The 3rd Ecovillage Conference Tokyo
~ Lectures/ Discussions/ Workshops/ Music Live/ Movie/ Art Exhibition/ Cafe… 53 programs in three days!
In recent years, there has been a move toward reconstructing rural village environments by creating ecological residential spaces located in appropriate areas, and providing green tourism and eco-tourism services. These areas are termed “ecovillages”. The concept of an ecovillage is not only for rural areas, but also applies to urban areas too. For example, collective houses and cooperatives in cities. The ecovillage concept covers lots of suggestions and important ideas to develop a sustainable future.
More than 50 presenters will attend the conference, including founders of the global ecovillage network, key people in the Asian eco-community movement, and MANY Japanese practitioners who have started ecovillage projects all over Japan!
Come along to get inspiration, to make friends, and to network with cool people who enjoy the slow life!
Title: The 3rd Ecovillage Conference Tokyo
Date: 24th(Fri) – 26th(Sun) April 2009 (3Days)
Place: Shibuya-ku ,Tokyo, Japan
Language: English translations are available for most of main programs
Organizer: NPO Be Good Cafe Co-organizer: Permaculture Center Japan
Cooperation: Japan Eco-village promotion Project, Atelier for Development and the Future, BIO-City Inc, Interpreters Without Borders, Global Ecovillage Network, greenz.jp (biopio Inc.), Global Environment Information Centre
Sponsor: Tokyo Tatemono Co.,Ltd., Eco-Products 2009, Noge Printing Corporation, AMITA Corporation, G-PROJECT Ink.
Supporter: Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, UNHABITAT, UNITAR, Nihon University College of Bioresource Sciences, Mainichi Newspapers, Japanese Academy of Social Design Studies for 21st Century, Denmark Embassy, Fukushima Iitate Village
Advance tickets: 5,000 Yen for 1-day / 12,000 Yen for 3-days pass
Tickets at the door: 6,000Yen for 1-day / 14,000 Yen for 3-days pass
*Advance tickets are available utill April 22nd . After April 22, please purchase tickets at the door.
If you live in Japan
Advance tickets are available at Lawson [L-Code: 33171]
>>>To reserve by phone or online, and purchase ticket at Lawson convenience stores(Japanese Only)
- Call to 0570-084-003 (24h), or go to reservation web page (http://l-tike.com)
- Search the event by L-Code (33171) or keyword (ecovillage), and reserve the tickets
- Go to Lawson counter with reservation number and purchase the tickets
OR
>>>To reserve and purchase at Lawson convenience stores nationwide
- Go to any Lawson convenience store
- Search for the event by L-Code (33171) or keyword (ecovillage) using Loppi system, and reserve the tickets
- Go to the counter with reservation number and purchase the tickets
OR
>>> Reserve by e-mail, and purchase tickets at the conference
- Please follow the instructions under “If you live overseas” below. .
If you live overseas
Advance tickets are available by e-mail.
>>>To reserve by e-mail, and purchase tickets at the conference
- Please tell us your name, organization (if applicable), ticket type(1-day or 3-day), number of tickets, phone number and home country
e-mail: ticket[at]begoodcafe.com (Please change [at] to @) - We will send a confirmation mail to you within 3 business days
- Please print out the confirmation mail
- Please bring the confirmation mail and purchase the reserved tickets at the reception counter. (cash payments only)
ecovillage[at]begoodcafe.com +81 3 5773 0225 (English available)
*Ticket Support: +81-3-3794-2302（Weekday10:00-18:00, English language support available）
4月 02 2009 : posted by begood
by Diana Leafe Christian
Penny’s and my favorite conference presenter was Professor Yasuhiro Endoh of Aichi Sangyo University in Nagano. An older man in perhaps his early 60s with an amiable expression and an unmistakable air of warmth and friendliness, Professor Endoh travels the length of Japan advocating “collective housing” through his nonprofit, “Team of Green Growth.” He showed slides of a successful 22-year-old collective housing development in Kyoto, “U Court.” The project, completed in 1985, consists of 48 units in three buildings of from three to five stories each. The buildings are arranged around a south-facing “U”-shaped courtyard surrounding tall trees and a patio. U-Court doesn’t have a common kitchen/dining room. However, with a shared meeting hall, all stairwell entries facing into the courtyard so people meet their neighbors daily, open and shared ivy-covered balconies that serve as outdoor hallways running along the courtyard side of the buildings, and parking out of sight in one corner of the property, it sure seemed like “proto-cohousing” to me.
Professor Endoh emphasized the importance of trees and the natural environment in creating community. U-Court residents debated whether to plant trees in their central courtyard, which would have been expensive for them, but finally did plant trees. The presence of these trees later made all the difference in cooling the building, adding a beautiful, shady outdoor place for neighbors to gather in spontaneous as well as planned meetings, picnics, and celebrations. U-Court residents also all grew ivy up the sides of the buildings and especially across their shared balconies. At first they couldn’t get flowers and shrubs started along courtyard walkways because their toddlers would gleefully rip them out. So U-Court parents waited until the children were slightly older and asked them to plant flowers and shrubs and water them. The kids leapt into the project and proudly cared for the landscaping for years, later noting how important it had been to them return from school everyday and feel welcomed home by natural beauty. The parents also considered building a small round pond for the children to wade and splash in. While some were concerned it would be unsafe, they finally did build a pond, and it became the centerpiece of the children’s experience of the courtyard as they grew up. “You can’t believe the happy memories people who’d grown up at U Court had when they came home from school only to find that one of the men had gotten drunk and fallen into the pond again,” Professor Endoh explained, showing a photo of a man half-lying in a shallow pool, submerged up to his armpits, a silly grin on his face. Nature, ponds, and water are so important to Japanese people that one pair of neighbors created a small fishpond on their shared balcony and stocked it with koi.
Professor Endoh’s longitudinal study of the of young adults who’d grown up at U-Court indicated that they had loved the natural environment there and their sense of safety and connection to so many adults who served as substitute aunties and uncles. Like kids raised in community anywhere, they were much more confident and socially developed than their counterparts who’d grown up in conventional housing. And, not surprisingly, they wanted to move back to U-Court to raise their own children there too.
Add comment1月 28 2008 : posted by begood
By Giovanni Ciarlo, Diana Leafe Christian
The 2007 International Ecovillage Conference was held in Tokyo, Japan, November 23-24, 2007 with a packed crowd of Japanese environmental activists, progressive university professors, enthusiastic students, and the “green press” in Japan. The second such event held in Tokyo, the conference was hosted by BeGood Cafe and the Permaculture Center of Japan, two nonprofits dedicated to promoting ecological sustainability throughout the country.
The conference was kicked off by Koji Itonaga, Professor of Biosource Sciences at Nihon University and conference co-host, who urged Japan, among other tasks, to protect and revitalize its remaining 135,000 villages through permaculture design and ecovillage projects, ecologically sustainable housing, bioregionalism, and eco-tourism. Yasuhiro Endo, Professor at Aichi Sangyo University, called for more collective housing projects in Japanese cities, showcasing the very successful “U-Court” collective housing project in Kyoto, to much laughter and applause. Ms. Ikuko Koyabe, Professor at Japan Women’s University and author of Let’s Live in a Collective House, presented case studies of collective houses in Sweden, Denmark, and the US, and how this has been translated to collective housing in Japan, especially in the Kankanmori collective housing project in Tokyo. Other Japanese presenters described collective housing communities in Tokyo, ecovillages in Denmark, a Japanese aid project providing wind generators to communities in East Africa, sustainable forestry and building with wood products to create better home environments and revive the economy of Japan’s mountain villages, and plans to revitalize Japanese villages in the Goshima Islands and Hokkaido Date city, respectively.
Overseas guests presented as well. Diana Leafe Christian, author of Finding Community and Creating a Life Together, former editor of Communities magazine, and editor of the new online ecovillage newsletter, Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities, introduced the ecovillage concept with examples worldwide. In a second presentation she focused specifically on the ecologically and financially sustainable aspects of three projects: Earthaven in North Carolina (where she lives), Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, and Kommune Niederkaufungen in Germany.
Environmental scholar Penny Velasco, director of the GEN-Oceania/Asia in the Philippines, directing manager of Earth Day in the Philippines, and author of Are You the Forest King?, described how a new ecovillage project, Pintig Cabio in Manila, is being cofounded by three nonprofits: Happy Earth, which produces environmental education materials; The Center for Ecozoic Living and Learning (CELL), a Creation Spirituality-oriented environmental education center; and the Cabiokid Foundation, a fully developed permaculture demonstration site immediately adjacent to the ecovillage site. Giovanni Ciarlo, cofounder of Huehuecoyotl
Ecovillage in Mexico, representative from Mexico to the Ecovillage Network of the Americas (ENA), and member of the Board of Directors of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN), gave a presentation about ecovillage projects in Latin America, including
Huehuecoyotl and Las Cañadas in Mexico, Sasardí Nature Reserve in Colombia, IPEC and ABRA 144 in Brazil. Giovanni also played guitar and sang, getting the crowd clapping and singing along to songs, including his original songs, in Spanish. Kyle Holtzetar, an American Ph.D. student at Nihon University, described the ecologically sustainable aspects of Camphill Kimberton Hills community in the U.S.
The ecovillage conference was also blessed by an unexpected visit by renowned sustainability activist Helena Norberg-Hodge. Founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture, co-founder of the International Forum on Globalization, director of the Ladakh Project, author of Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh,
recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, and longtime GEN activist, Helena, in Japan on other business, stopped by the ecovillage conference to help encourage ecovillage activism in Japan. She also described her new video project about measuring a country’s progress in terms of its happiness levels.
Professor Yasuhiro Endoh of Aichi Sangyo University in Nagano showed slides of U- Court, a successful 22-year-old collective housing development in Kyoto. The project, completed in 1985, consists of 48 units in three buildings, each three to five stories tall. The buildings are arranged around a south-facing U-shaped courtyard containing tall trees and a patio. U-Court doesn’t have a common kitchen or dining room, but in many ways it resembled cohousing. It boasts a shared meeting hall, stairwell entries that face into the courtyard, shared ivy-covered balconies running like outdoor hallways along the courtyard sides of the buildings, and hidden parking in one corner of the property.
At the end of each day the presenters took part in a panel discussion moderated by Koji Itonaga, Professor in the College of Bioresource Science at Nihon University.
The conference was widely reported on through print media by Bio-City magazine editor Hiroki Sugita as well as by Yukihiro Noda of the The conference was widely reported on through print media by Bio-City magazine editor Hiroki Sugita as well as by Yukihiro Noda of the television program “Green-Power TV,” who will post a video of interviews and conference highlights in January at www.green-power.tv
Official conference sponsors included Bio City magazine, several Japanese sustainability-oriented corporations, and the Japanese Ministries of the Environment and of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport. Emcees were Jun Shikata of BeGood Cafe and Koji Itonaga.
The first International Ecovillage Conference in Japan was held in October, 2006 in Tokyo. Overseas guests were Lois Arkin of Los Angeles Eco-Village and West US representative to ENA, Liz Walker of EcoVillage at Ithaca in New York state and co-creator of GEN’s EDE program, Max Lindegger of Crystal Waters in Australia and director of GEN-Oceania/Asia, and Marti Mueller of Auroville community in India.
1 commentCONTACT:
BeGood Cafe: begoodcafe.com, Contact Form
Diana Leafe Christian: DianaLeafeChristian.org, diana@ic.org
Penny Velasco: happyearth.info, penny@happyearth.info
ena.ecovillage.org
gen.ecovillage.orgGiovanni Ciarlo: sircoyote@aol.com
– Ecovillage Network: http://www.ecovillage.org
– Ecoaldea Huehuecoyotl: http://www.huehuecoyotl.net
1月 28 2008 : posted by begood
By Diana Leafe Christian
The Japanese audience was singing along with ecovillager Giovanni Ciarlo—in Spanish! It was the second International Ecovillage Conference, held in Tokyo in November 2007. The packed crowd included environmental activists, progressive university professors and students, and Japan’s “green press.” Speakers included professors of architecture and engineering, innovative housing developers, environmental activists with special projects in rural areas of Japan, and three overseas guests—Giovanni, Penny Velasco, and me.
The conference was a wonderful opportunity for the three of us to learn about Japanese culture. We were told that people in Japan once had a powerfully developed sense of community and connection to neighbors, in thousands of rural villages as well as in city neighborhoods. They also had an ancient, sacred sense of connection to nature, especially trees and forests. But nowadays most Japanese in urban areas live in tiny apartments in concrete high-rises, with little connection to neighbors or nature. Land is so expensive that few apartments include gardens or landscaping. So the Japanese projects presented at the conference, while not “ecovillages” perse, were nevertheless inspiring to the audience because they made the connection with neighbors and nature once again.
They were inspiring to us overseas guests, as well—we enjoyed learning about Japanese colleagues doing projects similar to our own. For instance, Ikuko Koyabe, architect and Professor at Japan Women’s University, presented case studies of what the Japanese call “collective housing”—what we would call cohousing. She described projects in Sweden, Denmark, and the US, and then introduced us to the Kankanmori cohousing project in Tokyo.
Housing developer Akinori Sagane spoke of his work supporting the economic revitalization of remote mountain villages by encouraging sustainable forestry practices and a return to using wood as a building material.
Professor Yasuhiro Endoh of Aichi Sangyo University in Nagano showed slides of U- Court, a successful 22-year-old collective housing development in Kyoto. The project, completed in 1985, consists of 48 units in three buildings, each three to five stories tall. The buildings are arranged around a south-facing U-shaped courtyard containing tall trees and a patio. U-Court doesn’t have a common kitchen or dining room, but in many ways it resembled cohousing. It boasts a shared meeting hall, stairwell entries that face into the courtyard, shared ivy-covered balconies running like outdoor hallways along the courtyard sides of the buildings, and hidden parking in one corner of the property.
Housing developer Tetsuro Kai showed slides of two collective housing projects in Tokyo: Kyodo no Mori and Keyaki House. Each is a concrete multi-story apartment building with rooftop gardens and vine-covered vertical surfaces and balconies. The three-story Kyodo no Mori features passive solar heating and cooling, a rooftop wetlands for greywater recycling, and a solar-powered water pump. It was described as Japan’s first cohousing community in Graham Meltzer’s 2005 book, Sustainable Communities (and in the Winter 2005 issue of Communities magazine). Keyaki House is a five-story building whose residents use the original traditional house on the property as their shared common space and meeting room.
Other presenters described ecovillages in Denmark, a Japanese aid project providing wind generators to communities in East Africa, Camphill Kimberton Hills in the US, and plans to revitalize Japanese villages in the Goshima Islands and the city of Hokkaido-Date.
Giovanni, a cofounder of Huehuecoyotl Ecovillage, is Mexico’s representative to the Ecovillage Network of the Americas and a Board member of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN). His first presentation at the conference was a slide show about successful up-and-running ecovillages in Latin America, including Huehuecoyotl and Las Cañadas in Mexico, Sasardí Nature Reserve in Colombia, and ABRA 144 in Brazil. When he played guitar and sang some of his original songs, he had everyone tapping their feet and moving to the music.
Environmental scholar Penny Velasco is director of GEN-Oceania/Asia in the Philippines and director of Happy Earth, a nonprofit that produces environmental education materials. She showed slides of Pintig Cabiao, the ecovillage she is helping to start in Manila. Pintig Cabiao is being cofounded by three Filipino nonprofits: Happy Earth; the Center for Ecozoic Living and Learning, a Creation spirituality-oriented environmental education center; and the Cabiokid Foundation, a fully developed permaculture demonstration site adjacent to the planned ecovillage site.
I gave an overview of the concept of ecovillages, with statistics from GEN, quotes from well-known ecovillage activists, and photos of Damanhur in Italy, Tlholego in South Africa, IPEC in Brazil, and Auroville in India. My second presentation focused on ecological and financial sustainability in ecovillages, highlighting Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, Kommune Niederkaufungen in Germany, and Earthaven in North Carolina, where I live.
The conference was hosted by BeGood Cafe and the Permaculture Center of Japan, two nonprofits dedicated to promoting ecological sustainability. Sponsors also included the Tokyo-based Bio City magazine, several Japanese sustainability-oriented companies, and the Japanese Ministries of the Environment and of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport. On-stage hosts were Jun Shikita of BeGood Cafe and Koji Itonaga of the Permaculture Center of Japan and the College of Bioresource Sciences at Nihon University.
Giovanni, Penny, and I grew very fond of the folks at BeGood Cafe, who hosted us royally with Japanese dinners every night. The organization’s founder and director, Jun Shikita, is a former fashion industry executive who started the cafe in 1999 to share and promote practical environmental information. We were also impressed by Akemi Miyauchi, the ever-helpful, untiring coordinator, who took care of everything we needed.
After the conference the BeGood Cafe folks helped us foreign guests visit several Japanese intentional communities—a wonderful treat. Penny traveled to the Konohana Family, a 14-year-old organic farming community near Mt. Fuji. The goal of this vegetarian community, which produces nearly all its own food, is to live in harmony with the Earth and with each other. “You could feel the love among the members there,” Penny later told us.
Giovanni, Akemi, and I visited Kankanmori Cohousing in Tokyo, which is located on the second and third floors of a 12-story apartment building. We were given a tour of the common facilities by the project’s architect and founder, Ms. Hiroko Kimura. Even though we were in a culture quite different from ours, Kankanmori felt familiar—especially its common kitchen and other shared facilities, and our guide’s description of the cooking teams, common laundry use, and interpersonal process in meetings. Giovanni and I told Ms. Kimura that the kinds of topics she described in their meetings came up at Huehuecoyotl and Earthaven as well. Whether in Mexico, Japan, or North Carolina, communitarians seem to face the same kinds of issues.
Akemi and I also briefly visited Tetsuro Kai and his two beautifully designed and landscaped collective housing projects, Kyodo no Mori and Keyaki House.
I believe we in the communities movement can learn much from our Japanese colleagues—architects, developers, professors, and environmental activists like the folks at BeGood Cafe. It was an honor to meet them.
Diana Leafe Christian, author of Finding Community and Creating a Life Together and former editor of Communities magazine, is editor of the new online ecovillage newsletter, “Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities.” She lives at Earthaven Ecovillage in the US.
Contact info:
Diana Leafe Christian: dianaleafechristian.org; diana@ic.org
BeGood Cafe: begoodcafe.com/main/archives/ecvc2007_report (in Japanese, with photos); Contact Form
Giovanni Ciarlo and Huehuecoyotl Ecovillage: huehuecoyotl.net; sircoyote@aol.com
Penny Velasco: happyearth.info; penny@happyearth.info
1月 28 2008 : posted by begood
