They are applicable to both rural and urban settings and accessible to all. Eco-villagers utilize green energy technology, ecological building techniques, and human-scale design to reduce exploitation of natural resources, facilitate community self-reliance, and improve quality of life.

It is about creating new settlements as well as retrofitting existing rural villages and urban areas. An eco-village is designed in harmony with its environment instead of the landscape being unduly engineered to fit construction plans. By thinking in terms of bioregions/ecosystem environments, sustainable settlements are planned considering water availability, the ability to grow food, and accessibility.

In 1991, Robert Gilman one of the pioneers in the world ecovillage movement, set out a definition of an ecovillage that was to become a standard. Gilman defined an ecovillage as: Human scale, (somewhere where you can feel you know the neighbors in your community); fully-featured settlements, (comprising housing, businesses/livelihood, agriculture, culture, spiritual & educational development, as appropriate to the local setting); human activity is integrated harmlessly into the natural world; supports human development; can be continued into the indefinite future; and must have multiple centers of initiative.

The effects of human activity on Earth have become so invasive that the challenges we now face are unprecedented. In fact, the looming threat of Global Climate Change is beyond anyone¢s experience and is becoming more pressing as environmental limits are reached.

But in the midst of this ecological crisis, we stand at humanity¢s finest hour. Ordinary people are intentionally coming together to create more meaningful communities. Most are driven by a simple desire to create viable living spaces in the midst of a troubled world.

The Global Ecovillage Network is a global confederation of people and communities that meet and share their ideas, exchange technologies, develop cultural and educational exchanges, and are dedicated to restoring the land and living "sustainable" lives by putting more back into the environment than we take out.

Network members include large networks like Sarvodaya (11,000 sustainable villages in Sri Lanka); EcoYoff and Colufifa (350 villages in Senegal); the Ladakh project on the Tibetian plateau; ecotowns like Auroville in South India, the Federation of Damanhur in Italy and Nimbin in Australia; Huehuecoyotl, Mexico; urban rejuvenation projects like Los Angeles EcoVillage; permaculture design sites such as Crystal Waters, Australia, Cochabamba, Bolivia and Barus, Brazil; and educational centers such as Findhorn in Scotland.

Around the world, people are building these sustainable communities that attempt to get away from waste, pollution, competition, and unsustainable living. The Global Eco-village Network links several of these communities worldwide.

Happy Earth is a Philippine-based NGO whose mission is environmental education through sustainable living. It advocates the development of Ecovillage communities and is the Philippine coordinator for the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN).