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of the world there will always be a true answer to the question ’Are Camphill
meaning behind the existence of Camphill.” communities sustainable communities?’ he
attempted a definition which would
In 1993 Peter Bateson gave an address at encompass both Camphill and the ecovillage
the official opening of Watch Oak Farm and “…in …the Camphill context a suitable
summed up why Camphill was concerned with definition of a sustainable community might
environmental issues. “ …in agriculture, by be: an attempt to integrate the ecological,
using the Bio-dynamic method we try to social, economic and spiritual aspects of life
bring about the same kind of healing-in- towards creating a harmonious and inclusive
balance and balance-in-healing with our society in perpetuity.”
relationship to the land itself – to create in
the life of a farm a complete and complex What does Camphill have to offer for the
organism of mineral, plant and animal future?
processes in one whole, husbanded by man. Our mainstream western, capitalist
The fundamental principle is that in caring industrial civilisation has reached the end of
for the land, by maintaining the health of the road based on materialism and
the soil, we can not only receive ever more reductionism. Recognising the spiritual
richly the fruits of the earth, but can help dimension, and using holistic planning
to maintain and improve the environment methods, Camphill can show a number of
itself. Care for the land, not exploitation. ways out of the dead end we have reached.
Ecology, not as a matter of mere self- Camphill has built up a great number of
preservation, but as a moral duty for the working examples of micro societies where
well-being of the whole earth.” everyone is integrated, and where people
with special needs are able to contribute
Wider aspects of land use planning and what meaningfully. In a Camphill village there is
impact new thinking might have upon the no unemployment.
wider community around Camphill led Cherry Camphill has developed integrated
Howe to reflect upon “Our responsibility to environmental designs that are applicable in
be environmentally aware, in our farming and many situations, like rootzone waste water
gardening but equally towards landscape and treatment systems using flowforms, low
nature in general; to guard our places from impact housing using local materials,
increasing urbanization and dislocation from producing energy from wind and biogas from
nature.” farm slurry.
Camphill has been in the forefront of
Andrew Plant takes the logical next step, biodynamic agriculture, producing healthy
“The Camphill movement could have a voice food with a lower carbon footprint than
on issues such as community-supported chemical industrial farming and so mitigating
agriculture, ecological responsibility and climate change.
sustainability, social enterprises, and Camphill has pioneered new alternative
promoting community – both in its own right economic systems, first with the economic
as the social form of the future and also as fellowship where work and income were
a setting for the inclusion of people with separated and everyone was given a secure
learning difficulties.” economic support, and over the last decade
by developing Community Supported
Noel Bruder, a co-worker in the small urban Agriculture where farm and garden produce
community Camphill Greenacres in Dublin, is distributed directly to a group of
was very aware of the spreading ecovillage consumers, thus bypassing the enormous
network, and began to apply some of the supermarket distribution models.
ecovillage criteria to his own community. In
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