Country Partners are
groups who are committed to the oneVillage Foundation
mission and who seek to implement this on a practical
in their home countries. They facilitate the development
of Cross sector partnerships at the local state and
national levels in their countries.
Ecology
is the core of human reality without it we could
not exist yet by all scientific measures we continue
to use the ecology of the planet in an unsustainable
way. For human continued survival, the human economy
must learn how to function with respect to the
limits of ecological systems to sustain human
need.
Vision
we desire to cultivate an ecological awareness that expands
the realm of the possible in relation to human actions. Ultimately
this will lead to the proliferation of more ecologically and
considerate forms of development through ecovillages and ecocities.
We envision oneVillage Foundation as one vehicle to communicate
this vision through a more ecologically mindful way of living.
Unity Centers will be one of the prototypes that will faciliate
this process of global transformation.
Current Reality and Challenges Signs of Degradation - On the one hand there
is a continuing focus on penalizing businesses for pollution,
while on the other there is outright denial of the problem.
Dwindling
Water Supplies
Agriculture
Pollution
Loss
of Biodiversity - Loss of biodiversity is driven
by powerful economic and political forces at every
level from the global to the local
Global
Warming
Related to the signs of degradation are the social issues
of underperformance. It is hard for many of us to visualize
the reality of so many who are barely surviving. They are
a world away from the state of the art technologies that sustain
a modern way of life that we very much take for granted. The
UNDP has come up with the Millennium Development Goals.
the MDGs are ambitious theyseeks to cut poverty by half in
2015. Within the existing global infrastructure this is pure
fantasy. In order to reduce poverty on this level, there needs
to be a rethink in existing practices and the reforming of
global structures.
Global inequity needs to reduced
Consumption needs to reduced in affluent regions
Future growth must live to a higher
standard and be sustainable in every sense of the
word ecological social and economic
Approach
To address the above issues it is not enough that we promote
sustainable solutions or socially just laws and policies
a fundamental change in the structure of governance and
administration is needed. How we relate to each other and
the enviornnment needs to change. Now to do this we need
to develop a way of developing human systems that considers
the ecological dynamics of all life. Specifically our area
of focus is on the evelopment of local infrastructure in
underserved communities. We do this not just out of compassion
but with the understanding that it is vital to global stability
in any sustainable global society.
Integrated Approach to Sustainable Development
- The new sustainable economy is about designing
and building rapidly replicable human systems that ensure
the constant flow of resources within a closed system where
everything is recycled and there is no waste.Paul
Hawken’s in his book Ecology of Commerce
makes the case foraugmenting sustainable
development. The term regenerative or Restorative
Economy is used to describe the transition away
from existing economic models and behaviors towards more sustainable
ones that restore degraded ecosystems and social systems to
their full life regenerating capacity.
oneVillage Initiative for Sustainable Development
- The oneVillage Initiative is one model for revitalizing
local human social systems with the understanding that restoring
balance between human and ecological systems is central to
sustainable local community redevelopment. Integrated living
systems that include regenerative agriculture, renewable energy,
use of 'waste' as 'food' for other systems, and business that
supports the community.
To create a village economy first basic needs have to met.
This means organizing a process of evaluating local community
needs. The oneVillage initiative by deploying ICT augmented
field agents will collect data in the field, sharing best
practices as well as bringing together key leaders in the
community to develop a plan for local community development.
The Unity Center Model - Unity Center ecovillages
are to be designed from the ground up as Globally Integrated
Village Environment (GIVE). With this integrated approach
local, grassroots, community-oriented development can be done
in a ecologically sustainable way with the right approach
to building and development:
Creating jobs for
local people
Restoring local ecosystems
Providing inspiration
Promoting locally based but highly scalable carbon
sequestration technologies techniques
Developing appropriate technologies
designed specifically to address the needs of the
developing world at the grassroots
Using the GIVE approach these Centers use biomimicry in a
way that creatively and innovatively augments natural processes
on the village level but doing in a compact and highly dynamic
set of closely overlapping systems. one example of this is
John Todd Living Machines While using natural
components they are designed by humans to function in closed
systems where the envrionmental conditions are optimized and
can be controlled to maximize agricultural productivity (See
the biosphere_3_Proposal.pdf
). However they are very different thant traditional agricultural
and industrial approaches because they encourage an human
ecology based on diversity and synergistic and symbiotic interactions.
They are also designed based on the Zero Emissions Methodology
outlined by Gunter Pauli of the Zero Emissions Research Initiative.
Planning and construction of a renewable energy systems will
be a priority in the development of Unity Centers. These systems
will be designed to ensure reliable power for the ICT systems
as well as for basic components. We eventually anticipate
these alternative energy system will provide an alternative
to unreliable grid power and therefore will present significant
advantages in enabling a local economy that sustainable and
business friendly.
oneVillage Ecology Ecopartners
Green
Century Institute
Ecology Links
The
2005 World Exposition, Aichi, Japan seeks to reconnect
humanity with nature. A central theme at the expo is the Eco-communities
project which is designed to reuse energy, reduce and make
use of existing waste to present a new integrated model of
living in harmony with nature.