Kirra Ecovillage Community Association
Living Better, Together...
for a Better Tomorrow
Welcome to a place called Kirra!
"A place where those who thought they could never have beautiful things, will find abundant beauty in all things. A place where those who thought they could never have a wonderful home, will find a wonderful place to call home. A place where those who question humanity, will find unconditional love and care."
Imagine...
A place where it doesn't matter how much money you have, the most valued commodity is self.
A place where money isn't the currency, but kindness has eternal value.
A place where there are only 3 rules -
No Advice - You will give no advice unless your counsel is sought.
No Judgement - You will not judge the moral decisions of others.
Respect Choices - You respect their choices and in turn they respect yours.
There is a place, a place called Kirra!
We are at the beginning of a long journey. With a vision of long-term self-reliance, Kirra Ecovillage Community Association is a community-based, self-funded, non-Government, not-for-profit research and training ecovillage comprising 33 acres (12.5 Hectares) of native Australian bush land, located 11 km Northeast of the Queensland town of Tara, which is about 350 km west of the Queensland Capital, Brisbane, in Australia. At the time of purchase, this block hadn't seen any full-time inhabitants in the last few hundred years making it ideal for the research and projects that are planned for the community.
Kirra research includes alternative medicine and apothecary research, agriculture and a broad variety of off-grid technologies and sustainable methodologies, specifically focused on alternative processes combined with ancient and lost techniques coupled with contemporary and modern technologies, theories, materials and processes.
With a philosophy of Science, Faith and Hope, Kirra is establishing itself as a resource for locals and other communities in the Darling Downs, the state, country and around the world.
"Science and proof-processes drive our daily work where failure is a part of the learning outcome. As a non-religious community, encouraging diversity in all things, including beliefs and faith, thought and discussion, together with people, plants and animals, create our world. We encourage spirituality, personal belief and individual growth. Our hope is for a better tomorrow for the people and animals of this planet. This alone drives our determination. No project demonstrates this better than our Apothecary project or our support programs for both people and animals."
The philosophy of the community is very different to most community models. Rather than people serving the needs of the community, which goes without saying, it is important that the community serve the needs of the individual. These needs can be physical, mental, spiritual, artistic or something as simple as the need for simplicity.
Kirra to our first nations "Yugambeh" people means a variety of things. To our immediate locals it means "Dancing Leaf", "Boomerang", "Beautiful Woman" and in a slight derivation "Lady of the Light". All of these are captured in the beautiful image to the right (our community logo). We not only pay our respects to the people of this land, both past, present and emerging, we encourage them to participate and be an active part of our community.
#Research, #Recycle, #Reduce, #Reuse, #Repurpose, #Report, #Regrow, #Renew
What's New?
Learn more about - Helping us to build an eco-village for Housing, Education and Environment
We have just released the first publications in our "Core Energy" Series of publications. This series will help you gather the information you need for the core elements of an off-grid lifestyle. This series is free, thanks to the generosity of our supporters and Friends of Kirra.
Keep the love coming so we can return it in many different ways - thank you.
View Kirra's United Nations - Sustainable Development Goals Impact Assessment
Kirra joins the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN)
Kirra joins FabLabs.io - A digital fabrication laboratory, is a place to play, to create, to mentor and to invent: a place for learning and innovation. Fab Labs provide access to the environment, the skills, the materials and the advanced technology to allow anyone anywhere to make (almost) anything.
Kirra Ecovillage Community Association - Rules of Association
KIRRAtv is launched - See further down this page
Kirra Plan
The Kirra plan is a three-part plan. The first step was adding the access road to the property, back in January 2022. As a working ecovillage there was an immediate requirement for accommodation and essential services which were established in the first (rather brutal) 90-days (from the beginning of August 2022). Although some were very rough and required to be revisited to provide greater performance or longevity. This was the second part of our plan.
The third-part, and the greater vision of the project is to see an active, like-minded community of people working together and living harmoniously for the greater good of all kinds. See more about the future plans.
Kirra Structure
To ensure effective budget allocation, the community is divided into a variety of roles and areas or responsibility. These divisional budgets are regularly reviewed to ensure that finance is available for the projects when it is needed, without unnecessarily burdening the community citizens. All projects undertaken by the community are community funded and must be self-sustainable, a basic principal of the whole community in general.
See the full Kirra Governance structure.
See the Kirra Rules of Association
See the Kirra By-Laws
Kirra Biotope
The Kirra Biotope demonstrates the interrelationship and interaction between the projects of the community to create a balanced and harmonious relationship between all elements of the community and its processes, together with the inputs and outputs from each process. We have enhanced environmental sustainability, reduced waste to Zero and produced greater self-sufficiency and self-reliance. Kirra is positioning itself to be a totally inward facing self-reliance community. Ideally, any engagement outside of our immediate community is not a need, but a want. We have written an e-Book specifically about the Kirra Biotope and we have an ecological plan in place to ensure that our wildlife can thrive and prosper with our community. We need to reduce our footprint in many ways. This is our plan for achieving this outcome.
Our global ecological footprint is less than 0.17 Ha per person or 1,700 square metres per person per year and our carbon footprint is carbon negative, that is, we sequester or capture more carbon than we emit. According to "Earth Overshoot Day", the biocapacity for the world in 2022 is estimated at 1.5 global hectares (15,000 square metres) per person. Humanity's Ecological Footprint is 2.7 global hectares (27,000 square metres) per person or nearly twice what the planet is capable of providing, of which 60% is carbon Footprint. Kirra Community Citizens use just 6.30% Humanity's Ecological Footprint.
Kirra Projects
With an extensive list of research projects it will take some time to execute our project plan. Some projects will be short lived and executed quickly, whilst others may take many years or decades to research, study, complete and document. (This current list of projects has taken nearly three years to formulate and document - most of the existing notes are from the research plan that was created many years before the Kirra community project was initiated. In some cases the projects represent ideas or interest, not necessarily a fully-fledged or funded project.) Some of these projects have multiple parts, like the "Kirra Solar Punk" project, which is more of a concept and has been broken down into a variety of projects to meet the initial "Kirra Solar Punk" objective.
Kirra Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
Learn more about the "our farm to your family with love" subscription for weekly fresh naturally grown produce. Our fixed price basic box means you don't need to worry about price fluctuations for the whole year. There is flexibility to add new items each week depending on what you need or special events you have coming up like School holidays, Easter and Christmas.
United National Sustainable Development Goals Impact Assessment for Kirra
This is Kirra Ecovillage Community Association’s contributions to fulfilling the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The SDGs are often measured on a national level. This is GEN’s take on the SDGs – reformulated into a full set of Regenerative Development Aims linked with key ecovillage practices backed by research.
When you consider our biotope and projects, while there is room for improvement in our Sustainability Development Goals, we see the areas within our impact assessment as something of an oxymoron. The Impact Assessment requires that as a community, we support the greater community. We feel is enabling them to continue with bad practices. If they adopted a model similar to our model, then we wouldn't need to support these other communities. We think the model would move more towards a barter and trade model, rather than an outward looking support system propped up by our community. This may not be the correct way of looking at the situation, and is the reason why rather than enabling we seek to educate. When you review our impact assessment, you will discover that while we have scored remarkably well, especially in the context of our own community, we have lost points when the focus is outward. We are happy to let you decide if you feel this is appropriate.
Kirra Real-Time Weather
See exactly what the weather is like at Kirra right now. We use a PanTech HP-2550 Professional Weather Station and publish that information to this website in real time.
KIRRAtv
KIRRAtv has launched to provide 24 x 7 entertainment for Community Citizens and Invited guests by KIRRAnet (Kn). You can view KIRRAtv on any device including your mobile phone once you are connected to the KIRRAnet Wi-Fi. Watch KIRRAtv