ECOVILLAGE
ENTERPRISE
Agnieszka Komoch describes how members
of Lebensgarten ecovillage in Germany have
developed skills and businesses to support
themselves and their community as well
as to links with the wider world.
W
hen people started
to re-settle in
Lebensgarten 16 years
ago, few probably knew how it
would affect their lives. During
the first years, Lebensgarten
residents carried out an intense
renovation of the houses and
the community centre, and
discussed the overall purpose of
the ecovillage. The first period
was marked by idealism and the
attitude that we could change
the world, but soon the basic
questions of how the community
should function, and above all,
how the members should make a
living, became central issues.
Steyerberg, the closest village,
is located 50 km (30 miles) from
both Bremen and Hanover. With
its traditional focus on agri-
culture and industry, the area
didn’t offer interesting oppor-
tunities for people joining the
community who wanted to do
something different. A lot of
www.permaculture.co.uk
good energy was needed to
makethingsworkatLebensgarten:
the settlement had been used for
military purposes from 1939,
functioning as a labour camp
during the war and was finally
abandoned 10 years before the
community arrived.
So with this background,
it seemed natural that healing
and teaching should become
two important activities in the
community. In 1985 the first
seminar took place in
Lebensgarten, and soon many
members began to give courses
on subjects mainly related to
healing and self-realisation.
Members built new seminar
rooms, a guesthouse was opened
and the accommodation office
and the kitchen were upgraded.
Today the association of
Lebensgarten Steyerberg holds
three to ten day courses nearly
every week. The adult education
program is a great source of
income. Apart from members Above:
who rent rooms to guests Maypole
(Lebensgarten can comfortably dancing is
host up to 60 guests), there are one of the
about 10 people permanently events that
employed by the association as attracts
kitchen, cleaning and house- inhabitants
keeping staff as well as those from nearby
who work in the accommodation villages.
office and do the bookkeeping.
Recently, there have been fewer
members from the community
running courses themselves,
but there is a steady demand
for using the seminar centre as
a venue for courses being taught
by teachers from outside the
community and even from other
countries. This again presents a Photos by:
challenge, as it requires more Agnieszka Komoch
professionalisation, financial
investment and development of
the facilities. For this purpose a
team of executive officers was
created in 1999 whose job is
to make sure that the economic
aspect of the seminar program
No. 32 Permaculture Magazine 37

Above: is sustainable and that guests get
A course in the service they need. This way,
the Seminar employees have a very active
Centre. stake in the smooth running of
the company because, as we have
noticed, the number of guests is
proportional to the service they
get. We can’t escape the basic
laws of the market.
What about the rest of the
community? Not everybody is
a part of the seminar centre.
About a third of our members
(the association has 70 active
members) are happy to work
in nearby towns and villages,
mainly in the areas of therapy
and teaching. Others have deci-
Centre: ded to live according to their
Joachim own values, quit their former
Kreutzer. mainstream professions and work
towards what they really want to
do with their lives. This kind of
process does not happen without
a personal transformation: an
optician decided to specialise in
voice healing, a social worker
opened a shop selling ecological
building materials, a lawyer and
a biotechnician started the first
school for conflict resolution
in Germany, a TV technician
opened an esoteric book store
and so on. Almost everybody
can tell stories about how their
lives changed.
It would not be an exaggeration
to say that living in a community
is about discovering one’s own
talents and putting them into
practise. It helps us to realise our
skills and think about our values;
and to see if those ‘new values’
really hold in practical life.
As well as the initiatives
already mentioned, Lebensgarten
has a rehabilitation clinic, an
architecture office, a food co-op,
one psychotherapy and two
natural healing clinics, a jewellery
store, a souvenir shop, a small
bakery and the consultancy office
for the Global Ecovillage Network
(GEN) Europe. These currently
provide workplaces for about
20 people. In many cases this
wouldn’t have happened without
the support of the community.
Many have started by providing
services to their neighbours and
slowly expanded... just like the
ecological building material
shop. Joachim Kreutzer, who
joined the
community in
the early days,
was asked in
1989 to take on
someone’s load
of natural paint.
He started sell-
ing it first in the
c o m m u n i t y,
and later to
people in the
local area. The
demand for his building work
was so great that he quickly
started to expand his capabilities
as a consultant and builder and

WHAT IS AN ECOVILLAGE?
Ecovillages are urban or rural communities that strive to combine a supportive social environment with a
low-impact way of life. To achieve this, they integrate various aspects of ecological design, permaculture,
ecological building, green production, alternative energy, community building practices, and much more.
These are communities in which people feel supported by and responsible to those around them. They provide a
deep sense of belonging to a group and are small enough for everyone to be seen and heard and to feel empowered.
People are then able to participate in making decisions that affect their own lives and that of the community on
a transparent basis.
Ecovillages allow people to experience their spiritual connection to the living earth. People enjoy daily interaction
with the soil, water, wind, plants and animals. They provide for their daily needs – food, clothing, shelter –
while respecting the cycles of nature.
They embody a sense of unity with the natural world, with cultural heritage around the world and foster
recognition of human life and the Earth itself as part of a larger universe.
Most ecovillages do not place an emphasis on spiritual practices as such, but there is often a recognition that
caring for one’s environment does make people a part of something greater than their own selves. Observing natural
cycles through gardening and cultivating the soil, and respecting the Earth and all living beings on it, ecovillages
tend to maintain, recreate or find cultural expressions of human connectedness with nature and the universe.
Respecting this spirituality and culture manifests in many ways in different traditions and places.

Taken from the Global Ecovillage Network’s web site: www.gaia.org

38 Permaculture Magazine No. 32 www.permaculture.co.uk

started winning customers from
outside the community. Joachim’s
shop, Ökologgia, was the first
store of its kind in the region and
performed pioneering work in
many areas: the first solar panels,
solar heating system, co-generator
and solar car in the region were
all installed in Lebensgarten and
introduced to impressed main-
stream companies from the
nearby villages. Today these
solutions are accepted as normal
when only a few years ago they
were unthinkable to many.
Ökologgia is an example of
good marketing intuition, future
thinking and organic growth.
The company started without
any financial
debt and deve-
loped with
capital created
by the shop.
Ökologgia is
an example of
expertise that
has been created
by the condi-
tion of the
place itself and
its need for
ecological building and renova-
tion. This has then been
converted into liquidity by offer-
ing this service to the general
public while maintaining the
values of the community – health,
stake holding and future thinking
being some of them.
Joachim employs three
people from nearby villages,
who through their experience
of Lebensgarten, have been
introduced to the benefits of
www.permaculture.co.uk
alternative healing and personal
development.
Another good example of
products that have come out of
Lebensgarten is the production of
ceramic angels by Monika Hoy.
She came to the community in
1994 as a long-time unemployed
mother with two girls. She started
helping out in a jewellery shop
and got the idea of designing and
producing angels. After some
time of trial and error, Monika
came up with a design and soon
produced the first 40 angels.
A group studying flower remedies community and our neighbours. Above:
in Lebensgarten, who had watched Through both interactions new Resting after
the production of these first ideas and changes are introduced a community
angels, bought nearly the whole into the mainstream. In this work day.
process values, growth and Note the
money are carefully balanced solar glass
out, and constantly revised and roof and
reinvented. Together they make greenhouse.
the GEP: Gross Ecovillage
Product, which is closely
connected to learning and Centre:
teaching, or transformation and Joachim
outreach. In this field of tension Kreutzer’s
created by the two poles, work shop,
and money are slowly being Ökologgia.
redefined and brought back to
their original meaning: to fulfil
stock before it even reached the the basic needs of happy Below:
store. In 1996, with some inher- expression (as work is an Monika
ited money, Monika was able to expression of body, mind and Hoy’s shop.
start her first shop together with spirit); recognition (= payment); See angels in
another woman. The angels were and a place within a social background
soon being sold in many shops structure. This is exactly what and in inset
throughout Germany and a the ecovillage vision is about (below right).
couple of years later, when the
community centre was being
restructured, Monika opened
her own shop.
With time the designs became
more developed and so far
Monika has created about 32
different angels, all with assigned
qualities and colours. New
angels ‘are born’ after a time
dedicated to inspiration and
intuition.
There is an interesting
dialectic between the commun- Agnieszka Komoch has lived at
ity and small enterprises at Lebensgarten since 1997 and is
Lebensgarten. It interacts with the president of Global Ecovillage
the ‘outside world’ via guests Network (GEN) Europe. She has Left:
who come to do courses and also an interest in group processes, The
through the small enterprises organisational (and personal) Lebensgarten
which attract the local development and rebuilding Mask Theatre,
population, contributing to a communities. active since
greater tolerance between the Email: agni@gaia.org 1999.
No. 32 Permaculture Magazine 39