GREEN BUILDING OPPORTUNITY IN SWAZILAND

The bigger picture

Pollyanna Lacey messaged me about her wonderful plans in Swaziland. She has about 200 acres of land there including perennial gorges and a river with the beautiful name, Umfula wo Thando, or “River of Love”.

Umfula wo Thando, "River of Love"

Her project really resonates with me as she’s connecting ecology and healing - she has a vision of self-sufficient, sustainable off-grid living, biodynamic gardening and farming, and a holistic healing retreat and Reiki school. She has no experience in building and is looking for help, ideas, contacts, and useful organisations for funding and information.

The best designs I've seen for low-impact, self-build homes are really the roundhouse-with-Earthship-features buildings of Simon Dale and friends at Lammas, I wonder how they compare with traditional local building in Swaziland.

Simon Dales house at Lammas - Simon's site here

Anyway, get in touch with Pollyanna through the RegenoScot Facebook group if you've got any ideas, useful contacts or would like to lend a hand out there.

INTRODUCING REGENOSCOT

I've started a Facebook page, RegenoScot, to help people and projects for sustainable living to connect up, help each other, learn, and share information, ideas and experience, a bit like the brilliant Off Grid Friends page. I've had lots of great help from there and it's good just to know that you're not the only crazy fool out there going against the established flow.
FLAG FREE
I wanted the RegenoScot header to reflect my own hopes for Scotland and all my family and friends up there. Dylan Thomas was once asked what he thought of Welsh Nationalism and he replied, "I've got three words to say about Welsh Nationalism and two of them are Welsh Nationalism", which is a bit how I feel about Scottish Nationalism...  I hope we vote Yes to independence and I hope it's a new beginning for Scotland but I'd love it if people everywhere around the world looked for what they have in common rather than what makes them different. So there's no flag on the RegenoScot header. We do have a lion but it's a lion with a lion cub to symbolise strength with gentleness, learning and caring.

A wonderful photo, "The Lion King" by Neil Agate: http://500px.com/photo/3972512/the-lion-king-by-neil-agate

NEW THINKING, NATURAL ECONOMY
I don't feel encouraged when the independence discussion revolves around oil production. It's reliance on fossil fuels that's brought the world to the brink of mass extinction. Let's make this an opportunity to build a new kind of economy based on the regeneration of real natural wealth rather than chasing illusory financial wealth at the expense of the environment. So there's a photo on the Regenoscot header of the reciprocating roof at the Cwm Harry community garden project, symbolising local initiative, cooperation, local food production, and the regeneration of natural resources.

The future's woody...

SCOTLAND THE BRAVE AND INVENTIVE
Let's keep our feet firmly on the ground and let's keep our heads firmly in the clouds, looking for local solutions to world problems, allowing a fresh flow of inspiration, new ideas, intuition as we look for local solutions to world problems.