STEWARD COMMUNITY WOODLAND

Walking towards utopia

travelling by communities and ecovillages

STEWARD COMMUNITY WOODLAND

www.stewardwood.org
+44 (0) 8454581926

This permaculture project, situated in the Dartmoor National Park (Devon), aims to demonstrate the value of integrating conservation woodland management techniques with organic growing, traditional skills and crafts and low-impact sustainable living. 10 adults and 6 children live currently there. The most of them work part time outside the community. The website contains 150 pages of resources and information about all aspects of the project, the community, the woodland, planning issues, our neighbours and photos.

All the structures are made with wood, recycled materials and waterproof fabrics of the same colour, what helps to integrate them into the setting. Each family or individual has its own dwelling (you can see photos of one of them and my tent-bender). One of the communal structures is the long house, the current kitchen and dining-room. We were working in its enlargement for volunteers, groups and courses. Other structures are the two compost toilets, the workshop and the future bath house with shower and sauna, so I had to take a shower in a farm-camping of the surroundings, thing that I did from time to time...

They use not much energy. They are self-sufficient about energy with a micro-hydro system and solar panels.

The common diet –and life philosophy- is vegan, although not all the members are 100% vegan. I had never eaten almost exclusively vegan meals for two continuous weeks.

They had to struggle to get a planning permission and it ends in summer 2007, so they have to apply for a new one.

I met other volunteers there (Emma, Josh, Kate and Yuri) and it had a good atmosphere with them. We were counting and planting oaks, extending the long house, cutting wood, carrying stuff… We usually ate with some permanent members. The cooker and heating work exclusively with firewood. There is a system to make use of cooker to heat and store water.

Moretonhampstead is a medium-sized village with an interesting social and cultural life, at least I had that impression those two weeks. I was present at a lecture-slide show, a theatre performance and a yoga celebration with shared songs, music and food. All those activities were linked with two community members.

There is a movement in some towns about the peak-oil, where the people talk about a sustainable local future. One of those places is Totnes and other interesting website is this. Some members of Steward are linked with these initiatives in Moretonhampstead.

There is phone access and, about internet, it´s possible to connect a laptop, to ask for permission in private dwellings or to go to the village library.

As in other English destinations, this time military helicopters caused a stir.

As you can read in the article about general impressions, I enjoyed here reading New Internationalist.

Definitively, it´s a very low-impact community situated in a beautiful setting, surrounded by nature, where you can forget the rhythm and the “luxuries” of the city life.

BUS: Moretonhampstead (from Exeter)

STAY: 13-27 November’06

WWOOF member. Included in Eurotopia

Link to PHOTOS