Designing Ecological Habitats - Gaia Education

98 Designing ecological Habitats
A Check List for Materials
• Avoid ozone depleting materials
• Avoid materials with high energy costs
• Utilize local material
• Look for locally recycled material
• Minimize use of old growth lumber
• Minimize materials that off-gas
• Minimize use of pressure treated wood
• Minimize packaging and resulting waste
Jan Martin Bang is an ecovillage activist with 16 years experience as a kibbutz member
in Israel and seven years as a Camphill co-worker in Norway. He writes for Landsbyliv
(Village Life), the Norwegian Camphill magazine, and is an active member of the
Norwegian Ecovillage Trust.
He has written a book on Permaculture Ecovillage Design published by Floris Books
in 2005, called Ecovillages: A Practical Guide to Sustainable Communities. A second book,
Growing Eco-Communities: Practical Ways to Create Sustainability was published by
Floris Books in 2007. Sakhnin: A Portrait of an Environmental Peace Project in Israel
was published in 2009, and he is currently working on two books about the Camphill
movement.
He can be contacted at: jmbang@start.no