A critical analysis of the Gqunube Green Ecovillage project
Date
2006-12
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch
Abstract
The word ‘ecovillage’ is evocative of a kind of human settlement that exists in
complete harmony with nature and examples of such settlements are indeed in
existence almost everywhere in the world, some nearly half a century in the
making. The Gqunube Green Ecovillage near East London can hardly be
described as one of a proliferation of such settlements in South Africa, but it is
anticipated that an examination of that project will contribute to the limited
academic literature on the topic of sustainable human settlement.
In Chapter 1, this thesis introduces the Gqunube Green Ecovillage and, in the
following six chapters, traces its origins and demonstrates how models for ‘ideal’
human settlement developed. It explains how and why an international
ecovillage movement reached South Africa and how Reverend Roger Hudson
responded to that movement by starting the Gqunube Green Ecovillage in South
Africa. The conclusion is that Reverend Hudson has achieved his primary
objective, namely the establishment of an ecovillage, but the challenges
described in this thesis have been significant.
One of the most significant potential stumbling blocks to the future smooth
management of Gqunube Green is its own regulatory environment that dictates
the relationship between the settlers and their ecovillage. The proposed
sociocratic management style, combined with a strongly spiritual, eco-theological
objective, is driven by a strongly worded and rule-orientated ecovillage
constitution that is shown in Chapters 2 and 3 to have the potential to both
alienate and unite the inhabitants of the Gqunube Green Ecovillage – depending
on 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 Green
Ecovillage, creating opportunity for controversy between conservationists and
developers. However, the debates between the various interest groups over the
appropriateness of various development options for the east bank of the Gonubie
Estuary were largely incidental and somewhat irrelevant to the delays in the
development of the Gqunube Green Ecovillage that are described in Chapter 5.
Although bureaucratic delays in the formal process of development have
restrained the full rollout of the ecovillage project, the Gqunube Green Ecovillage
was eventually established at the end of 2005 and the chronology leading to this
milestone is described in Chapter 5.
Chapter 6 of this thesis examines the timing of the Gqunube Green Ecovillage
project within a changing and enabling paradigm shift, enabled by cooperative
local government and efforts at the integration of legislation and policy to align
with the constitutional aims of sustainable development. The concept of an
ecovillage is not always acceptable to everyone as the ideal development model,
especially when big business has a stake. However, it has been argued that the
very fact that the establishment of an ecovillage has succeeded where big
business was about to establish itself is a victory in itself for the founders of the
Gqunube Green Ecovillage.
Description
Thesis (MPhil (School of Public Management and Planning))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006.
Keywords
Community development -- Environmental aspects -- South Africa, Villages -- Environmental aspects, Green movement -- South Africa, Collective settlements -- Environmental aspects -- South Africa, Sustainable development -- South Africa, Dissertations -- Public management and planning, Theses -- Public management and planning