Key Discussion Topics

Deep Ecology
Engaged Buddhism
Rainforest conservation
Direct action in defense of nature
Living in community

John has been involved in founding several communities in NSW and has been involved with the Narara Eco Village for the past 11 years. John is founder of the Rainforest Information Centre and has participated in direct actions to protect several precious Australian forests. He has been arrested while protesting, most recently for chaining himself to machinery to stop logging of the Greater Glider habitat in Bulga Forest. John was awarded an Order of Merit for services to conservation and environment in 1995.

John has been facilitating deep ecology workshops around Australia and the world for over 35years. John is also a songwriter, singer and film maker and has been a regular podcast guest including ABC Radio National’s “The Philosopher’s Zone” and “Soul Search”.

Key Discussion Topics

Lyndall offers tales of her joy in having a purpose to create Narara Ecovillage, serving not only herself and her family but also her community and, by demonstration, interested others. In a workshop called ‘The Joy of Purpose’ Lyndall, using her journey ignites others to find their purpose…and go for it!
She extols the virtues of Sociocracy and its ability to ‘head some conflict off at the pass’, and describes the Narara Ecovillage journey through using it.
Lyndall also offers the story of Narara Ecovillage’s creation, overcoming obstacles, celebrating the wins, and at the same time ‘seizing the day’ in all its glorious forms.

Lyndall Parris is the founder of the Narara Ecovillage and has been working on this dream since 1996 when she was working as an accountant and living on a sheep farm. After raising three children she began to put in place her dream of an alternative to the nuclear family paradigm. After many challenges and setbacks, the project went ahead successfully: of the people, by the people, for the people and continues today. Lyndall and her husband Dave live in the ecovillage, as do two of their adult children, their spouses and their children. We have moved away from the nuclear family paradigm into an open, caring and fun community.

During the initial stages of developing the ecovillage, Lyndall discovered an alternative governance system called Sociocracy. She learnt about the system then began regularly presenting “A taste of Sociocracy” to the community, sharing the sociocratic cornerstones of equivalence, transparency and effectiveness. This has provided a common language, methodology and understanding to take the agreed aims of the community forward with great success. Dave has led the development of a pioneering, smart electricity grid for the community, having worked with renewable energy projects most of his life.

More on Lyndall and Dave – Dreaming the village into being >

Key Discussion Topics

Pioneering ecological building techniques
Founding the Global Ecovillage Network >25 years ago
Technology & building sustainable community
Big picture ideas like why we need ecovillages
His experience at Findhorn and Narara ecovillages
Funding initiatives

John was Project Director at the Narara Ecovillage for nine years from 2012- 2021. His more than twenty years of experience directing of the Findhorn Ecovillage in the North of Scotland prepared him for this role. 

While at Findhorn, he helped pioneer green building methods, ecological infrastructure, and renewable energy systems including erecting a wind turbine in 1989. John is a qualified engineer and the author of Simply Build Green, a technical manual on ecological building techniques used at Findhorn. 

He was instrumental in the founding of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) in the mid 1990s and has lectured widely on building sustainable community.

John and his family returned to Findhorn in 2021 to help with rebuilding after an arson fire. He chaired the Development Committee for two years and was the project manager for a £230k Just Transition Fund Grant from the Scottish Government looking at four key infrastructure projects to enable the community to become carbon neutral by 2030. He is currently living in London.

Key Discussion Topics

Parenting
Wellbeing & happiness
Meditation & stress reduction
Sustainability & a low carbon living
Spirituality
Community cohesion

Suzie is a resident of Narara Ecovillage who advocates for the lifestyle benefits of intentional communities, particularly in fostering happiness, child wellbeing, and sustainability. Suzie is a long time environmental and community advocate, founding national group, Parents for Climate and she pioneered campaigns for sustainable living such as banning plastic bags. She has also founded community meditation groups around Australia and teaches Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and Mindful Parenting.

Meet Suzie’s family >

Parents for Climate Action profile >

Key Discussion Topics

Nature & Nurture: Recovery from Sexual Assault, Sibling Sexual Assault, and Domestic Violence with nature-based therapy and self-compassion
Raising Kids who Care: how families, schools, and communities raise resilient kids
Kind & Connected: Trauma-informed communities and organisations
Finding True North: living with courage and creativity, embracing change
Healing the Heart with Community Connection: responding to the loneliness epidemic – choosing community
Lessons from the Dark Side: why some communities implode and others thrive

Shannon Anima is psychotherapist and writer with decades of intentional community living experience in Australia and North America. She was part of the first graduating class in Environmental Education in North America and went on to lead environmental awareness camps, teacher training in environmental education, and develop a thriving independent school on principles of community engagement and environmental immersion. She has been involved for decades in direct activism for the environment and social justice.

She’s been a guest on radio and podcasts, and a NSW statewide educator for Wellbeing and Violence Prevention. She facilitates Writer’s Space with Varuna National Writers House and publishes fiction and non-fiction. She’s currently working on an environmental coming-of-age memoir about rebel life in a smelter town.

Read more > www.shannonanima.com

Key Discussion Topics

Building social Capital and community cohesion
Social networks analysis – identifying positive cycles of sustainability initiatives for a circular economy
The key role of community in responding to climate change

Adjunct Professor Rosemary Leonard is Chair in Social Capital and Sustainability in the School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University. Her research interests include community development and the role of not-for-profit organizations. She was a Principal Research Scientist with the CSIRO for over 5 years where she worked on Australian attitudes to climate change and led projects which addressed the effects on communities of coal seam gas development and water sensitive urban design.

At Narara ecovillage, Rosemary serves on the Co-operative Board. She also helps coordinate our community garden, “Triplespan”, including running weekly working bees for planting the crops. She leads our Research Group, particularly a project examining the way our many projects interconnect and support each other and another on our community cohesion.

Researchgate profile >

List of publications >

Western Sydney University profile >

Key Discussion Topics

Community supported agriculture
Narara ecovillage education program
Sociocracy
Relocating and retrofitting an old Queenslander style house

Rafaele aims to make a significant contribution to sustainability through advocating local food resilience and collaboration between business and community.

Rafaele and Rosemary also relocated and retrofitted an old Queenslander style house [see here for more information]. This journey was documented on Restoration Australia [see ABC iview].

Key Discussion Topics

A world authority on birds of the Pacific Region and Australia
Birds, snakes, frogs and many other species
Ecology, sustainability, policy and advocacy
Threatened species
The biodiversity of the Narara ecovillage and surrounds

Guy is a biodiversity expert specialising in threatened species conservation in Australia and the Pacific islands. Although raised and educated in the U.K, he has been visiting and researching the birds of Papua New Guinea and the Pacific since 1990 and has been resident in Australia since 2005. Guy advises governments, investors and companies on biodiversity conservation, specialising in applying global standards to development projects. He serves on various scientific committees, coauthoring the Action Plan for Australian Birds, and pursues his own research into the birds of the south-west Pacific, authoring the Birds of Melanesia. Guy accepts that he is a ‘bird nerd’ but loves to contextualise his deep knowledge into the wider perspectives of ecology, sustainability, policy and advocacy.

Guy is delighted to live at Narara Ecovillage given its location embedded within forest yet with easy access to mainstream parenting facilities. He tries to spend time in nature every day including supporting the ecovillage’s bush restoration efforts and monitoring its animals. And he always says yes if anyone wants a snake moved from their personal space to a garden with too many rats.

Meet Guy’s family >

Wikipedia profile >

ResearchGate profile >

Key Discussion Topics

Building a hobbit style straw bale home & art gallery
Building dreams
Art

Linda is in her sixth year as an owner builder at the ecovillage. Her bamboo reciprocal roof in her hobbit style straw bale octagon house has caused much interest. A postgraduate design course at UTS aided decision making and her studio with Gaudi inspired finishings has been featured in several national TV shows.

Linda is a tour guide at the ecovillage and plans to conduct tours around her own creations, sharing her enjoyment of living in a natural built house and promoting the use of bamboo as a renewable resource. Linda hosts storytelling events in the village and believes in incorporating stories wherever possible. Linda creates art, including sculptures from clay, chicken wire, recycled materials and bamboo and believes in Narara Ecovillage “If you have a dream, you can make that dream come true”.

Key Discussion Topics

Powerful games for experiential learning
Tools for building resilient communities
Socio-ecological practices
Environmental education and network weaving

Tanya Mottl is a facilitator, network weaver, and environmental educator based at Narara Ecovillage on Darkinjung Country, NSW. With a background in training, Tanya brings a dynamic and participatory approach to environmental and community education. She is the core contributor to the Resilience Project, a global initiative by the Stockholm Resilience Centre and the Global Ecovillage Network, where Narara was one of 20 ecovillages co-developing tools for community resilience. The project includes exploring socio-ecological practices which we have at Narara such as Deep Ecology workshops, walking the land with First Nations custodians, and leading habitat regeneration projects with local environmental groups.

A passionate advocate for experiential learning, Tanya facilitates serious games like the 2030 SDGs Game, The Collaboration Game, the Circular Economy Collage and uses frameworks such as the Ecovillage Map of Regeneration to support individual and group reflection. She is a member of Narara’s Education Group and the international Keystone Communities Project, both of which create place-based programs that nurture ecological literacy, social cohesion, and connection to Country. Her approach centres on the belief that regeneration is a collective act—and that it can be joyful, embodied, and transformative.

Tanya’s work is grounded in a love for community and a belief in the power of radical collaboration. She sees learning as most impactful when it is student-led, locally rooted, co-created and socially connected. Whether facilitating group workshops, or weaving networks across movements, and using social media as a positive tool, she brings curiosity, creativity, and care to the work of growing resilient, regenerative communities.

Key Discussion Topics

Developing an Eco Kit Home – making sustainable, affordable and community-driven architecture more accessible
High-performance, natural built homes, integrating with landscape and community
Building with earth bricks – mud and hemp
Managing an education centre in Thailand

Will holds a Master of Architecture and Bachelor of Environmental Design from the University of Canberra, where he developed a passion for sustainable and wellbeing-focused design. This led him to work with Indigenous Business Australia, designing homes for remote communities mentored by Dr. Steve Burroughs, who developed self-help housing projects in Africa using earth bricks. He realised skills to build a healthy and sustainable home using Earth construction can be quickly acquired.

Will then co-managed Punya Project in Thailand, an education center that immersed students in natural building and permaculture. This experience shaped his holistic approach, emphasising architecture that interacts symbiotically with the surrounding environment. Will then founded Integrated Biotecture Design, presenting workshops on natural building and permaculture. This led him to Narara Ecovillage, where he designed high-performance, natural built homes, integrating with landscape and community. 

Working with inexperienced builders inspired Will to co-establish Mudtec with his business partner Kenney.  Mudtec manufactures compressed earth bricks, provides natural building services and is developing hemp-based materials in preparation to build their first Eco Kit Home — the Fast Slow House — in collaboration with the University of Newcastle. Through Integrated Biotecture Design and Mudtec, Will continues to make sustainable, affordable, and community-driven architecture more accessible.

Key Discussion Topics

The global climate emergency
high performance resilient Building Standards
Resilient smartgrid energy systems

John is the principal of EnviroSustain which minimises energy, carbon, water and waste for houses, offices and industry. He has a PhD in Engineering from the University of Newcastle, specialising in adapting homes for Climate Change and Scarce Resources, and has published in peer-reviewed conferences and journals on Climate Change, Architecture, Building and IT.

In 2019 John joined 11,000 scientists in declaring a global Climate Emergency. This is because his PhD projected the Adelaide climate for 2 scenarios in 2050 to show rises of around 2.5 °C and 3 °C from pre- industrial levels, which would be intolerable.

John lives at Narara Ecovillage where he has helped write the by-laws including the values and principles, assisted the Legal and Finance team to establish high performance resilient Building Standards, and helped with the resilient smartgrid energy system. Previously he was a Civil Engineer designing power station structures, and an IT consultant for a large multinational. He also held senior roles in not-for-profit organisations including Citizens Climate Lobby, Permaculture Hunter, and Beyond Zero Emissions.

Find more of John’s publications here >

Key Discussion Topics

Permaculture and horticulture
Founding Permaculture Central Coast in 1992
How to build a bushfood trail
Nature education for kids

Lorraine has lived at Narara Ecovillage for three years. She has a background in horticulture and permaculture and holds a Bachelor of Arts (Education/English/Drama). 

Her permaculture journey began in 1992 when she completed an ‘Introduction to Permaculture Course’ and was one of the founding members of Permaculture Central Coast in 1992. She completed her Permaculture Design Certificate in 1994. 

Lorraine and her husband Richard established a production nursery on their property at Mangrove Mountain in 1990. Lorraine established a Bush Food Trail and taught permaculture to children at a local school in the area. She also actively promoted and ran workshops and information stalls with Permaculture Central Coast.

Living at NEV has reignited her passion for permaculture after a 15 year hiatus to teach High School English. The small edible and habitat garden she has created on her block was recently open to the public for Edible Gardens Day, The Community Gardens Gathering and David Holmgren’s visit.