Komunidad Kolinda

Founded in 2018, Komunidad Kolinda is an intentional eco-community. It has 11 international permanent inhabitants aiming to live autonomously and harmoniously on 6.5 hectares of forested shared land in the temperate high-altitude Sierra Sur mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico.

The community practises regenerative agriculture and reforestation techniques, bioconstruction, traditional medicine, art, education and spirituality in close alignment with the local Zapotec indigenous population.

The project aspires to the highest possible level of self-reliance in terms of food, water, health, energy and building materials. In order to protect the sense of community, Kolinda follows a simple internal rule – no one is entitled to buy or sell houses without the approval of all and new members enter the community through consensus of the current members. The land is communally managed.

The community started with a land of mostly mixed forest. Its focus has been on building infrastructure, such as a road, water system, communal house and three private houses in order to host permanent and temporary members, visitors, volunteers and events.

It has built hundreds of metres of terraces to grow a wide variety of vegetables, and has dozens of fruit trees in the ground, as part of a food forest design. Everything has been achieved without external funding.

The community will in time turn its focus outwards to projects that will benefit the surrounding communities, such as the House of Healing and a medicinal garden and the Bosque de Mil Anos reforestation projects.