, was the local version of an opera. A Maori dramatist had written a script based on the stories of the Waitaha – a pre-Maori people who practised radical non-violence and were massacred by the invading Maori. Local musicians, Maori and pakeha (non-Maori), sang and played, including our choir, which sang in Maori. Local choreographers led the dance. Jeff did the lights. I loved it.
Otherwise, my life has been partially taken over by Climate Change. This is partly because NZ was very late in setting its carbon emissions targets, in fact, still hasn’t announced them. So many of us have been engaged in intense advocacy through July. My friend, Katerina, and I have given talks wherever we can, and dialogued with councillors on the topic. This, of course, has intensified our reading, with the result that she and I became sadder and sadder as the month progressed, realising how terrible the situation is, and how low our chances are of averting dangerous runaway climate change. Grief was what we were feeling, for the passing of the world as we know it, and as we look at the damage and depletion our children and grandchildren will have to cope with.
We know that the targets, which will be announced soon, will be far too low to have a reasonable probability of doing the job. Seems to me this work will be with me for the rest of my life.
Of course, establishing the village is a version of this, with the intention of showing that life at a lower carbon and energy footprint, and less resource use in general, is quite attractive. But this must be combined with action at the political level to attempt the large-scale change necessary to make enough of a difference.
I send my love to the large network of friends and family reading this.
Joanna

Consent to proceed; a new house

2009 June 6
Dear Blog Friends,
Sorry for a too-long silence. There is much news to report.
Progress of village development: We had a moment of jubilation and relief last month when we finally heard that we had clear District Council consent to go ahead with the first stage of the village project – 11 houses. It has been a long and costly process. Now we need to find ways to help the neighbours who objected understand that they will live with more beauty around them, not less. Under difficult conditions they might benefit greatly from the basic food production that is part of the village, but I suspect that understanding will not be meaningful at present. There are a number of young families near to making a decision to join the village at this time. It’s especially good that these are energetic and enterprising young people with kids. One couple in Auckland had their first baby two weeks ago. They’ll be here in 6 weeks.
There are still difficult steps ahead, the next being to put in roading access to some of the lots, but I feel hopeful about the prospects for this community.
Our house. We had been reluctant to plan a house for ourselves, feeling that it would absorb a great deal of time. But there are reasons it would be good for the development of the village, so we are moving in this direction. We were right about the time it consumes. There are fairly detailed specifications for houses in this project – on-site materials where possible, relatively small houses (~150 square metres), solar aspect, concrete slab for thermal mass, composting toilets, solar hot water, wood stove with water heating to flow into pipes in the concrete floor, gas rings for quick cooking.
We have chosen a site, on a ridge with very beautiful views of mountains to the west, now snow-capped, Motueka River Valley to the north, and, once some of the plantation pines are cut, the sea to the east. Winds blow from the south-west (where the snow lies on the mountains in the winter), so the first thing to be done is to plant a wind-break. This was done a few weeks ago, with the help of many friends and WWOOFers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms). One thousand trees and grasses, mainly native species whose names I don’t recognise, planted for graded heights so the wind will sweep over them. Gil, the engineer working with us, has been using the digger to construct a path above the wind-break. One day I took thermoses of tea and peanut butter cookies in baskets over to the site mid-afternoon. We sat on the ridge top with the team then working on the wind-break, sipping tea and discussing the merits of a steady state economy. Some of the WOOFers are very well-read young people.
Our Learning: I’ve done workshops in recent months on solar ovens and dehydrators, methods of natural building and on composting. The latter two were particularly fun. Natural building involved dancing in a heap of mud to mix the building material. Composting involved leaping around on a metre high pile to tramp down the straw layer. (See photos) In April I went to the North Island to attend a conference on Community Currencies. Four of us went in a friend’s car. She got free passage on the Cook Strait Ferry as she did a singing gig in the ferry bar on the trip. I read a fair bit on the structure and reform of money before going to this. I’ve also read a fine book on organic gardening by our friend Adrian Myers – ‘Organic Futures’. I’ve just reviewed this book, as I liked it very much. Jack and I both read ‘Right Relationships: Building a Whole Earth Economy ‘ by Canadian economists Peter Brown and Geoffrey Garver. Jack reviewed this one. We both think highly of its framing economic activity in terms of our fundamental relationship with the Earth. (If you’d like either of these reviews, we’ll send them to you.)
I recently spent five days in Wellington staying with dear friends, Archie and Lynsie Kerr – retired physicians with a long history in IPPNW and much else. I had a teaching gig at the medical school. This coincided with back-to-back conferences on Pacific ways of reconciliation, and another on the nuclear weapons issue. Malcolm Fraser, a former Prime Minister of Australia was a keynote speaker at the latter conference. At 79, he’s one of the growing number of very senior statesmen who are deeply concerned about the unfinished messy business of the 20th century – getting rid of the abomination of nuclear weapons. He feels it’s very urgent. He pointed out that with the current financial crisis, any sitting government is unlikely to be granted a second term. This means that we may have just 3½ years to take advantage of the much more favourable climate created by Obama to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention.
Radio show I’ve continued my Transition Town Show every fortnight. Recent topics have been organic gardening, composting, intergenerational debt.
Village livelihoods We’ve been actively discussing how to create livelihoods from the productiveness of the Te Mara gardens (See photo). Jams, soups, juices, dried fruit and veges have all been suggested. Of course we produced pesto which won considerable approval in the summer. This morning, Jack, Jeff and I went to the Nelson Market to see how people organised their offerings and if there were any unfilled niches. It’s a delightful market, colourful and fun. We met two different friends at the coffee shop.
Jack and Jeff are well. Jack is far too busy with a myriad aspects of the project and has very little time for leisure. He does enjoy it if he can combine the very demanding intellectual work involved with physical work like tree-planting or tree-cutting. Jeff tried out the new road up the ridge cut by Gil, our engineer, on the bike this evening, carrying a box of beer. Unhappily the battery assist didn’t work and Jeff had to push the bike up the ridge – heavy work. This morning my two guys did their lumberjack thing again.
Music. The marimba group returned to its full complement of players and no longer needed a trainee, so my marimba career has been cut short. My friend, the wonderful elder jazz pianist, Emery, continues to try to teach me jazz. I’m a bad pupil. Next week I plan to begin with the Riverside (neighbouring community) choir. I love the music they select – world music with a bias to Maori.
We’ll visit Canada in August, staying with Jonah and Penny in our old home. We hope to see some of you then.
Love,
Joanna

Dear Family and Friends,

First, the images: a picnic of Friends of Atamai, by the pond. One day we hope that the community centre will be near this pond. Two of the kids, lu and Rimu, exploring the pond. Lu has decided to dress as a girl for the day. Me doing an interview for The Transition Town Show in the studio of the community radio station in Motueka.

A few months ago, Jack did an interview for Worldchanging Canada, with Hassan Masum. I've edited it a little and copied it here, as it gives a very full picture of the aspirations of the village.

Before you get started, I'll just let you know that we are well and hppy, very much enjoying having Jeff here. To celebrate the visit of our friend Doug REberg, adn Jeff's arrival, we did a four day trip to the west coast of the South Island - dramatic rocky coast, gorgeous rainforest, cut by many rivers and waterfalls, limestone caves. We're constantly challenged by needing to learn more about a myriad things - at the level of gardening and managing the land, in the Transition Town work, and, as always, at national and international levels in issues that matter to us. For me, Afghanistan and Gaza are painful concerns, and for Jack, his work with the International Forum on Globalization continues.

Worldchanging Interview with Hassan Masum.
Hassan Masum: Jack, Atamai Village sounds like an interesting concept. What's your 60-second pitch for it?Jack Santa-Barbara: Thanks, Hassan. Well, Atamai Village is a project for anyone seriously committed to contributing to a sustainable way of living as we face the challenges of peak oil, climate change, and a host of other ecological challenges. Our notion of sustainability is based on ecological principles of living within the limits of the planet, and as much as possible, within the limits of the village site itself.

Using a permaculture design we are looking at capturing the existing energy flows on the site (solar, wind, rain and soil), and rather than wasting them as now happens, putting them to good use in meeting the critical needs of village residents. The project is about creating ways of living that are satisfying and enjoyable, while respecting the limits of what the local and surrounding ecosystems can provide.

Considerable research and thought has been put into the design phase of the project. We anticipated the current economic meltdown, we expect it to continue rather than rebound, and we feel that settlements like Atamai will be absolutely essential to living well on a planet that has been pushed to its ecological limits.


HM: Let's see how that would work in practice. Suppose I were to apply and be accepted to move into the village: what are the top few advantages I would experience in my daily life?
JSB: First of all, let me clarify that it is not a matter of applying and having to meet some specific set of criteria to become part of the village. It is an open village concept - anyone who shares the vision and is willing to abide by the covenants is welcomed. We are hoping that people will largely self select.

It is also important to clarify that the village is in the very formative stages - the land has been purchased, considerable research has been done to inform the design process, and a formal application has been made to local council for the first phase of 11 dwellings - later planned to grow to about 40. So there is still lots of opportunity to participate in the design and development process if someone is interested.

The area is physically very attractive - a bike ride to the coast (and neighbouring town of Motueka), surrounded by snow-capped mountains in winter. This is the sunniest part of New Zealand - summers are in the low 20's (Celsius) during the day, and low teens at night. Winters are the wetter season (about 1000mm of rain a year), with very few frost days and the temperature getting into double digits most days - all in all, pretty pleasant.

As for advantages of living in the village - let me list a few:

You will enjoy food security - the permaculture design of the village area itself, and the adjoining garden areas and orchards will mean healthy, local organic food is available year round.

You will enjoy energy security - firstly because your home and the other infrastructure of the village will be frugal by design, requiring minimal energy inputs; also by design, the energy inputs required will be provided by renewable sources - the sun, the rain and the soil.

You will enjoy water security, as the rainfall captured on roof tops and in ponds and dams will provide for domestic and garden use; the dwelling grey water systems will ensure good use is made of all water resources; adequate water storage for fire safety will also be included in the design.


I emphasize these advantages, although many people might take them for granted - in a future challenged by climate change and energy descent, these basic necessities will become increasingly difficult to secure.

HM: Aside from the security aspect, can you be more specific about any positive points I would experience if I moved there?JSB: Yes, there will be many other advantages of the village as well:

You wouldn't have to commute to work because you would likely work in the village.

Your home will be low maintenance and heated with a passive solar design - so very efficient to keep comfortable.

You would stay healthy by walking or cycling around the village sites.

You would have use of village equipment to transport goods - eg a small electric vehicle for hauling goods or people if necessary.

If you need to travel outside the village, you could make use of the village car sharing program - greatly reducing your transportation costs.

As a villager, you are automatically a member of the village trust and participate in decisions about how the village commons are developed and managed.

You will be living in a community where people share some common values about sustainability, but where diversity is embraced and where individual initiative and perspectives are appreciated.

You will be able to enjoy the many amenities the village provides - hiking trails, shared equipment for work and play, recreational ponds and fields, a community centre with sophisticated communications equipment.

You will have a direct say in decisions about where you live, play, and likely work.


HM: It certainly sounds attractive. A number of potential disadvantages come to mind, though, such as cost, remote location, extra responsibilities vs a traditional dwelling, and risk of an untried model. How would you address these? JSB: You've got lots of questions there - and good ones. Let me take them one by one.

Costs are always an issue, but what we are striving for is diversity, as there would be in any traditional village - only we hope this one will be more egalitarian and without a hierarchical structure. So while the costs of the individual land titles will vary and be comparable to similar titles elsewhere, we are also looking for ways that can involve people with limited financial resources.

Rental accommodation will be one option, or a lease to rent approach. We are also looking at co-housing, as well as a sweat-equity option. We are very aware that a genuine village will not work if only people with financial resources live here, but who do not have any real skills that will be essential to sustain a functional village economy. While a final decision has not yet been made, we are looking at reserving a certain number of titles for key trades people - carpenters, electricians, plumbers, permaculturists, etc - to ensure the village has room for these folks. We recognize the need to be creative with attracting people with the necessary skills, and given the current economic downturn, the village actually presents an attractive option for people with these skills, as the village becomes a base for them to both live and work.

The site is less than a half hour bike ride from the neighboring town of Motueka - it's small, but we have been really surprised at the variety of activities and events here. Not only do we have terrific Indian and Thai restaurants, two movie theatres (one offering alternative movies), and two bookstores, but there have also been string quartets, a guitar-violin duo, wonderful marimba performances, gospel choirs, Tibetan flutist, etc. And this is just Motueka - in the neighboring town of Nelson (just under an hour by car) there are regular arts and film festivals, and any products and services you would expect in a town of 50,000.

If you need a Toronto or Vancouver to be happy, this is probably not the place for you. But we are not feeling deprived in any way by the rural character of the area. This area has been a draw for alternative lifestyle people for decades, so there are a lot of interesting folks around. And because the population is relatively small, we have access to politicians at all levels.

You also ask about the extra responsibilities associated with being part of the trust. If someone sees this as a disadvantage, then the village is not for them. If someone sees this as an opportunity to be part of their community, contribute to its well-being, and actually enjoy the working through of issues with like-minded people, then involvement in the trust is an advantage. In the village, people will take responsibility for local decisions and their family's well-being.

Your question about an untried model is also an interesting one. If the climate, energy and economic changes we anticipate come to pass, much of our civilization will be going through considerable upheaval - many people will be in untried waters. The size and structure of the village trust makes the adaptations needed more manageable - local people making local decisions about local issues. We think that this will eventually evolve as the most sensible response to changes that will be difficult to anticipate. The village model provides an opportunity to get ahead of the curve and begin practicing, before driven to it by dire necessity - village life is how most people lived sustainably for most of human history.

Let me also come back to the question about isolation, in terms of New Zealand rather than just the rural setting. Again, this is not for everyone, but the geographic isolation of New Zealand has some distinct advantages, along with the features of a relatively small population (4+ million) and the capacity to produce food and fibre. The country is capable of being self sufficient in essentials - a good thing in a uncertain world. Because it is physically difficult to reach, we will likely not see large numbers of environmental or economic refugees (although New Zealand has taken in many people from the south Pacific whose islands seem to be disappearing). And with a maritime climate, many of the direct impacts of climate change will be reduced. The relative isolation will also push for greater self sufficiency - before economic globalization took off a few decades ago, New Zealand did most of its own manufacturing, and that is possible again.

Whether the "potential disadvantages" you suggest are in fact disadvantages depends on many things - personal tastes, to some extent. But we see some big changes coming for industrialized societies as we know them - changes triggered by more severe climate patterns and the consequences of climate change, energy descent, and the economic turmoil that is likely to ensue from these two major developments. We also think that the current pattern of industrialized societies are unsustainable - even the so called "green economy" initiatives now being promoted. We take ecological limits seriously, and are looking for ways to respect them while living comfortably. We think we will all be forced to face these challenges sooner rather than later, and feel that the sooner we struggle with these challenges, the better off we will all be - this is really the key vision of the village.


HM: Quite a diverse range of factors at different scales, from personal tastes to global trends.

What have you learned from previous intentional communities, regarding what works and what doesn't?

JSB: I should first say that Atamai is not an intentional community in the traditional sense, and we generally don't describe it that way. It is only an intentional community in the sense that there will be covenants to support the ecological design of the village infrastructure and the dwellings.

Most intentional communities are organized around shared social issues - religious beliefs or philosophies. Atamai is organized around diverse ways of living sustainably. A central issue will be creating businesses in the village that fulfil this goal - whether it is organic food production, sustainable forestry, or even an engineering operation geared toward appropriate technologies. We would like to support and encourage these types of sustainable businesses that focus on providing essential services.

Over a year ago, we had a facilitated visioning exercise. It was initially designed for interested parties to articulate their ideal village. In the process it became evident that, while there were many common elements, individuals' ideal villages were very idiosyncratic. It is unrealistic to meet individual ideals. So we stepped back from the question of what is the ideal village from individual perspectives, and refocused on what the common elements were.

What we came up with was the focus on the broad issues of sustainability, social justice and aesthetics - and a healthy respect for individual differences, and acceptance of those differences. In fact, we see the diversity of interests and orientations as strengthening the community, as long as the basics are respected - and we hope to accomplish that with the basic design features, and the formal covenants.


HM: Let's focus in on your own personal story. How did the idea for this village come about, and what motivated you to get involved?JSB: After a friend gave me a copy of Herman Daly's "For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment and a Sustainable Future" back in the mid 80's, I became very interested in [ecological economics], and came to see it as a very important approach to many of the major challenges humanity is facing. So at the end of 1999 I sold the company I had founded some 20 years earlier, and immersed myself in ecological economics. It led me to view climate change and peak oil (along with a number of other major challenges - see my website Sustainable Scale) as critically important issues that we were not dealing with in any reasonable way.

The role of relocalizing the global economy became a unifying theme for moving toward a solution. If part of the problem was ecological overshoot driven by a focus on profits through economic globalization that only exacerbates inequity, then part of the solution had to be integrating the economy and the environment at the local level. My understanding of the implications of peak oil (and other fossil fuels sooner rather than later) made it clear that we were going to be forced to relocalize - whether we want to or not. Our entire industrialized civilization is based on cheap oil. And that is coming to an end, despite the current slump in oil prices.

When you understand peak oil, and the issue of net energy, and the time and effort it will take to reorient our complex societies to these new realities (along with the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss), you realize we are already behind schedule by a significant margin.

The relocalization movement was sticking its head up in a variety of ways - The Natural Step for Communities movement is perhaps one of the older versions of it. More recently, Michael Shuman's work on the benefits of relocalizing the economy, and the relocalization work of the Post Carbon Institute, have all brought relocalization more to the foreground. And the Transition Towns initiatives inspired by Rob Hopkins has a lot of vigour right now.

All of these more recent versions are in addition to what has been happening with the intentional communities and ecovillage and co-housing movements that have been going on for some time. I see all of these as different expressions of the need to reconnect with each other and with the natural world on which we depend - each with its own emphasis and perspective.

While I had been working at the national and international NGO level on these global issues, progress was slow and frustrating. So I decided to rebalance my activism portfolio if you will and put more energies and thought into relocalization. I looked around for a project to get involved with and came across the Atamai project that had already begun in New Zealand. I visited the project and worked with the group for a month, then went back to Canada to discuss the issue with family and friends.

After a lot of discussion we decided to give it a go and make the move to New Zealand and contribute to Atamai. Aside from the benefits of New Zealand, the Atamai project had a unique feature that added to the attraction - the idea of creating a traditional village settlement. Humanity has endured in these traditional village structures for millennia and across continents, so there must be something useful about village life that we need to learn more about.

A lot of thought and research had already gone into the design for Atamai when I arrived, so my involvement has been more with the implementation - working with the local council, beginning to market the project, etc. There is still quite a bit to do so if there are people interested in what we are doing, there is still considerable scope to contribute to many aspects of making the village a success.


HM: It sounds like you decided you could do more good through building an actual community than through advocacy, and perhaps get more fulfilment at a personal level as well.

Could you say more about your personal decision to "give it a go"? How specifically did you move from thinking about the idea to taking the leap from Canada to New Zealand? What factors went into your decision?JSB: Well we don't see it as an "either or" situation. We are still involved with advocacy at national and international levels, but whereas those areas were where we spent most of our time before, now they are clearly secondary to our main focus of the village. There is no doubt in our minds that advocacy at the larger levels is essential -but we also believe a lot of the solutions are local and providing a local working model is a way of connecting the two. It is not a matter of fulfillment as much as where the need is greatest and we feel we can have the most impact.

At a very personal level there is another element at work - our family - grown children and our grandkids. We think there is a more than even chance that industrialized societies are unravelling and that there will be considerable chaos - economic and social. So having a sustainable community - frugal by design I like to say - plus a supportive community, is one way of providing security in an uncertain future. So aside from seeing the issues from a broad societal perspective, there are very personal concerns for the safety and well-being of our extended family. One son will be joining us early in the new year, and we remain hopeful that the other two will in the future.

The area where the village is being planned is a Transition Town, and there are three Transition Towns nearby, so we feel it is an encouraging sign that communities around us are concerned with the same issues and looking at relocalizing existing communities. Although our experiment is starting de novo, I suspect we will learn a lot from each other.

We don't pretend to know what the future will hold - except that there is likely to be much more uncertainty just about anywhere you look. And given the range of uncertainty - from just requiring minor adaptations to a general breakdown of modern civilization - we thought a risk management approach made the most sense. If we believe the future will have some dramatic changes but we cannot predict with any certainty when they will occur and just how dramatic they might be, then the best approach is one where we do things that will leave us better off regardless of what happens.

We think we are doing that. The sustainable village as planned will provide considerable resilience against the vagaries of climate change and energy descent. So if it happens we will be well placed. If the changes take a long time to develop and lots of adaptations occur in the broader society, then we will still have provided a demonstration of how to live comfortably and well with a much reduced footprint - and live in a beautiful place to boot. At the same time, we continue to be involved at the national and international levels on these issues, so there is nothing escapist or isolationist about what we are doing.


HM: That seems like a carefully considered approach. It's interesting, though, that you had to move halfway around the world to find the right community. Shouldn't it be relatively easy to set up a similar community in Canada?JSB: There is an ecovillage movement in Canada, but it is relatively young and there are not a large number of examples. Some are quite small groups - a dozen or so families - and many are clearly counterculture in orientation. All of these initiatives are important experiments and should be nurtured and supported. Due to municipal regulations, it is not always easy to up the structure for an ecovillage. There is a group in Caledon, Ontario that took 10 years to get local council approval for the dwelling design they wanted.

But the local authorities are only one of the challenges to establishing a new type of human settlement - and these challenges exist in New Zealand as well as in Canada. I think it could be done in Canada, and I would encourage more people to get involved.

Our reasons for choosing New Zealand had less to do with the ecovillage movement in Canada than with the idea of what North America would be like if there was a major economic and social unravelling. As the epicenter of the high consumption lifestyle, the shocks of climate change and energy descent are likely to be resisted in North America more forcefully than in other parts of the world. My intuition is that North America may be one of the last places to voluntarily make the adaptations to a sustainable lifestyle. I suspect the notion of entitlement to the "good life" is too ingrained to be relinquished in favor of a comfortable and sustainable frugality.

I don't know what will happen in the future, but it is easy enough to envision a very shaken North America - with significant unemployment, economic depression, social unrest, and increased violence. Concentrations of people in too many large cities could make it difficult to adapt with the changes that are needed - more local food production, focus on the real economy of essential goods and services (now less than 10 % of the overall economy), supportive communities working together to solve problems, and so on. It is not at all clear to me that the number of people now living in North America is sustainable, even with a localized economy - one not dependent on large imports from other countries.

Again, I am not trying to make a prediction about North America, but merely identifying what I think could happen there. If there is any reasonable chance that such a scenario could play out, I would rather be working elsewhere to develop a sustainable form of human settlement that might have some chance of succeeding. Not that New Zealand is a utopia by any means - there are environmental as well as economic and political difficulties here too. But the scale is so different that it makes a difference in terms of the impact you can have, and in some ways it is a simpler society to deal with. Also, the fact that it is an island nation means that it is not far from most people's consciousness that they have to be relatively self-sufficient.

The reasons we ended up in New Zealand are because we first spelled out the criteria for where it might be feasible to successfully establish a sustainable settlement of some sort. We wanted a place where a lot of energy did not have to go into keeping warm. We wanted a place that had a biocapacity surplus - that is, where the lifestyle consumption is less than what the land can provide. While the New Zealand ecological footprint is high by world standards, New Zealand does have a surplus.

We also wanted a place with a small population - just in case there are large migrations of people searching for food and jobs, as in the Great Depression. We wanted a place with a tradition of a parliamentary democracy. Ideally, we also wanted a place that had a tradition of exploring alternative lifestyles - so there would be lots of local examples to learn from, as well as to provide mutual support. If you search the planet for those particular criteria (which others may or may not share), then there are not a lot of places to consider.

These are clearly very personal decisions and I am not suggesting everyone should move to New Zealand. But I do hope knowing about what we are doing and why will encourage others to take these issues seriously and work out what they think is best for their families. Everyone's risk assessments and risk management approaches will be different - and this is as it should be.


HM: Could you expand more on how you engage globally while acting very locally in this way?What strategies and tools do you suggest to others in a similar position? And what role, if any, do you see for the internet and video-conferencing?

JSB: Both Joanna and I remain active with organizations we have been involved with in the past. Jo is a long time member of Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and the Canadian chapter of that organization, Physicians for Global Survival. We are both involved with the Centre for Peace Studies at McMaster University (a peace through health project in Afghanistan), as well as Transcend: A Peace and Development Organization; each of us is engaged in writing books with the founder of Transcend, Jo on reconciliation, and me on peace business. I am also on the board of a couple of environmental NGOs, and last year wrote a monograph on biofuels for one of them, the International Forum on Globalization. Both of us also continue supervision of students from various universities, and Jo has been invited to do some guest lectures in Wellington later in the year.

I guess one of the lessons here is that you don't have to disengage from many of the activities you are already engaged in- many of these are not location dependent. And if the organizations you are involved with are truly international, then you have a readymade network wherever you go. While we may not have the same face to face contact with former colleagues, the histories we have with them remain meaningful. And internet with video calls and conferencing can go a long way to staying involved.

Another activity that is planned is that the village will engage in educational work. This will be both onsite, as well as via the internet. This educational work is part of the mission of the trust that is developing the village. That is one of several reasons for planning a major communications facility within the village. In our wilder moments, we envision consulting on developing sustainable villages in other locations.

Another aspect of the larger-picture connectivity is that international experts actually come to our area. Last night, we had our second dinner in as many weeks with two Transition Town trainers from the UK who are on a world tour of existing and potential transition towns. Today. we had lunch with a local colleague who spent several weeks at Schumacher College last year and is planning to return there for more workshops later this year. We discussed his giving a public lecture when he returns. A few weeks ago, a local colleague who is involved with the World Health Organization and looking at the relation between climate change and human health on a global level led a discussion over dinner, along with a visiting Australian member of the IPCC on the climate - health connection.

The internet also plays a continuing role in our connecting with colleagues over proposals to the new US administration, as well as formulating and endorsing petitions on a variety of issues.

So you can see we have no sense of being isolated or removed from the "broader society." I think it is a bit of an illusion that one has to be in any particular place to remain active globally - indeed, it is an illusion to assume we can act "globally." We can only engage with specific issues - some of which are local and some of which are elsewhere. But, other than for strictly local issues, engagement can be done from anywhere, even the sun-drenched hills of Motueka.