Swedish ecovillage cooks using the sun

Cooking on the solar stove at Suderbyn Permaculture Ecovillage

 

Situated in the beautiful countryside of the Baltic Sea island Gotland at Suderbyn Permaculture Ecovillage people have come together to find a way to live more environmentally friendly. Suderbyn started in July 2008 wanting to create an eco-community with concepts like low impact living, community and permaculture. Gotland has a relatively mild climate and is one of Sweden´s sunniest places, making it an excellent site for growing food and living.

The thing that impresses me the most with Suderbyn is the holistic approach, striving to include all important aspects of eco-living with few compromises. The major topics being transport, food and energy consumption/production and waste management.

One of the main resources of Suderbyn´s location is that it is situated 8 km south of the island´s largest town Visby (22 000), making it easy to use ecofriendly ways of travel. Most residents will cycle everywhere they need to go, not only better for the environment but also saving money and improving health! There is also a public bus transport nearby that runs frequently.

Suderbyn aspires to be self-sufficient in food production and they are developing a permaculture food forest which they hope will provide them with all their food. They also eat mainly a vegetarian diet which is important in order to reduce environmental impact from food production. As for energy consumption Suderbyn uses solar panels, wind power electricity and try to reduce their overall energy consumption.

Suderbyn only have composting toilets, where no water is used, in order to create a sustainable waste management. On average the flush toilet accounts for about 30 percent of household water usage and chances are each person is flushing away up to 22 liters of drinkable water every day. So not only does a composting toilet save an enormous amount of water, it will drastically cut water and sewage costs and also provides you with good compost for your garden.

All buildings at Suderbyn will be built with natural materials and as they strive to be as independent as possible of fossil fuels everything will be built by hand without the use of tractors and other machines. A few eco-friendly buildings already exist at the eco-village, a shower house joint with a little greenhouse that is built of mud and straw. The biggest project at the eco-village is the permaculture food forest garden consisting of fruit trees, berry bushes and nut trees and other edible plants. 7 horse shoe formed levees are directed towards the south, making the microclimate in them warmer and protecting from the wind, creating a good habitat for growing food. Probably the most exciting thing on site is the solar stove. The stove catches solar radiation with hundreds of mirrors on a big parabola and concentrates the heat to a point that is used as a cooking surface. The solar stove can for example be used to cook a stir fry, cook rice and boil vegetables.

Apart from the environmental aspects at Suderbyn they also include other social and economic approaches to life. Focus is put on community living, with shared meals and living spaces, communal activities and help with chores. They also want to be open for all people to join the eco-village and arrangements can be made for people with economic difficulties.

Becoming more environmentally friendly should not been seen as a self-sacrifice but rather as a resource to discover a whole new world of exciting alternatives that will enhance your life in many areas; ecologically, socially and economically. For example you could be harvesting vegetables from your own garden and cooking them on a solar stove!

To read more about Suderbyn Permaculture Ecovillage visit: www.suderbyn.se