Emerging Plans

Land Stewards

The Vision is to create a new road that will start off on the southern highway, at a point midway in between Indian Creek, and Warrie Creek, and then veering right up alongwide Indian Creek, and then going right up the north side, of Indian Creek, as we head into the Maya Mountains.

We need to keep the road as short as possible, as that will save us that much more wildlife habitat, and that should not be too hard, to put a road right through, to the edge of the larger preserve area from there, which is that slanted rectangle that is shown on the map, that is about 7.7 kilometers long, and about 5.2 kilometers wide, and that of course, is meant to total up to exactly 4,000 hectares or about 9,884 acres.

The Number of Buildings, will be related to the number of homesteads, since we will only allow people to have a maximum of 2 dwellings per homestead, One Main Home, in the center of a Five Acre Home Zone, and a Guest Cottage, for visitors.

All Main Homes will be limited to 2,000 square feet in size, and pretty close to being right on the center line of the Homestead, and One Cabin, which would be another 100 feet, behind the Main Home, of up to 700 square feet, and that will also have to be pretty close to being right on the center line for optimal spacing.

Ecological Integrity

We would be looking, at a maximum, of maybe something like 140 dwellings, that will all be built in accordance, with natural low impact building methods, like Rammed Earth, using locally available materials, as a demonstration of ecological living.

Water and sewage will have to be composted, and put back into the Earth, in a manner which eliminates any possibility of having adverse effects, that could impact water quality downstream.

What happens to a homestead, when somebody dies, is that it would be left to their resident children, who have been living in the community for at least one year, or other significantly involved closely tied in person, who they have chosen, to take over, as a kindred spirit, who has been in residence there, for three years, and who has gotten the approval of council, in advance, or if not, then it would be deemed, to have been left in the hands of the community, and it could then be re-assigned, to another family.

The understanding would always be, that none of it, would ever be put up for sale, by the homesteaders, whose main job is to serve as Land Stewards, who will be given the run of the place, just to support their efforts, but without needing to have personal ownership, since it is all deemed to belong to the community, just so everything remains forever, in the hands of the community, and is never broken up into pieces, for unity, and oneness.

There will be only the re-assignment of new homesteaders, by the membership Committee, who represent the interests of the Community, as a whole, since the Community will hold everything in common. And it will not ever be put before the hard working folks, of the friendly nation of Belize, to decide what to do, or how to solve any local problems, which might arise, within our community, since we are to be self contained in all these matters, in order not to waste their time and resources, with local matters. To make that process work, we must ask people to accept the judgment of the community council, or the membership committee.

We will all be considered to be world benefactors, who have made a Contribution Pledge, to Save the Rainforests of Belize, and to Save the Howlers Monkeys, and to Save the Earth.

Two Thirds Consensus

What is being offered here, is only the rightfully justifiable and fully recognized entitlement to live there for life, and as people die, they may want to leave what they have built, to someone of a lower level of kinship, like a son, or a daughter, or just to leave it to the Community, which would be the two main and well understood outcomes. But one other possibility exists, which is to leave it to someone close, who has been living there with you, for years, and in deep long running and very significant relationship, within the community, which is known to all, as a kindred spirit, in order that the existing homestead traditions of taking care of the land continues on. But there are some real reponsibilities in connection with the Contribution Pledge, and all that is put into the project, which is to be valued and honored, but not owned. This is all deemed to have been given to the Earth, through the community, and so these 3 possible outcomes, have only to do only, with who will have a right, to have the full use, and enjoyment of it, and who will follow, in our traditions, as one of the Land Stewards, in Honor. It is not about looking for any distant relatives, for it is not about the transfer of the ownership of property. But is only about finding the best solution. And that has to do with our values, as a community. but what about those who just can't take the weather? Only a partial refund, of what was put in, can ever be given back, if even that, to those who must leave, for whatever reason, if that is fairly soon on, since we do not care about the reason, but only half of the $9,884, would potentially be returned, but only if everything else was in good order, and they were still in good standing. But it is not for that person who may be leaving, to retain control, of what has been left, after they have left, or after they have died, unless they had made it clear in advance, and had the approval of council, who the chosen kindred spirit would be, and it has to be that the council knew that person, and approved of that persons honor and integrity, which is all that matters, as far as the community is concerned, which sees everything through the eyes of the Honor System, along with everything being in good order, with that person as well, and they too would have to be in good standing, within the circle of grace.

Normally we would all probably choose to leave the homestead to the next generation, but sometimes there is no one there, who has been living in the community, for at least a year, or maybe two or three. In that case it would fall under community stewardship, to be managed by the Land Stewards Council, and in this way that remains protected, as being nothing, that should concern anyone else, such as distant heirs, but is to be decided only those among us, who are among the true and the few, who are the most deeply involved, with the day to day life, of living and working, within the community, as full time residents of Our Community, which does not lose land, to strangers, and relatives back home, but only loses people to strangers. And this is to protect the Community, from losing its land, bit by bit, until it has all eroded away. It is to be up to the Council, when things are unclear, to make a sound determination, when possible, and if not, then to make the difficult judgment call, by concensus, as wild and reckless as that may sound, but it is the Stewards Council, of which we will all be a part, that will make all the decisions about these difficult family matters, of who gets the run of the Homestead, when people break up, and some people leave, and others stay, and this sort of thing, and how we are going to divide the children in half, or whatever it is, as the family structures will be changing all the time. But the Homesteads must remain whole. There will be no allowable possibility of the divvying up of the Homesteads, or sawing them in half, and cutting them up, not now, not ever. This will give us more Resiliency, when we know in advance, and are clear about it, that the homestead goes with the Community, when there is a separation or a break up. They do not get to take the Land, or its resources with them. There is a certain amount of Redundancy at work here, as it would be in Permaculture, so that is why it may seem that we have it all covered, on a secondary system level, if the first primary system fails, and that the community will have to step in whenever the primary system cannot come up, with a determination, which comes first, or a judgment, which comes second, if needed, when a determination cannot be made, for instance, and so it stays within the firm and loving hands of the whole community, when the original homesteaders cannot handle it among themselves, not that it is going to become community property, in the sense that it is going to be there for anyone to use, for free, or to be used up by everybody, which is what a lot of people think community property means, but that it is to be protected by everybody, from everybody, and anybody who has no rightfully recognized and fully accepted justifiable entitlement, and that way it will be allowed to rest, and to recover, which should always be just fine with us all anyway, even if nobody has the run of the place, for a few years, and it lies fallow, which is a time of recovery, and regeneration. We can always find new people. They are making New People all the time. New Land is another thing entirely. They aren't making any more New Land, so we are going to have to take real good care of all the old land. The Land always remains in the communities hands, and anything still in the communities hands, is still to be ultimately under the control of the whole community, through the Land Stewardship Council, and that will run by a two thirds Consensus. This way enough of the power remains in the hands, of those who remain, and nothing is meant to remain in the hands of those, who are leaving, as it well should be, since they are no longer fully committed to the community, and they are no longer putting that first, above their own personal ups, and downs, and needs, and family problems, and money problems. But not having enough money, does not entitle one to be given money. That would be wrongful entitlement to base ones claim on that which is empty.

Re-Localization

The Community has to have this much autonomy, in order to become a fully integrated, self regulating community, that works, because the people need to cooperate, with the whole community, which will make decisions by consensus, in a manner which is supportive and contributory.

This will bring a lot of new creative energy into Belize, and keep us, out of the courts of Belize, who should not need to be bothered by us, over the need to solve any of these little issues, that mostly revolve around personal relationship, and family problems, like when a couple breaks up, who should get to keep the homestead, or the cat, or when somebody wants to put in, for half their money back, to go home and quit, where other proven people, of some real entitlement, are still involved in sharing a homestead, and they may still want to stay on, but have little or no standing, except in spirit, then what do we do? We will have to be able to take care of all of that, but only as an orderly community, not by choosing favorites, so as not to allow any of that personal division, to divide the whole community, as people may feel forced to take sides, and this could destroy an entire community, as it can split right down the middle, over who likes who best, which is not the most important consideration, but it will all be about, who has standing, and merit, and who's name is down, as the original homesteader, and who may have allowed the others to join in, on a secondary level, and who is in there on a primary level, which is different. Who has done what, will also weigh in, when things are no longer working out, and we may have to look at the records, to see what can be determined, just exactly so that it does not become a popularity contest, where someone may think they can get over on the other, because nobody likes them anyway, since they are not very popular, which is the kind of thing we might want to be able to avoid, and that is why we have to have all these understandings, brought into a place of clarity, well before we begin, as much as possible. When they cannot resolve it on the homestead, among themselves, they can ask for help, from Council.

None of our own internal changes, which may even stop us from functioning, very effectively, from time to time, should ever be of any concern, to the Belize Government, as it is not for them to have to worry about that, since we should have the ability, on many different levels, if we do set things up right, to be able to solve most of these personal, and family restructuring problems, and partnership dissolutions, and so that we can deal with the many deaths, and re-births, and the one time transfers on down, to the previously assigned, and previously approved of, resident kindred loved ones, who are already living within the community, for a sufficient length of time, as we have to be able to take care of everything, within our own highly transparent circle, of shared decision making power, and with some authority, to take action, because you do not always get to have your own way, within our own uniquely transparent consensus council decision making system, unfortunately, which is needed, for us to make that clear, so the people will all have to be willing to respect the decisions, made by the Council, when problems cannot be worked out more locally, such as within the Homestead Family, which must be the first line of defense, and here we mean the defense of the Earth, and the defense of the Core Preserve, and the defense of the Homestead land, and the defense of the Community, and not the individual people, that they will have to be given a chance to work things out, but if they do not, then we will have no qualms about making a firm decision, based on our given set of priorities, which is to Put the Earth First. Interpersonal disagreements, cannot be allowed to rip the whole community in half, and so that is what needs to be protected. The rights and responsibilities are Married up and Stacked, using Redundancy, for Resilience, so that if one system fails, such as the Homestead Unit, or breaks down, we have a safety net, which is the Community Council, so nothing actually falls all the way down, into the courts, harming the whole community, because the Community itself cannot be allowed to fail, or even to be harmed, due to these personal and family issues.

That order of protective backup systems, should make it possible, for us to solve most all of our problems locally, including people who need a little financial help, from time to time, and can be given credit, where credit is due, and maybe some voluntary help building their homes, or with jobs, or livelihood, which may be something like marketing their own produce, and transportation, which should be no concern, for the country of Belize, since they probably have their courts full of way too many unnecessary cases as it is, in this regard, without us adding to any of that, and they may not even know how to get out from under that pressure, but I think it becomes clear here that we do seem to know how a few little things really can, and will be set up for greater resiliency, and that will be done, by re-localizing some of the powers, and responsibilities, on the Homestead first, being very clear about rights, and entitlements, and we have to know how the consequences have to be stacked up, as well, and so everything is taken care of within the EcoVillage Community Council, instead of nationalizing everything, into a feedlot nation, of total dependency, on the government, and it may well be that the world needs to see a demonstration of these kinds of concepts in action, and that is why we might want to set an example of what it means to be completely self sufficient, in all of these matters, by having workable systems in place, using a Re-Localization of the Power Structure, which puts the power to decide, on local matters, back into the hands of the local people, in the lowest levels of the system, whenever possible, meaning in the hands of the people living on that homestead, firstly, and with a certain amount of help from the Council, when needed, but ideally, most things can be dealt with, and must be dealt with, on a local level, with just a little help from Council, simply by making a determination of the facts, and they will be, when the peoples run of the Homestead itself is dependent upon that willingness to compromise, and to work things out, and to cooperate, so the community is not held up by it, anytime the people cannot work it out. That is what has to be clear. We have to remember that the community is nobody, who can defend itself. A person can defend itself quite well, sometimes, but a nobody cannot. And a lot of people will always try to get over on a nobody, and they will try to take advantage of a nobody, who cannot retaliate, in any way. But we are to be different, we are all bto step in, with great spirit, to support that marginalized nobody, along with The Earth, who has been treated like another nobody, except to the extent to which it serves the endless needs of the people, who have put themselves first in all things, as if they were Gods, and so it is the Earth, which usually comes in last, and who has no committed allies, who are not still agents, in business only for their own personal success. Even some religious sources have basically said, not to worry about the Earth, because God will take care of that, which has not been too helpful, since as we can all see, that is probably not always going to be the case. God is quite possibly not going to take care of the Earth, on purpose, just to see how long it takes for the people to wise up. That means the trash will not get collected, and recycled, by God. So expecting God to take care of all that, would be pretty stupid. That is the astonishing truth we are beginning to realize. Why has it taken so long to realize these basically simple and Eco-Logical understandings? And Eco means Home. Maybe it is our job, to clean up our own home, by creating systems that work, and then by operating those life sustaining, and planet protecting systems, and making it all work. Why is it much more likely to be our own job, to take care of our own home? Because it is local. We live here, and so we have to take care of the place, right outside our door, first of all, where we find the Earth, as one whole. That is what Re-Localization means, and we are going to be using the same kind of Re-Localization of the Power, and the shared Responsibility to remain accountable to the community, that we have seen talked about above, that we have always been responsible, for taking care of the Earth, just like each of the Homesteaders, who might be sharing a Homestead in common, is responsible for working out any problems, within the Homestead, and no one has a right to depend upon any of the Higher Level Powers, like God, or even the Community Council, or everybody else to help them out, to solve any and all of the many lower level problems that we all must boldly face each and every day, like to put food on the table, and a roof over our heads, which is not something that we can depend upon the Community, or any of our friends to do, even though there will be a lot of help, and in the same way, we cannot depend upon the country of Belize to pick up the slack, when these failures to connect the dots on a lower level occur, since we local people are the first responders, not the courts, and the Community Council is not meant to be responsible for our individual success or failure, it is just there to decide what will happen, when we cannot manage that on our own, precisely because these are local matters, and so the Community is for itself, not like a Good Neighbor. Why? The Community is not your neighbor. The Community may well be benign, and the people are going to be very generous as a community, but it is not responsible for the people, but the People are the ones who are going to be responsible, for the Community, and that means providing for it, everything it needs, in terms of money and all other resources, and the People are goping to be the ones, who are going to be held accountable, to the Community Council, for keeping up their end of the responsibilities. That is what is meant by Good Order, and being in Good Standing, that their membership responsibilities have been kept up to date, such as to do their Community Service work, and to kick in whatever monthly contributions are necessary, per person, as well as per homestead, for general operations, and community maintenance, and that all debts have been paid off.

That Re-Localization of the Power to control our own destiny, is a part of what we are demonstrating as a community, and we call this the power of re-localization, where we can take care of the problems we have with each other, on a local Homestead level, or on a local community level, if necessary, which is not dependent upon peoples willingness to cooperate, which would put us in a powerless position, but on the contrary, they would be dependent, in some cases, upon the willingness of the Community Council to be cooperative, with them, and benign towards them, such as when they do need some help, like having a need to get permission, to postpone having to pay something, and this is only possible, within a well integrated community like our own vision demands, for us to take it all the way, and do the job right, with all this Redundancy, and Layering, which is being stated very clearly here, to make sure the problems of the few, from below, do not infect the higher levels, of the whole, above, in an adverse way, because we need to protect the whole community, and the whole Earth, which is our Home Planet, and that comes first. This will allow us to provide some protection, from these little Homestead problems, from overflowing, over into the courts of the Belize government, which we hope to protect, because we are doing this all, with permission, and some support, from the Belize Government, who hope can understand why we have to have a little bit of local autonomy, which comes in combination, with taking responsibility for our own people, who then in return, must be willing to take full responsibility for themselves, to a certain degree. This will help us to maintain a perfectly good relationship, with the country of Belize, and the people.

The Old Mountain Road

The road in there will be something like 10 miles. We would like to think the Government of Belize might be glad to put most of that in. But we would like to insist upon putting in the last 3 or 4 miles, which is the part that is within the larger Howler Preserve area, that goes around the one thousand acre Core Preserve, which we have specified, would be our own responsibility, just so we can put the Old Mountain Road exactly where we want it, but we do want to have ownership of that part of the road as a private road, as soon as it enters into the larger preserve area.

We will take over complete maintenance of that part of the road and some maintenance of the whole rest of the road as well, since we do want to have to take some responsibility, for our need for that road, and our use of that whole road, and so the Belize Government can expect, that once the road is built, then we will take care of it from then on, including bridge repairs, and every other kind of improvement, with no exceptions.

We will need to ask the Belize Government, to put in that first stretch, which is about 10 miles of road, starting from a point somewhere in between Warrie Creek and Indian Creek, along the Southern Highway, and that will follow along the north side, of Indian Creek and then along the north side of the middle fork of Indian Creek, as shown on the maps, and to grant us the land for the One thousand acre Core Preserve, and the 70 or so homesteads, which will each be 20 Hectares, or about 49.42 acres, depending only on how many we can fit in there, forever, to be under the sovereignty of Our Community, as a not for profit spiritual organization, without any reservations, which is another kind of Re-Localization.

Minimizing Impact