Kotare Village

Mission: The Koanga Institute was co-founded by Kay Baxter and Bob Corker, and is part of a 30-year journey to save New Zealand heritage food plants, and experience self-reliance and community development. In the process of saving the seeds, we came to the realization that seed saving is just one aspect of the broader need to address the foundations of our ‘human ecology.’ The challenge became bigger. See Bob’s story.

We believe we are on the cusp of enormous changes that will see our normal life challenged on many fronts, as the economic, environmental and social costs of maintaining an industrial consumer society and exponential economic growth become increasingly unsustainable and undesirable.

Our response is to invest in a village community that creates its own culture of regeneration, self-reliance, and resilience, not only for the village itself, but to be an active part of seeding transformation in the community – both New Zealand and the around the world.

This is not a place to ‘escape from the world’, or to protest against it. It will take years of hard work and determination, but we believe it is better to affirm a new way than wait for our mainstream society to transform.

We invite you to be part of this transformation and part of the solution.

From www.ic.org/directory/kotare-village/:

The Koanga Institute​, home of New Zealand's largest heritage seed collections​ is moving its focus towards becoming a leading centre for regenerative living​.​ Our latest project, Kotare Village, is looking for like-minded people who want to support a shared dream of embracing a regenerative future through independent village living, local economies and co-evolution.

Regenerative Agriculture:
Much has been made of the modern term ‘sustainable’. However, within the context of depleting and degenerating resources, we now understand that we need to regenerate our resources, not just sustain them in their current form.

The term “regenerative” describes processes that restore, renew or revitalize their own sources of energy and materials, creating sustainable systems that integrate the needs of society with the integrity of nature.

Our use of regenerative agriculture can be characterized by these principles:
-Use of ecological systems that sequester carbon and improve water availability.
-Development of multi-tiered perennial polycultural systems that maximise solar collection, fully utilize all soil depths, eliminate the need for fossil fuels and imported fertilisers, and have multiple high total yields that service the needs of our community.
-High use of management-intensive systems, rather than imported-resource-intensive systems
-Holistic management (Allan Savory)
-Intensive selection of species and cultivars, for the ‘best fit’ to the local environment and culture
-Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), to support our farmers and efficiently provide healthy food for the village

Appropriate Technology:
We recognise that much of our present comfortable lifestyles are based on technologies that may become less accessible and/or affordable, and that they usually run counter to our desire for self-reliance and regenerative systems. We have a commitment to adapting to appropriate technologies, those that are small-scale, decentralized, people-centred, energy-efficient, environmentally sound, and locally controlled.

Some of the ideas we are exploring further include:
-Living simply, with less need for energy
-Developing our limited hydroelectric sites
-Meeting as many of our energy needs from wood-based biofuel systems
-Rocket stoves and gasifiers
-Vehicle fleet
-Electricity generation
-Heating water from a combination of solar and biofuels
-Ram pumps in the Mangaone stream to pump summer water to storage from the Hill Block
-Composting toilets
-Greywater systems
-Passive home heating and cooling
-Developing generic house design using largely local, non-toxic materials

Empowering Social Relationships:
While much of the focus of our vision is on the regeneration of our ecology and our economy, we understand the importance of regenerating our communities through empowering social relationships on all levels. We recognise that this is a major challenge, as we transform from our existing relationships and communities to something better.

We recognise there are no easy solutions. It requires a commitment to finding what strategies and techniques work best and being willing to apply them consistently. We will take care to ensure these processes are given due support within all our organisations.

Some key points we have come across so far are:
-Fair, documented, participatory decision making, consultation processes
-Clear identification of stake holders and decision makers
-Encouraging the learning of communication skills
-Meeting techniques that will facilitate trust and build consensus, including meeting protocols, clear agendas, sharing circles, non-violent communication, etc.
-Clear, documented conflict resolution techniques
-Empowering leaders and/or managers in specialist fields
-Taking individual responsibility for our actions
-Choosing to participate in personal and group activities that build strength in our relationships

A service of the Data Commons Co-op. The project has been supported by Equal Exchange, the Cooperative Charitable Trust, the USDA, and many others - thank you! Tech volunteers over the years include: Benjamin Bradley with support from GAIA Host. Ben Mauer with support from Quilted. Paul Fitzpatrick. Ronin Tech Collective, Brattleboro Tech Collective, Sligo Computer Services. Jason Lemieux. Default map tiles courtesy of MapQuest. Default map data (c) OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA.