A critical analysis of the Gqunube Green Ecovillage project

[摘要] The word 'ecovillage' is evocative of a kind of human settlement that exists incomplete harmony with nature and examples of such settlements are indeed inexistence almost everywhere in the world, some nearly half a century in themaking. The Gqunube Green Ecovillage near East London can hardly bedescribed as one of a proliferation of such settlements in South Africa, but it isanticipated that an examination of that project will contribute to the limitedacademic literature on the topic of sustainable human settlement.In Chapter 1, this thesis introduces the Gqunube Green Ecovillage and, in thefollowing six chapters, traces its origins and demonstrates how models for 'ideal'human settlement developed. It explains how and why an internationalecovillage movement reached South Africa and how Reverend Roger Hudsonresponded to that movement by starting the Gqunube Green Ecovillage in SouthAfrica. The conclusion is that Reverend Hudson has achieved his primaryobjective, namely the establishment of an ecovillage, but the challengesdescribed in this thesis have been significant.One of the most significant potential stumbling blocks to the future smoothmanagement of Gqunube Green is its own regulatory environment that dictatesthe relationship between the settlers and their ecovillage. The proposedsociocratic management style, combined with a strongly spiritual, eco-theologicalobjective, is driven by a strongly worded and rule-orientated ecovillageconstitution that is shown in Chapters 2 and 3 to have the potential to bothalienate and unite the inhabitants of the Gqunube Green Ecovillage – dependingon how it is interpreted and enforced.The external regulatory environment, both enabling and restricting development,is analysed in Chapter 4. National, provincial and local government legislation, policies and guidelines intersect to influence the progress of the Gqunube GreenEcovillage, creating opportunity for controversy between conservationists anddevelopers. However, the debates between the various interest groups over theappropriateness of various development options for the east bank of the GonubieEstuary were largely incidental and somewhat irrelevant to the delays in thedevelopment of the Gqunube Green Ecovillage that are described in Chapter 5.Although bureaucratic delays in the formal process of development haverestrained the full rollout of the ecovillage project, the Gqunube Green Ecovillagewas eventually established at the end of 2005 and the chronology leading to thismilestone is described in Chapter 5.Chapter 6 of this thesis examines the timing of the Gqunube Green Ecovillageproject within a changing and enabling paradigm shift, enabled by cooperativelocal government and efforts at the integration of legislation and policy to alignwith the constitutional aims of sustainable development. The concept of anecovillage is not always acceptable to everyone as the ideal development model,especially when big business has a stake. However, it has been argued that thevery fact that the establishment of an ecovillage has succeeded where bigbusiness was about to establish itself is a victory in itself for the founders of theGqunube Green Ecovillage.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University