“We need acts of restoration, not only for polluted water and degraded lands, but also for our relationship to the world.” Robin Wall Kimmerer
When the Lynedoch Eco-Village was first imagined, how water would be treated was a core value and over the past two decades we have continued to learn how to re-use, store and recycle what is available to us.
Community resilience is reliant on an inter-connected set of factors, but one thing everyone can agree on is we need water. Clean and full of life force – not what is stagnating in degraded water ways that have become repositories for all things that are thrown ‘away’.
With growing population numbers placing greater strain on failing water infrastructure and decreased ground water and rain fall, we are now living in a radically different water reality.
Recognising that water is essential to our very existence calls for innovation beyond technical savings and quick fixes.
With the spirit of collective stewardship and regenerative thinking, a new generation of ecological water systems for Eco-villages and learning campuses occupy a unique position in this new reality. They are living laboratories and communities of practice and places where the values of sustainability are seen in plain sight.
The 2026 World Water Day theme is Water and Gender: ‘Where water flows, equality grows’, and focuses on safe water and sanitation as human rights and critical enablers of gender equality. This brings water to a justice platform and communities like Lynedoch show us that solutions don’t have to come from above. They can be designed from within, with nature, by people who refuse to pretend that “away” is a real place.
The Lynedoch Eco-Village and Sustainability Institute treats its wastewater on-site for reuse. When a toilet is flushed, that water begins a journey through earthworms, fungi, aquatic plants, and gravel beds, before returning to flush the toilet again.
Rather than exporting waste to an overtaxed municipal grid, the Eco-Village becomes its own watershed: treating greywater and blackwater through staged biological processes, returning clean water to irrigation and non-potable use, and doing so in a way that is visible, educational, and deeply connected to the community’s relationship with the living systems that sustain it. Take a look at this case study to see how the SI wetland was created by Maluti Water.
The water cycle system of the Lynedoch Eco-Village and Sustainability Institute
Imagine if every community could close its own loop?
We’d love to show you how we treasure our water, come and visit us and see how it is done. Groups can book a tour here.