Arkiv för januari, 2010

On Monday 24th May fourteen eager UF members journeyed to Krossekärr on the island of Orust, Sweden’s third biggest island, which lies 30km to the north of Göteborg.  After travelling on three buses, we arrived at a little wooden sign reading “Utsikten Ekoby” which roughly (and badly) translates as ‘The Outlook Eco-village’.  Wandering up a little path we encountered a cluster of beautiful wooden cottages and Marie, a sixty-something part-time photographer, full-time sustainability radical.  She lead us to the pump house which formed the heart of the village and told us how Utsikten was born nine years ago when a group of peace activists decided to found a sustainable community on the island of Orust that they knew well as the base for ‘Fredsrörelsen på Orust’ an organisation which supports peace campaigners throughout the world.

As the years went by more and more people moved to Utsikten and built themselves sustainable houses.  There are now 17 houses in the village, all built using materials in innovative ways.  One cottage was built using trees chosen for their thickness so, even in the harshest Scandinavian winter, heat remains trapped in the house.  Marie, meanwhile, was building herself a wooden house which used straw coated in clay and mussel shells under the floor as insulation.  She guaranteed us it was fire, wind and big bad wolf-proof.

Marie told us that eco-villages are a growing phenomenon in Europe, with almost 50 in Sweden alone.  She thought the EU was not doing enough to support the efforts of such communities, providing little financial or technical help so Usikten has used the international sustainability movement to help it develop. Over the years it has brought experts from the Christiania commune in Copenhagen and the Findhorn eco-village in Scotland to help with the building, agriculture and water systems whilst many other eco-communes have expressed an interest in working with them, so she had hope for the future of sustainable communities.

With a ring of her iPhone (environmentalists need smartphones too) Marie was called away on other eco-business so ran away down the valley shouting back at us that we must come back next year see how the crops they plan to grow are doing and how her finished house looks ….Join us then if you can!

Thanks to everyone that came on this trip!

For more information on Utsikten Ekoby see: http://www.utsikten-ekoby.se/

//Rosa and Xantippa