The Eco-village

The Earth Rights Institute proposes an integrated solution to community development that is intended to be socially, economically, and ecologically sustainable. This solution is based on the model of the “eco-village”.

The eco-village is a community where human activities are harmoniously integrated into the natural world, in a way that is supportive of healthy, human development, and can be successfully continued indefinitely into our future. An eco-village relies upon the integration of ‘green’ infrastructural capital and traditional socio-cultural values to create a community that thrives on renewable energy sources and permaculture, local purchasing to support the village economy, local food production and distribution between neighboring villages, and community led education initiatives. In accordance with local normative social and value interests, an eco-village develops consensus decision-making for governance through an active choice to respect diversity. We have launched eco-villages in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Ivory Coast, and work in partnership with the Global Eco-village Network’s 45 Eco-villages in Senegal.

Example: ERI Jatropha plantation West Africa has secured 700,000 ha in Popo community, Ivory Coast for cultivating jatropha and other subsistence crops in communities that have been neglected both by the government and NGOs due to the ongoing civil war. Jatropha plants help revitalize and recover the watershed regions of the Niger and Volta rivers. The initiative is designed to support a sustainable local economy and restore ecological systems so that people devastated by years of civil war can create peaceful and sustainable communities.


ERI ecovillages:
Nigeria
Democratic Republic of the Congo