Camassia Institute for Sustainable Communities (formerly Ecovillage & Permaculture Institute)

Our mission is to provide holistic experiential education in the area of sustainable community development, at the village and block scale, for adults at a variety of levels. We aim to facilitate our program participants’ growth in skills and knowledge to create regenerative ecological and social systems for ecovillages and sustainable communities. We focus on the scale of the village or block (we define this as from 30-100 residents), while also providing information and skills that are applicable for home-sites to entire cities. We include material relevant for rural, suburban, and urban contexts. Our various courses and programs cover subjects such as restoration and edible landscaping, organic food production, green building, ecovillage design, green community planning, interpersonal wellness in community, and legal, economic, and decision making systems for ecovillages.

Our educational approaches include a mixture of class sessions, small group interactive formats, hands-on action learning based in real world projects, and opportunities to see and interact with demonstration sites and case studies.

Most of our courses are residential and held at Lost Valley Intentional Community and Education Center (LVEC), where many of our instructors live. LVEC has been hosting Permaculture Design Courses and using permaculture techniques since 1990. LVEC is also known for its emphasis on fostering interpersonal relationship sustainability. While not perfect in sustainability, LVEC provides Camassia’s participants with a great case study and living laboratory for active learning.

Click here to check out our current courses, and use the menu on the right to navigate.