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Bellbunya Sustainable Community
Bellbunya Sustainable Community
Details
Commenced:
01/01/2009
Submitted:
05/04/2011
Last updated:
07/10/2015
Location:
114 Browns Road, Belli Park, Qld, AU
Phone:
07 5447 0181
Website:
www.bellbunya.org.au
Climate zone:
Sub-tropical





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Adam Shand Armando Simon Ben Hamley Carsten Sundby Nielsen Chris Gibbings Deb Pepperdine Don Hansford Ian Trew Jarod Santana Jevin Barton Joan McVilly Kim BEST Lucy Carroll Neil Silverhair Petra Meinking Rafaela Tavares Tom Kendall Valeria Andrews
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Bellbunya Sustainable Community

Project Type

Rural, Intentional Communities, Community, Philanthropic aid, Demonstration, Educational, Financial Economic, Legal

Project Summary

The Bellbunya Community has been established to model holistically sustaining ways of living. Having adopted permaculture principles as our base, we have a sustainability centre, an eco-conference and retreat centre and intentional community.

Project Description

Bellbunya is a demonstration centre for sustaining living. 

Integral to the Centre is the Bellbunya Community, an ecological and consciously evolving community, established to model ways to create a relocalised and sustainable future.

Our community is aiming to become a “4-bottomline” community that supports (1) personal growth and is (2) socially, (3) economically, (4) environmentally sustainable.

Based on the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, we offer an eco-venue, rural accommodation and an organic restaurant with a focus on ecologically sustainable practices, supporting communities and developing personal skills and awareness.  We are growing sustainable enterprises that develop the healthy interplay of relationships with our environment and each other.

Set up as a small village on 40 acres, we have organic food gardens, wildlife corridors, a creek and lagoon, a hall and restaurant and accommodation for 30 guests in twin share ensuited rooms. 

We offer many community experience packages, incorporating permaculture, yoga, healthy eating, wildlife rehabilitation and community living.

The Land is owned by an Environmental charitable organisation, with principles objectives of demonstrating sustainable lifestyles.

We are actively seeking people wishing to run permaculture courses and offer Bellbunya as an interactive, demonstration eco-venue that will remain on display and in the public domain.

The Community

We are an intentional community with the purpose of modeling sustaining ways of living for the 21st Century. Our core values incorporate making a difference in the world, creating a culture that is energising and supports transformative growth and living with integrity, openness and passion.

community




 

 

 

We open our hearts and our home to the broader community as a place of learning, teaching, sharing with a view to opening possibilities for people.

Our community grows food together, works together on projects, eats together and shares resources and tasks.

Our talented community includes people with skills in administration, law, IT, PR, photography, Japanese translation and cooking, as well as trained yoga teachers, natural health practioners, musicians, sognwriters, artisans and people with backgrounds in environmental management and community development.

Permaculture at Bellbunya

The community has adopted permaculture principles under its governing principles, and with an underpinning value of respecting the sacredness of the earth, organic and low-toxicity principles are base-line standards.

We have been developing food gardens, and have started the process of site masterplanning using permaculture principles.

Rose with greens from the garden

Rose picked these greens from our garden to use in the restaurant.

We are actively seeking permaculturalists who wish to use a public facility to demonstrate and teach permaculture related topics.

lagoon

Bellbunya features a range of environmental situations, soils and gradients and has an abundant supply of water, including springs, lagoon, underground river, creek, bore and rainwater.

Wildlife at Bellbunya

Bellbunya is a key environmental property in the region, providing a wildlife linkage between State Forest to the West and the Mapleton National Park to the South.

Bellbunya provides habitat for significant flora and fauna, including endangered ecosystem habitat, three endangered or vulnerable frog species, the endangered Coxen's Fig Parrot and Richmond Birdwing Butterfy and koalas.  We play home to a myriad array of amphibians, reptiles, birds and marsupials.

This little Peron's frog was found dished up on a dinner plate!

Sustainability At Bellbunya

Bellbunya demonstrates sustainability in a holistic way.

Spiritually, we acknowledge our interconnectness with each other and the planet.

Socially, we connect through work and play.  We have opportunities for learning through on-site workshops, and social events include music nights, themed nights, games nights, documentary and movie nights in our hall and nightly shared dinners.

Economically, we are forming ethical micro-businesses

Solar systemthat further sustainable living, including our eco-conference centre and experiential, community-based sustainable living packages.

Environmentally, we have a target of producing 90% of all fresh fruit and vegetables used at the centre on-site by Easter 2012. 

We run on 100% renewable energy, including 2 solar systems generating 7.5KVA of power. 

We have retrofitted our buildings for greater efficiency, including installing solar hot water, shortening and insulating hot water piping, insulating ceilings, installing 

efficient lighting and using non-toxic eco-paints.

cob workshop

We are involved in demonstrations and workshops in sustainable building practices, including cob building and small building designs. 

Coming up - a free cob building workshop and a Feng Shui design workshop - details on our website www.bellbunya.org.au/events

The facilities

hall

Bellbunya is blessed with well equipped conference and accommodation facilities and we welcome the opportunity to share these with like-minded groups and individuals.

We offer Bellbunya as an eco-venue for groups and welcome like-minded individuals as guests, volunteers, wwoofers or through community experience weekends and courses.

 

Tours

We run regular tours of Bellbunya and hold community sampler experience.  We average around 2000 visitors to the Centre annually and people's involvement is welcomed in a myriad of ways.

More information is at our web-site www.bellbunya.org.au

You can follow us on facebook.

 

Updates

Three weekends of practical permaculture

Intro to Permaculture Growing Roots Building a cob-oven and sourdough bread April 20 - May 6

Posted almost 12 years ago (0 comments)

Charitable Status granted!

We have just received notification that our Community Land Trust has been registered as an environmental organisation and granted tax deductability!

Posted almost 13 years ago (1 comments)

Cob earth building house rendered

Following a series of free workshops with Australia's foremost experts in earth cob construction, our little building is nearly complete

Posted almost 13 years ago (0 comments)

Free workshops on cob buildings

Bellbunya has been hosting a series of free cob building workshops in conjunction with Cobbel Building Australia. The April event was a huge success - new photos attached! Our next free workshop will be Friday and Saturday, 6th - 7th May.

Posted almost 13 years ago (2 comments)
Courses Taught Here!
Project Badges
Rural Intentional Community Aid Demonstration Educational Financial Legal
Administrators
Karyn Maher - Admin
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Legend of Badges

Note: The various badges displayed in people profiles are largely honesty-based self-proclamations by the individuals themselves. There are reporting functions users can use if they know of blatant misrepresentation (for both people and projects). Legitimacy, competency and reputation for all people and projects can be evidenced and/or developed through their providing regular updates on permaculture work they’re involved in, before/after photographs, etc. A spirit of objective nurturing of both people and projects through knowledge/encouragement/inspiration/resource sharing is the aim of the Worldwide Permaculture Network.

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Member

A member is a permaculturist who has never taken a PDC course. These cannot become PDC teachers. Members may be novice or highly experienced permaculturists or anywhere in between. Watch their updates for evaluation.

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One of these badges will show if you select your gender and the "I'm single, looking for a permaculture partner" option in your profile.

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PDC

People who claim to have taken a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course somewhere in the world.

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PDC Verified

People who have entered an email address for the teacher of their PDC course, and have had their PDC status verified by that teacher. Watch their updates for evaluation.

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PRI PDC

People who’ve taken a Permaculture Research Institute PDC somewhere in the world.

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PDC Teacher

People who claim to teach some version of PDC somewhere in the world.

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PRI Teacher

With the exception of the ‘Member’ who has never taken a PDC, all of the above can apply to become a PRI PDC Teacher. PRI PDC Teachers are those who the PRI recognise, through a vetting board, as determined and competent to teach the full 72-hour course as developed by Permaculture founder Bill Mollison – covering all the topics of The Designers’ Manual as well as possible (i.e. not cherry picking only aspects the teacher feels most interested or competent in). Such teachers also commit to focussing on the design science, and not including subjective spiritual/metaphysical elements. The reason these items are not included in the PDC curriculum is because they are “belief” based. Permaculture Design education concerns itself with teaching good design based on strategies and techniques which are scientifically provable.

PRI PDC Teachers may be given teaching and/or consultancy offerings as they become available as the network grows.

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Aid Worker

The individual with this badge is indicating they are, have, or would like to be involved in permaculture aid work. As such, the individual may or may not have permaculture aid worker experience. Watch their updates for evaluation.

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Consultant

The individual with this badge is indicating they are, have, or would like to do paid permaculture design consultancy work. As such, the individual may or may not have permaculture consultancy experience. Watch their updates for evaluation.

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Community Project

Community projects are projects that help develop sustainable community interaction and increase localised resiliency.