News & Events

A trip down memory lane at the Ecovillage

“Very good memories…” “I loved this place…” “Happy days here…” – 80-year-old John Shervington, who was born in Margaret River and spent part of his childhood on what is now the Ecovillage site. The Witchcliffe Ecovillage team was delighted to host a get-together on Wednesday with a couple of special ...

Witchcliffe Ecovillage clears its final hurdle

What great timing to be able to coincide the launch of our fantastic new website with the exciting announcement that we have cleared our final statutory hurdle and the Ecovillage has green lights across the board. We were thrilled and relieved to receive approval late last week from the ERA ...

Come Fly With Me – Oct 2019

This month’s “Come Fly With Me” video features the incredible progress of the horticultural team across the site, from planting out the organic vineyard and avocado orchard to milestones in the demonstration vegetable gardens. Thanks again to our resident drone enthusiast, Andrew Jager, for his footage and photography of the ...

Life Cycle Assessment of the Ecovillage

By Andrew Moore, Principal Sustainability Scientist, Life Cycle Logic What is LCA and why is it important to the Ecovillage? Life cycle assessment (LCA) has emerged internationally as the preferred method to provide scientific proof of sustainability. It is a holistic approach that addresses a range of environmental impacts over ...

Digging deep: Horticulture update

The core horticulture team of Mark, PB, Paul and Byron, supported by a casual workforce and a jovial, hard-working group of garden volunteers, have been going hell for leather across the property making exciting tangible progress. The NASAA certified organic demonstration garden at the Ecovillage office is being transformed both ...

Community gardens: The heart of daily life

I recently joined the Sustainable Settlements team and have been involved in developing the Stage 1 community gardens from original concept plans to a much higher level of detail. There were a lot of design parameters that needed to be met for each community garden, such as: providing an exclusive use ...

From the Editor’s Desk – Oct 2019

New Ecovillage website imminent We had hoped to have our new Witchcliffe Ecovillage website live in time for this newsletter, but as seems to be the nature of things here at the moment, we have hit some delays. This current website has provided inspiration and a comprehensive source of information on the ...

Construction update – Oct 2019

We are now well into preparations for commencing our first stage of civil construction work. We are finalising engineering drawings now in readiness for construction tenders and final Shire and Main Roads construction approvals. We are planning to invite tenders for civil works including roads, paths, sewers, electrical and communications services and irrigation mains this ...

‘Boobook Look’ wins sustainability art prize

For the past 14 years, the Margaret River Independent School has held the annual Margaret River Art Auction, where artists, local businesses and the community come together to raise money for the school. Artists donate artworks, businesses sponsor generous monetary prizes, and the community gets to have a party and ...