LESSONS FROM THE EDGE

Creating Sustainable Community

There are some places where a more natural way of living is not just possible,
it’s happening. These places are where the traditional ways are still alive and
can provide a stepping-stone to the future. Jonathan Evelight reports on
one such place in Portugal.

I
f we’re honest, most people would
admit that our present society
isn’t working for many reasons.
We may be encouraged that many
people are now choosing to step out
onto a self-determined path towards
a more self-reliant, co-operative and
sustainable lifestyle. If society hasn’t
dropped you (from redundancy or
other random causes), you may already
be finding your own way of dropping
into a life you really believe in.
It was paying a mortgage on a house
that Jack built that made me homeless
for a while. Until I learned to take more
control of my life along with the help
of a lot of good people on the way.
One thing is for sure; you get the life
you believe in. After finally saving my
rebuilt house from negative equity
and imminent collapse, my partner
and I could afford to move to a very
different world from its sale.
Now we are living in a yurt on the
fertile earth in Alentejo, in the mid-
south of Portugal – on the edge and at
the beginning. And it’s wonderful. We,
being Jenny, ex-solicitor’s clerk turned
permaculture designer and spinner, and
Jonathan, a solar energy engineer with
a past life in computer networking. Our
land is on the edge (nature loves edges)
of a broad plateau and the river Mira
floodplain that wends its way to the
nearby west coast. We share this land
with its rammed earth dwellings and
woodlands, inside the national park, with
seven other people right at the start of
creating a co-operative community. We
call it ‘Arco-Iris’, Portuguese for ‘rainbow’
(as it takes all sorts of colours to make
an eco-neighbourhood). It’s a new begin-
ning for us, but for the locals already
living here it’s a lifestyle that in many
ways is way ahead of us. We have much
to learn from their traditional ways.
PIG ON A TABLE, HONEY IN A JAR
The more I stand on this red earth and
look around the more I see natural
abundance. You could easily miss it.
Many Portuguese are land rich. Quite
a few live a subsistence lifestyle unchang-
ed probably in centuries. The bent old
men and ladies all in black; they may
be the last generation of their kind. To
say that with them goes an ancient
tradition of simple survival and a
working knowledge of the land might
not be far from the truth. If you are a
purist their way may not be perma-
culture but the land has kept them in
good stead for a lot longer than the
EEC has been around – and there’s not
much evidence of that in the outback.
Where else can one go in search of
Above: Not a just for pleasure rides,
donkeys still play an important part
in the rural ecomomy of Portugal.

www.permaculture.co.uk No. 45 Permaculture Magazine 47

the bee keeper and, on finding his house,
meet a group of men preparing the
biggest pig on a table you ever saw and
all the women gathered indoors talk-
ing together and be handed six kilos of
fresh unlabelled honey for a few Euros?
Our neighbour is a constant inspir-
ation. Yes he has a 30 year old mini-
diesel tractor which he will use to plough
the land, but he also works his donkey.
But I like his turned around bicycles,
one with a mini-plough where the
pedals used to be, the other with a flat
blade and fork, which he pushes along
between vegetable rows to remove the
weeds. This is advanced technology!
Quite typically in the Alentejo region
a good deal of barter goes on. Wine in
exchange for olives growing in your
field; olive oil for mending a chain saw;
dinner for all the family just for sharing
a trip to the wood yard; even chickens
in exchange for old ceramic tiles! The
mind boggles but it is happening all the
time. It may take you an hour for the lad
in the hardware shop to finally work out
how much you owe him but it’s just these
attitudes that protect the heartland of
Portugal from the economic profiteering
and political manipulation that has torn
the heart out of western society.
Everywhere it is a common sight to
see people tending their own fruit and
veg, keeping their own poultry and a
few animals. And water – everyone has
their own well or bore hole – so tragic
48 Permaculture Magazine No. 45
we’ve lost our own in the UK and across
Europe and by doing so become so
dependent on a national infrastructure.
Let’s face it, water is life, and if you have
got your own and are also growing a
little food with neighbours, the political
machine can pull its own plug, but you
will be the first and most able to continue
supporting your families.
Change is evident, of course. Alentejo
is between the Algarve, golf haven and
tourist hot spot, and the north. Few
tourists go further than the Monchique
mountains just up from the Algarve. Last
summer’s fires ravaged the Monchique
area and few of the older Portuguese
returned to their burnt out homes. It’s
just too hard for them. Further inland
the wealthier folk from Lisbon are
beginning to buy up plots for seasonal
use. But they’re not the only ones for the
following reasons.
‘TAIPA’ DREAM? YOU CHOOSE
When we first came to look for land in
Portugal we started out in ‘the barranco’,
the hilly outlying valleys of the Alentejo
region. It was a delight but very hard Local planning is a refreshing con-
work: moving earth for a building plot, trast! If there is a ruin on your land
cutting paths on the hillside, rebuilding you can automatically rebuild. Usually
a spring-fed cisterna, the beginnings of you can build anyway as a percentage
growing our own food... This is not of the total area of your land. Respect
an uncommon move for first timers it for the land and local custom is a key
seems. You cut your teeth in the heart- that provides fertile ground for DIY,
land and get to learn a lot about yourself low-impact, green building.
and about how life works on this land. ‘Taipa’ or rammed earth building
was the traditional way. The materials
are free and families built their own.
It’s lovely to see how the abandoned
ruins melt back into the landscape.
Fortunately taipa is easy to repair too.
Well insulated timber housing is also
ideal as well for a steady temperature
year round, although the wood has to
be imported. There are several such
dwellings for rebuild on our land and
local knowledge is still available. Straw
bale is also happening, thanks to a local
permaculture group, a method which
when rendered has proven itself to be
fire proof.
Our English friend bought a ruined
Above: Tradition and modern high
tech coming together. A traditional
bread oven being restored with a
solar powered water tower on the
right. Note the yurt between the two.
Left: Innovative wheeled hoe made
largely from scrap cycle parts.
www.permaculture.co.uk

dwelling, as one of three independent
people. Alyson has rebuilt her section
with local labour on a minimal budget.
Her help mostly came from some
German lads who live in a nearby
settlement. Most of them jumped the
Berlin Wall and settled here. They’ve
learnt not only how to rebuild and
repair the old structures very well but
also how to live simply like the natives.
John, who came out here at the
same time and really knew nothing
about self-sufficiency, also rebuilt his
dwelling and is growing all his own
food from three growing seasons a
year. He has even mastered the rather
abstruse Portuguese language!
A PROBLEMA E O SOLUÇAO
Another couple we know have chosen
to build a wooden house from a Swedish
company. Their land is a woodland glade
of mature cork oaks in a gently rolling
landscape. Turn off the road toward
their place and you might see candles
Right: Clearing the spring fed
cisterna. Water is a precious resource
which is never taken for granted in
Portugal.
Far right: One couple’s choice, a
Swedish timber house snuggled into
a woodland glade of pines.
www.permaculture.co.uk
lit in the wayside shrine. When it came
to sinking a bore hole for water, like
most English they expected a survey
and a report from the little Portuguese
‘aqua-engenheiro’ man. He just looked
about for a while, pointed and said,
“There is water!”. He was right, and
more water than they had ever seen.
These examples would be incom-
plete without highlighting a Portuguese
couple we met at a permaculture gather-
ing. They have built a ‘grand casa’ or
big house in ‘taipa’ rammed-earth the
traditional way and to a very impressive
and modern design. True, they had
their architect retrain some local young
people to do the rammed earth but the
old building ways are by no means
forgotten – and the local authorities
are happy for you to do it. Their house
also boasts reed-bed water filtration
and a 100% solar electricity supply,
which is common. On the wall of their
living room is engraved the perma-
culture adage ‘a problema e o soluçao’!
With permaculture as a common
approach shared by all of us at Arco-
Iris, we plan to rebuild together as
much as we can, with local guidance
and training opportunities shared
with others who want to learn and
regain these traditional skills.
One problem Portugal is beginning to
face up to is the indiscriminate planting
of vast tracts of eucalyptus. The site of
ravaged landscapes, often by Canadian
No. 45
logging firms which leave the earth
depleted and almost useless, is a sad
one. Grant aid for this practice is no
longer available. I am told that industrial
hemp, with such diverse uses as building
material, biodiesel fuel oil, health food
and cosmetics, is the only crop that can
grow after eucalyptus. A solution for an
impoverished soil and economy?
LAND FOR ALL OUR FUTURES?
Sustainable living includes people and
environment in sympathetic relation-
ship enhancing both. Perhaps shared
land for co-operative living is a natural
step that people will take as we move
away from ‘just me and mine’ to a
sense of extended family, common
bond and a larger wholeness.
Land is neither expensive nor cheap.
Buying it though couldn’t be easier.
All the conveyancing can be done by
the agent but it is essential you have
an independent English speaking per-
son you can trust to make sure you get
your title deed or ‘cardinetta’. Our
agent would disagree about how easy
it is, however. She has often had to
round up large families, once as many
as 37 relatives, in the Escritorio or
registrar’s office, to sign the land
transfer deeds.
Single cottages in the wild and won-
derful barranco, very basic with a
well and a few acres, can still be found.
It is much harder to find large plots
Permaculture Magazine 49

suitable for creating a co-operative
neighbourhood or ecovillage – it has
taken us three years to find the land
we are on.
For those who appreciate life’s co-op-
erative ways, several dwellings are often
part of the one plot. Such a shared
ownership scenario, like the ‘co-housing’
model, can lend itself to all the benefits
of resource sharing and social cohesion
that can be found between a few like-
minded people who design their own
living environment. You have your
own place but can share some of the
land, the building work and the fun.
The fact that the Portuguese land
and culture is still conducive for those
seeking the self-sufficient sustainable
experience comes with a caution. On
the one hand the typically English or
western habit of land speculation ruins
any chance of affordable land access –
for all of us. And what gives us the right
to assume we are welcome in a foreign
land if we haven’t first checked that our
intentions are compatible with the life
and the culture around us? Respecting
our connections with each other and
all living things has to be practised and
enshrined in the agreements we make
if a sustainable future is to have a chance.
And life can come seriously unstuck if
one hasn’t shrugged off that old parent
state dependency and learnt the basic
survival skills to cope.
Above: Sustainable transport in
action.
Right: If you move to a new country
it is important to learn the language
so that you can communicate with
your neighbours. There is much to
learn from their traditional ways.
50 Permaculture Magazine No. 45
WHAT COMES FIRST
– LAND OR PEOPLE?
Jenny and I have made our choice.
In the first year of neighbourly inter-
action – some good, some bad – we
realised that we had simply replicated
our neighbourhood boundary exper-
ience from England without realising
it. In other words, we hadn’t thought
enough about who we wanted to live
with as our neighbours. We only thought
of just where we wanted to live, a bit
like young love, and despite our best
intentions and conflict resolving efforts
– which in fact worked by and large
(not all our neighbours were eco-
friendly) – we learnt that you can’t
just go for land or live in isolation.
We are meant to live together, at least
co-operatively.
We are now moving to the next
stage on the way to a more natural
and sustainable lifestyle which, we
believe, is a shared thing and a collec-
tive experience to be found in inten-
tional groups with like-minded
people; perhaps like the co-housing
example hinted at above, or even
larger organic eco-settlements and
villages.
Now we feel we are part of a neigh-
bourhood, a bit like an extended family.
There are nine of us presently with a
flavouring of diverse backgrounds
including Findhorn, Buddhism, perma-
culture, DIY, family farming and
much more besides. Our common
glue, we realised, is that we no longer
fit into a society we feel we’ve dis-
inherited, but together we can live in
a way how life is wanting us to be.
These are fertile beginnings with more
land and rebuildable dwellings on the
edge of change.
One thing is for sure. We’ve learnt
that living the dream of a sustainable
life can be a test of self-reliance and a
challenge for one’s comfort zone. Last
year we learnt about water and earth
and survival; the basics. This year, for
example, we are both studying natural
plant medicine. It’s another step
towards accepting that we can meet
our own needs, with less dependency
on a society that cannot change itself
until we have become less dependent
on it. There’s no turning back
CONTACTS
Jonathan and Jenny offer working
holidays and workshops and welcome
interest and sharing from anyone
seeking the sustainable future. Email
contact and web site: ola@rainbow
communities.org
Are you ready for co-operative
living in an ecovillage? The Integrated
Ecovillage Questionnaire is a good
place to check out your ideas: http://
myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ecovillage/
question.htm
www.permaculture.co.uk