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ECOVILLAGES
Judit Farkas
Ecovillages are local communities created as a conscious effort by a group of people
of diverse sizes. Their inhabitants aim to create settlements that fit into their natural
environment as efficiently as possible and without harming it. They believe that
a means of counteracting undesirable ecological, economic, and social processes
is through small-scale, self-reliant, long-term sustainable and community-based
settlements and lifestyles that offer the opportunity to protect the natural
environment and provide a meaningful human life and well-being.
It can be seen that ecovillages are at the intersection of ecological thinking and
community living. According to their inhabitants, one of the best responses to the
ecological crisis is community living, because the crisis of the contemporary world
is also a crisis of society and community. As theories of human relationship with
nature have argued, our treatment of nature is a reflection of the state of society,
and individualization and alienation egually determine our relationship with nature
and with other human beings.