Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Community and Environmentalism

[Rob Sandelin (robsan]

Environmentalism is one of those values which often can lead to 
disagreements, even conflicts due to the passions of the holders of 
those values.  I would suggest, that if you are framing a community 
around environmental values that you clearly state what that means in 
practical terms, in your visions document.

I have read about 15 vision statements from groups which have ideas 
about environmental stuff in them, most of which were enormously vague 
and general.  This is OK, but having definition is good too. For 
example:  We want to live lightly on the land..... Is a nice vague, 
conceptual statement, open to any sort of interpretation.

Example 2: gives a little more definition.
We want to live lightly on the land by minimizing disturbance of native 
vegetation during building, transplanting native vegetation where 
possible, minimizing pets predations on wildlife, and preserving a 
maximum amount of greenbelt as a land trust, forever in its wild state.

If the founders of the group hold values which they want to endure, you 
have to clearly communicate those values to everyone who comes aboard 
and ask that new comers accept the values of the community.  It is 
usually a mistake to try and formulate values after the community is 
together, because of the lowest common denominator effect which Eric 
Hart mentioned.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood.