The Hive is a permaculture convergence of organics, art, design, education and outreach for social and environmental justice. It is located in Colmeal, Central Portugal. It envisions the promotion of sustainable, low-impact and low-carbon living, and the nurturing of community. The Hive is a collective (ad)venture, utilising local knowledge and traditional skills, and providing a space to facilitate the realisation of practical and innovative ideas to share, inspire and empower. The Hive intends to pollinate, and connect with, networks of projects, campaigns and like minded initiatives.
Why The Hive is unique
There is a growing network of privately owned permaculture projects in central Portugal, but we believe the Hive may be the only project to seek to create a communally owned Permaculture co-operative. The Hive intends to provide a template for low-impact rural living, addressing the issues of rural depopulation. The project will serve as an example of sustainability and will also provide a legal and financial framework by which other projects may easily be established, holding a set of “model rules” and guidelines, similar to Catalyst Collective.
The Hive has up until now been supported by private investment and the Scottish based working group have contributed a good deal of time and effort over the past year.
We are now appealing to you, the wider Permaculture community, to support this radical project in any way you feel able. Advice and mentoring are always valuable but fundamentally the future of The Hive depends entirely on securing future ethical investment.
If you have any help or suggestions to offer, please contact us through the website www.thehiveportugal.org .
