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The end of the year
is traditionally a time of reflection and we always have plenty to
reflect on. We purchased Steward Wood on the winter solstice in 1999
and since moving on, we have been busy making this place our home.
Below is Ben's account of the year. It mainly focusing on our own
experiences but also touching lightly on some of the wider issues
and events considered in someway relevant to the project, our lives
and the planet as we move into the 21st century.
New millennium,
new owner
As the year 2000 began,
we were not surprised that the much hyped Millennium bug had failed
to cause any noticeable disruption to civilisation as we know it.
At our first meeting of the year, we celebrated our purchase of the
woods and began planning the move to Devon. Many of us came together
in Somerset in January to be closer to the woods
while making the final preparations for moving on. We all spent several
working weekends at the wood over the following months and produced
maps and a basic survey. During February and
March, we visited other projects which included a trip to
Tinkers Bubble to learn some woodland skills such as coppicing,
and a stay at the Centre for Alternative Technology.
Earth Day
2000 - moving on
 We were ready to move
on in April and we chose the 22nd
which happened to be Earth Day 2000. On arriving at Steward Wood,
we struggled to carry our tents and baggage up the hill. In the days
that followed, we visited our immediate neighbours and distributed
an introductory leaflet to every house in Moretonhampstead.
We began our twelve month period of fact finding surveys and with
April being one of the wettest on record, it provided a great opportunity
to learn about seasonal water flows.
Fitted Kitchen
 With the arrival of May,
we were still busy setting up home. Our kitchen started life as a
simple shelter over a firepit and began a series of refits when we
received a consignment of second hand army tarpaulins. During the
Summer, we added a double sink with plumbed-in running water and created
work surfaces and storage. The open fire was replaced with an oven
in the Autumn when we added canvas walls to keep the wind out.
Solar powered movie house
 Our first substancial communal space
evolved through several stages. In June, we completed
building it to half its potential length, providing a large covered
space with a dry, carpeted flat floor. We watched a movie on our solar-powered
laptop computer and for a while the structure was known as 'the movie
house'. When we later extended the floor  to its full length, it became 'the Longhouse'. Towards the end of the year, we
improved the insulation by adding a second skin of canvas. The interior
layout evolved constantly as demands for space varied with use. These
days the Longhouse contains an extensive library, filing cabinets,
desk space, sofas, tables and a huge wood burning stove.
Local, organic,
yes!
 In the Summer, we had our first crops
from the Growing Area where we had done some limited work making raised
beds and planting annual crops and herbs. Although
we had not been able to commit much time to the Growing Area, we were
rewarded with quite a range of food: lettuce, broccoli, spinach, courgettes,
beans, potatoes, onions, artichokes,
nasturtium, calendula and other organic delights.
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GMO,
no!
 While the market for organic food
mushroomed, public concern over the safety and environmental
consequences of genetically modified crops snowballed. Wide
public support for such actions was demonstrated at the
Greenpeace GM trial
when the jury found activists had lawful excuse for destroying
crops. Since the supermarkets gave way to public demand
and removed obvious GM products from their shelves, the
campaigns this year exposed how GMOs continue to enter
the human food chain unlabelled as the majority of GM crops
are fed to animals. During the year there were several blockades
of GM animal feed distribution centres.
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Fun at the fairs
 In August,
we built a portable pole lathe and our first shaving horse for
the Moretonhampstead Summer Fair, where we received a lot of interest
with our demonstrations of green woodworking, rag rug making and our
cycle powered website. We provided cycle powered music and craft
demonstrations for a fair organised by Oxfam
in Exeter and then, with our third cycle
generator, at the Tavistock 'Alternatives'
event. We also held a camp fire music evening, as part of Moreton carnival week.
Making connections
 Other networking events during the
year included giving a tour to about twenty people interested in permaculture
and organic growing, who were attending a gathering in Exmouth. We
did a bunch of newspaper, TV, and radio interviews with media interested
in our planning situation. We also held regular stalls at the Moretonhampstead Country  Flea Market and attended the South West Permaculture Convergence
in Bristol, the South Hams Wood Fair, a public meeting about Ottery St Mary's
Sustainable Living Centre, lectures and slide shows at the Schumacher
College, a conference on Genetics, a 'Wild Awareness' event organised
by Moor Trees, and the Big Green Gathering
in Wiltshire.
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Hot issue in Moreton
Controversy hit Moretonhampstead
when the DNPA granted outline planning permission for 148 houses,
many of them on a green field site outside the settlement zone
of the Local Plan. The development would have added almost a
third to the population of the town and significantly increased
traffic in the narrow streets. Local opposition blossomed and
debate raged over the lack of public involvement in the decision
and the pros and cons of the scheme which promised various incentives
if allowed to go ahead. With an alternative location being available
on a brown field site and much public opinion against the proposals,
the government called in the decision. In response, the developers
scaled down their plans but there may still be a public inquiry.
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Planning pains
 Opinion in Moreton on our planning
application was also divided. When the National Park discussed the
application in September, there was a significant amount of support
from the members of the committee but they deferred the decision in
order to visit the site. Eighteen members and officers visited us
and those objecting to the application, and when the committee met
again in November they unfortunately turned us down. We will now be
appealing.
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Everyone's appealing
Earlier in the year Plants For A Future had won their planning appeal
for residential permission. And within days of our refusal,
the residents of Kings Hill were given full planning
permission on appeal after over six years of legal processes.
While we prepare our appeal, we will be watching with interest
the progress of the Government's own
appeal against a ruling by the High Court in December. Controversial
planning decisions are often decided by the Environment Minister,
which lawyers successfully argued breaches Article 6 of
the Human Rights Act giving ‘the right to a fair hearing’.
The ruling was the first time an English court has used the
Human Rights Act to declare existing laws incompatible with
human rights.
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Our hillside homes
Throughout
the year, we slowly moved out of tents as we built our personal dwellings.
Most of the group now have their own low impact homes built on timber
platforms to provide level flooring on the hillside. They are all
canvas covered, heated by wood burners and insulated with blankets.
 Ben's was the first to be built in the
summer, followed by Merlin and Beccy's. Pete's evolved over a long period
of time and Kat and Clare's were completed in between down pours of
heavy rain in the Autumn. Dan's bender was the last one built being
completed shortly before the Winter Solstice.
Bath 'room' with a view
 One of early communcal facilities
was our open air bath, which was heated by a fire directly underneath
the tub. One visitor commented that it was the best bath he had ever
had. While we built several shower systems, building a covered bathhouse
remains on the 'to do' list. By the end of the year, our communal
structures included: two toilets, a bike store, a workshop and an
agricultural 'shed'.
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Human
rights and freedom of expression
While planning was the first
law to be declared incompatible with the Human Rights Act by
an English court, it will no doubt not be the last. Another
may be the new law which
redefines a wide range of political activity as "terrorism"
and threatens this country's strong tradition of civil disobedience.
The Terrorism Act 2000,
which will come into force in February 2001, could be used to
harass, discredit and imprison campaigners and their supporters,
be they; partying in the streets, pulling up GM crops, raising
money for pro-democracy movements abroad, or mounting blockades.
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Peasants revolt?
We enjoyed unusually peaceful roads
when our petroleum dependent country ground to a virtual halt in September
after just two days of fuel 'blockades' by protesters. Some people
suggested that the protests were orchestrated by the petroleum companies
protecting their profits from the threatened introduction of taxation
on their North Sea oil production. With little fuel in our tank and
no need to go anywhere anyway, we took the opportunity place on our
website information about biodiesel as an alternative
to petroleum and information about why the only sustainable solution
to the problems created by car culture is to build a society less
dependent on transport in the first place.
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Car
culture U-turn
 The extent of the government's commitment
to reducing the nations dependency on cars was demonstrated
shortly before the end of the year when John ‘Two Jags’
Prescott announced a four billion pound budget for new roads
(enough to build forty Newbury bypasses). In response to the
announcment, campaigners occupied the DETR offices. Displaying banners reading 'No More Roads' and
'Reduce C02', they blocked the car park and prevented Mr Prescott
from parking either of his two Jags!
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Wild Weather
Worries
 Climate change and global warming became an especialy hot topic in
October as storms and high winds sweep across Europe causing
massive damage and leaving many areas under water. We lost over a
dozen trees at the woods but our structures held up surprisingly well.
The road below us and some of the local houses were flooded several
times but up on the hill we were fine apart from some muddy paths.
WWWord From the Wood
Our first newsletter 'Word From The Wood' was posted to people
who had expressed an interest in the project over the summer and almost
one hundred were distributed. Our second newsletter (a climate change special inspired
by the record breaking weather) was distributed not just by post, but placed on
the website and also emailed to a number of mailing lists apart from
our own and we received many favourable comments. During the year our website grew from containing
nothing more than an online version of our leaflet to containing a
huge gallery of photos and over 100 pages of news and information about
the project and some of the related wider issues.
Climate talks dam-ned
 The wet weather continued into November
with rainfall recorded every day for weeks on end. Our Pete set off
in the rain to cycle to Holland to join campaigners protesting at
the COP6 Climate Change Convention at the Hague. Calling for action not words, and highlighting the
urgent need to curb greenhouse gas emissions, they built a sandbag
wall at the venue. Inside, however,
the millions of dollars spent by industry on 'lobbying' paid off.
The United States dragged its heels and the talks collapsed with no
agreement from the world's governments.
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Global action
 This year saw
many mass public demonstrations all around the world and
the issue of unaccountable corporate rule and economic globalisation
was hardly ever out of the news. Hot on the heals of last
years protests in Seattle - 'Guerrilla gardeners' took root in London's Parliament
Square and tens of thousands of people swarmed on Washington, Melbourne and Prague to highlight the
growing disquiet about a system that places economic growth
and profits over the needs of people, animals and the environment.
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Power to the people
 Earlier in the year we used
solar panels to charge batteries and operate computers. During the
summer we built cycle powered generators which proved far more effective.
In the autumn the rain swollen streams inspired us to build a small
scale hydro power system. It is now providing most
of our electricity and while it doesn't produce much, it is constant.
The power enables us to use the computers everyday in order to update
the website and check emails. It now also provides some limited low
wattage electric lighting in the toilet and kitchen.
White Winter Wonder Woodland
 Autumn changed reluctantly
into Winter. The leaves stayed on the hazel trees for ages and new
buds appeared on those that had lost their leaves. Flowers were opening
in December and insects and birds seemed quite confused. The
rain finally ended for a week or so around the winter solstice, and we made the most of
the weather by having a party round an open fire. On Xmas Day, it
snowed and we enjoyed the last week of the year in a winter wonderland before the rain returned with a vengeance
on the very last day of the year.
And so ended a year of highs and
lows for us; we took a leap of faith, learnt lots, shared our experiences,
made new friends and established a new home.
What does the 21st century hold for us, or for the world at large?
Only time will tell, but regular visitors to our
website can at least watch our progress by reading our diary and
our quarterly newsletter
'Word From The Wood'.
Better still, come visit us and
see for yourself.
A
review of our second year is also available.
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