Twenty years ago – a group of visitors on an EU research project toured Camphill Loch Arthur on the Scottish-English border: We were shown around a decaying cultural landscape. Artfully stacked stone walls made of fieldstones were crumbling and had been replaced by electric fences; overgrown, dying hawthorn hedges, and reforestation areas with monocultures of North American Sitka spruce. How different was the cultural landscape cultivated by the Camphill village community: intact stone walls, newly planted hedges carefully protected from browsing, and wetlands. The farmer who was showing us around said: "We can do this because we have more helping hands!" In the community of people with and without disabilities who practice biodynamic agriculture, there are indeed "more helping hands" who can care for and develop the landscape!

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For further reading:

van Elsen, T. (2015): Anthroposophical living and working communities as places of ecological inclusion. – Disabled People 6, 63-68, Graz.

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