News & Events

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 ...

Streets & Squares – Oct 2019

Since my last update, we’ve been forging ahead on landscape design works and we’re into the nitty gritty of detailed design. My focus has remained on providing great outcomes for the streetscapes, Village Square, soccer pitch and public open space (POS). The AMR Shire has given general support to the ...

Changing the world one conversation at a time

By Pam Gunnell and Ken Dyer (future Ecovillagers) We recently visited the Nannup Flower and Garden Festival and were enthralled, entertained and mentally stimulated by that wonderful ball of energy and wisdom, Costa Georgiadis. His purported topic was ‘Community Gardens’, but the stories he told demonstrated that community gardens don’t ...

Planning & Architecture update – Oct 2019

Village Square Roads Our design team spent several months redesigning the road network within the Village Square to make it easier to find your way around and to make the Square itself more accessible from all directions. These changes meant that our previous subdivision approval was no longer valid. So, ...