Designing Ecological Habitats - Gaia Education

174 Designing ecological Habitats
Tamera villagers join
hands to encircle the
constructed lake:
An act of sacralizing
a vital energy point in
the landscape.
an intentional community with 180 coworkers and students, is a training
and research center for the development of peace villages worldwide.
Started in 1995 by the German activists and writers Sabine Lichtenfels and
Dieter Duhm, it runs peace projects worldwide and a training program
for nonviolence and for creating community. The core of Tamera’s work
and research is the science of ‘trust’ – reconciliation and cooperation with
nature and among human beings, truth, transparency, and love free of fear.
This article however focuses on the work in the Ecological Dimension, and
technology in particular.
The Permaculture Water Landscape of Tamera: Water is Life
When visitors enter the Tamera site in Summer, they quickly see the effects
of cooperation with Nature. Even in August there are green berry bushes,
fruit trees and lush gardens. A naturally-shaped lake lies at the entrance –
the permaculture water landscape of Tamera, or ‘lakescape’. On its terraces
and shores, sunflowers, corn, beans and lettuce grow in abundance. A flock
of ducks and geese is sleeping on a tiny beach; and on a closer look one can
see colorful fish in the lake.
“Water is Life,” Bernd Mueller states, a member of the ecology team. “In
winter we have an abundance of rain; in summer it is too dry for anything
to grow. Due to the wrong ways of cultivation in the last decades, the soil
lost its ability to store water. In order to bring back life, we had to keep the
water of the winter rain on the site. The water retention basins fill the dry
soil through capillary pressure and thus bring back the fertility. The principle
is clear, but it took a visionary from the outside to fully see the possibilities.”
In March 2007, the community invited the Austrian mountain farmer