Autumn Greetings! Please find our project update since July 2007 below:
- Recruiting Kobunaki Residents
- Making Kobunaki Ecovillage Carbon Neutral!
- How can we decrease dependence on automobiles?
[Recruiting Kobunaki Residents]
This autumn, we finally started recruiting residents for Kobunaki Ecovillage. With the development negotiation completed and the ecovillage concept organized, we started talking with potential residents. The first target group is those who have been interested in our ecovillage project mainly from local area, as well as from the urban areas in Western Japan such as Kyoto or Osaka.
All Kobunaki residents have some rules, such as; to plant a few trees species of culturalｌｙ, naturally or historically unique to the area to create biotope for little creatures on their promises; to have vegetable gardens, rainwater tanks, garbage disposals to experience our connectivity with nature. Also, there are rules for housing design; to design houses with architects who finished training on passive design; to design house well-insulated above national target level.
In the community garden next to the Kobunaki Ecovillage site, harvest festival will be held in November, inviting those who wish to live in Kobunaki. We would like them to feel the linkage between food and the land, and presciousness and richness of eating fresh vegetable, encouraging the movement of local production for local consumption.
They are standing at the crossroad to choose a living place for their family. We want to tell them, that its time for us to choose not only where to live but also how to live. Furthermore, we need to create and foster living place. Each people who decide to live in this village, will need to design their own place to live in some way. Through their process, we will provide support so they can create their own "eco-village" lifestyles.
Chie Saito
[Making Kobunaki Ecovillage Carbon Neutral!]
We started considering how we can make Kobunaki Ecovillage carbon neutral. To achieve this, the first strategy we chose is to support forestry management. It is because creating a ecovillage has close links with forestry, especially in housing.
There are two aims in our carbon neutral project. First is to decrease atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, fostering both forest absorption and fixation by housing in the longer term. Second is to make use of local timbers, and to help re-establish domestic forest management, as currently forestry in Japan is sagging under pressure from imported cheap wood.
By doing so, we would like to build collaborative partnerships between communities around Kobunaki and local mountain forest, encouraging both production of high-quality wooden materials for town development and appropriate management of local forestry.
Our immediate goal is to offset about 2,000 tons of CO2 emission from works of land creation in Kobunaki. Until spring 2008 when the building construction in Kobunaki will be started, we will finalize the scheme with local forestry associations.
Kohei Ohnishi
[How can we decrease dependence on automobiles?]
As there are only limited demands and funds to maintain public transportation facilities around Kobunaki ecovillage, cars are the major means of transportation for current residents in the area, as well as for future residents of Kobunaki. In this situation, we have been considering the possibilities to introduce a car-sharing system, to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through decreasing dependence on automobiles and minimizing parking lots in order to keep more area green.
It was thought that car rentals would be the only way to make car sharing possible in the past, but there have been several experimental car-sharing activities happening both from the business side and citizens' side now.
Recently, I had a chance to meet a CEO of a Japanese car-sharing company called "Windcar," which provides operating know-how and system technology, enabling unmanned pickup and return at car stations. One of the unique points of this company is that its car-sharing services are provided in the alliance with local automobile mechanics companies, because local automobile mechanics are professionals in maintaining cars and dealing with all the car-related troubles, and thus they are the best partners to operate car-sharing service.
I was told that it would be possible to start up a car-sharing service in Kobunaki, if we find a local mechanic company and at least ten members who want to join the system. There are already a promising mechanic company and some people who are interested in car-sharing among potential residents of Kobunaki!!!
Tomomi Takada
Editor's note
Last Sunday, we held on-site briefing of Kobunaki under clear autumn sky. There are many visitors than we expected, and image of residents has become more clear for us. It is very exciting to see the community is to be born!
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