NovaLand Project
NovaLand is an ambitious, fully integrated development project that grew out of many years of hands-on experience in the field. Thanks for taking the time to read this, because we’re a long way from those projects that pile up good intentions without ever producing anything concrete.
Getting out of the system is anything but easy. Becoming truly self-sufficient takes specific skills, the right equipment, and experience built up over time. On top of that, everything is set up to keep us hooked on banks, energy suppliers, supermarkets, and the big players in construction, agrochemicals, and the pharmaceutical industry.
So self-sufficiency can’t happen if you stop at publishing manifestos. The proof is that plenty of grand theories turn into a fiasco the moment they run into reality. Very often that’s because walking away from an alienating system to build a healthy one is far from being as easy as a lot of YouTube videos and other sources make it out to be. It also comes down to a poor grasp of how self-management actually works. But luckily, difficult doesn’t mean impossible. All that really counts is staying motivated and having access to the right technical information so you can avoid making big mistakes.
So the goal of NovaLand is to bring together proven self-sufficiency techniques in a first location to get started. There are two good reasons for going with this strategy. First, because these techniques reinforce one another and there’s no single magic solution for becoming self-sufficient. Second, it will let us share them as widely as possible on the site and across our networks. That’s the moment when the whole NovaFuture concept will finally make complete sense. Until we can make it happen, moving this project forward is our number one priority.
What’s going to be set up on the ground?
Before explaining what’s going to be set up, it’s worth being clear that there are always two guiding principles we treat as non-negotiable. Being as ecological as possible, and making sure there’s an economic logic in one form or another. Because it’s only by combining these two aspects that you can reach real sustainable development. So there’s no way we’d set up a project that would depend on outside help just to keep running.
Another useful point at this stage is that we haven’t picked a location yet. We won’t hide that we have a strong preference for North or West Africa so the project can benefit the people who need it most. But other destinations elsewhere on the planet aren’t ruled out, because life has shown us time and again that the best things happen naturally. So there’s no question of forcing anything for now. It’s a topic that stays open to any good proposal.
ECO-BUILDING
Today, comfortable and energy-efficient eco-friendly housing is basically reserved for wealthy buyers, when it’s exactly the lower-income households that would need it most. Everything else gets built en masse out of cement blocks, with all the downsides that come with it. Because cement burns through a huge amount of energy to produce, it takes a long time to work with, and it costs a lot for a final result that leaves you with poor thermal and acoustic comfort. And to make matters worse, concrete and cement buildings turn out to be very hard to recycle at the end of their life. Add to that a limited lifespan, with a well-known tendency to crack and a real fragility when it comes to earthquakes. Not to mention that sand, the essential ingredient for making concrete, is becoming a scarce resource whose massive extraction is wrecking coastlines and riverbeds all over the world.
It’s also worth remembering that cement only benefits a handful of big industrial groups that devastate the environment, and whose profits are most of the time funneled back to the West, when they don’t go straight into tax havens. On the flip side, natural materials sourced locally open the door to a whole local semi-industrial activity that creates plenty of jobs on the spot and whose economic spin-offs truly benefit the population.
NovaLand’s plan on this front is to demonstrate housing models that cost far less than conventional construction, go up very fast, and keep their carbon footprint as low as possible. The goal is to make the most of locally sourced materials without falling into the sloppy DIY that gives eco-building a bad name. We’re talking about homes that are great-looking, perfectly comfortable, and built with real bioclimatic qualities. In a hot climate, the idea is to stay as cool as possible without needing air conditioning. And when air conditioning does get used, the energy savings become huge thanks to drastically reduced heat loss.
WATER MANAGEMENT
Fresh water is a precious resource. And drinking water even more so. In most of the regions where NovaLand is meant to take root, its scarcity isn’t some abstract topic but a daily reality that weighs on people. So there’s no question of wasting it, not in the project itself, and not in the models it sets out to spread.
The plan on this front is to set up water-collection techniques suited to the local context, ecological treatment systems that let you reuse water several times depending on what it’s for, and a real war on waste at every level. Because on this question, like on so many others, you can do far better with less by using the right techniques.
Here too, the economic logic sits at the heart of the approach. After the on-site demonstration phase, the goal is to train local craftspeople who can install this equipment for their customers and make a decent living from it. That’s how good alternatives actually spread, creating lasting jobs across the area along the way.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Without energy, no real development is possible. In Africa as in Asia, the power grids are often unreliable and blackouts are frequent and unpredictable. That weighs heavily on people’s daily lives and on whether small economic activities can survive at all. Solar power, which is the obvious answer in these sun-drenched regions, is still massively underused for lack of technical skills and properly sized installations.
The plan on this front is to set up and demonstrate several complementary solutions suited to local realities. Photovoltaic solar of course, designed to really keep working over the long haul and not just to look pretty for a few months. Biogas, which turns organic waste into energy you can use every day. Small-scale wind, which rounds out the mix in regions where the wind is steady. Along with other techniques depending on what the terrain calls for. The idea is to show in concrete terms how to combine these different alternatives to reach real energy independence without relying on a failing grid.
And here again, the economic logic stays at the heart of the approach. Because once everything is set up on site, local technicians will be trained to install, maintain, and upgrade this equipment at their customers’ homes. It’s this spread through training that turns a one-off demonstration into a genuine, lasting economic sector. And that’s by far the best path to follow if we want to break free from fossil fuels for good.
PERMACULTURE
Permaculture has become a buzzword, which doesn’t really help. Lots of people talk about it without truly mastering it. As a result, the confusion between fine words and techniques that actually work ends up hurting the approach itself. Because real permaculture is in fact a demanding discipline that calls for genuine technical skills and a careful fit with the local setup. The climate, the type of soil, the rainfall, the sun exposure, and the biodiversity already in place. Each of these parameters has to be taken into account scientifically, because put end to end they decide what’s going to work and what isn’t. Without that precise fit to the context, you get a pretty garden at best, and at worst a failure that discourages everyone who gives it a shot.
On the other hand, when it’s done right, permaculture delivers impressive yields while taking far less effort than so-called modern farming. The soil largely does the work on its own and human intervention focuses on what really matters. The plan on this front is to demonstrate permaculture systems perfectly suited to local conditions and to train the region’s farmers and market gardeners in these proven methods.
Once again, the economic logic is right there, because permaculture makes it possible to reach real food self-sufficiency in the short term. In the medium term, it dramatically boosts the income of farmers and market gardeners, because they no longer need to buy chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or industrial seeds. All that money that flows every year toward the big agrochemical groups can then stay in the farmers’ pockets and let them live with dignity.
PRODUCT PROCESSING
In Africa especially, the failure to add value to natural resources is one of the main sources of poverty. On one side, extraordinary resources sit idle on the spot without being processed and without generating any income for the people. On the other, other resources get sold for next to nothing to Western buyers who process them back home and pocket all the profits that way. This pattern has been in place since colonial times and it keeps running today with little real difference.
The plan on this front is to put in place the tools and the skills to process these resources right where they are, so the added value finally goes to local people. Three broad areas of application are involved. Food processing, to turn local farm production into products you can actually sell. Cosmetics processing, to tap the enormous potential of African and Asian plants in the fast-growing organic sector. And finally, turning plants into natural herbal-medicine products, where traditional knowledge combined with modern technical processes opens up huge possibilities.
To give a concrete example, we’ve done a huge amount of work in West Africa on the potential of moringa. It’s a plant you can make use of completely, from the roots all the way to the leaves, and whose applications turned out to be incredible once we studied them seriously. In Casamance, we also identified dozens of plants with remarkable properties that need nothing more than processing facilities and the right equipment to become genuine, marketable products. It’s all there, on the spot, and always has been. What’s missing is simply the tools and the skills so local people can draw real benefits from it and develop on a solid footing.
GREEN TRANSPORT
The current state of transport in most countries across Africa and Asia is frankly worrying. The vehicles on the road are overwhelmingly old and heavily polluting. Because of that, they generate a level of air and noise pollution that irritates your lungs and does lasting damage to public health. On top of that comes the crushing cost of fuel, which weighs heavily on the budgets of the poorest. A taxi driver can spend up to 90% of his earnings on fuel. Under those conditions, feeding your family properly is very hard.
But this situation is in no way inevitable. Because with a relatively modest investment, it’s entirely possible to electrify transport while respecting what the ground actually calls for. That means designing vehicles suited to local uses, local infrastructure, and local maintenance capacity. Powering the whole fleet with solar energy becomes perfectly realistic as soon as the design is thought through intelligently from the start.
Pulling this off is well within our technical reach, it’s simply a matter of gathering the means. And here again, the economic logic stays central. Because beyond the on-site demonstration, the goal is to build a local assembly and maintenance sector that will create skilled jobs and make access to these vehicles economically viable for the people involved.
FABLAB
Now we get to the real technical heart of the project. Because shifting the paradigm starts first and foremost with good tools. And nothing beats a proper fablab for designing, prototyping, and building the equipment that fits the local setup perfectly. It’s exactly this ability to move quickly from an idea to a working object that makes all the difference between a project that moves forward and a project that stays on paper.
Beyond what it produces, a fablab is also a fantastic teaching tool. Young people from local technical schools and universities will find an unbeatable training ground there, where they can handle top-level machines, bring their own ideas to life, and pick up skills that open real career prospects down the line. This training dimension is essential, because it raises the overall technical level of a whole region for the long term.
In concrete terms, the NovaLand fablab will be equipped to handle as many setups as possible. Laser welding stations, laser cutting, waterjet cutting, a CNC milling machine, woodworking machines, professional 3D printers, and all the extra equipment needed to cover almost every design and manufacturing need. It’s this coherent setup that then makes it possible to tackle everything from developing tools for food processing to building components for electric vehicles, assembling equipment for water management, or running small production batches for local craftspeople. So this fablab will let us quickly bring all the other dimensions of the project to life.
CULTURE
If the fablab is the project’s technical cement, the cultural side is its human cement. Because culture is what lets people come together, grow intellectually, open up to the world, and bring a real spirit of sharing to collective life. Without a living culture, a development project stays barren and puts down no lasting roots. With it, the project gains a human depth that makes all the difference.
As with every other dimension of the project, the starting point is the same. Without technical means and without a budget, local culture can’t really develop. And without the ability to develop, it can’t shine beyond its borders. That largely explains why cultures that are extraordinarily rich stay confined to their home territory when they’d have every right to a place in the global cultural scene. The plan on this front is to give local artists, musicians, craft artisans, and people running cultural projects the spaces, the equipment, and the support they need to create, get their work distributed, and make it known, all under good conditions.
And here again, the economic logic stays central. Because the people who make culture have to be able to make a decent living from their art. Otherwise, cultural production shrinks down to a hobby reserved for a privileged few while a big part of the local creative potential never gets to express itself. So NovaLand is also meant to be a place where we prove that a local cultural economy is a major source of sustainable development.
Why does this project reach far beyond where it’s based?
NovaLand was specially designed from the very start to be easily reproducible anywhere in the world. That means everything is thought out not just to work on site, but also to be documented, passed on, and duplicated elsewhere. So the first project will then be able to bring resources and skills to back other fully independent projects that share our philosophy.
And this whole replicability angle makes complete sense when you look at the global picture. Because Western countries spend their time wailing about immigration and stacking up laws that get more and more vile, one on top of the other. As if repression were the only possible answer. As if people decided to leave their country for fun! Yet anyone who has spent even a little time on the ground knows that migrating means risking your life and cutting yourself off from your friends, your family, and your roots. Not to mention the brain drain that this movement of people represents for the home countries, which end up stripped of their best and brightest.
So the solution is simple. If all these people could reach a decent standard of living at home, the so-called immigration problem simply wouldn’t come up anymore. And yet the West keeps pouring monstrous budgets into repression and sealing off borders, while development aid stays stuck at the bare minimum. All this even though the West owes the countries of the South an enormous debt built up over centuries of colonial and neocolonial exploitation, whose effects keep wreaking havoc today.
What does the project need to get off the ground?
The estimate to get started is 100k euros. The figure might look large, but you have to weigh it against the project’s ambition. There’s no question of doing things on the cheap. This budget covers buying the fablab’s basic equipment, putting up the first demonstration buildings, and getting the priority components running. As for the land, we’re looking for a long-term lease on the following basis. Free use, or a symbolic price, for four or five years. At the end of that period, if NovaLand has kept all its commitments, the land is handed over to the project. To do things properly, we need around one hectare.
While all this is being set up, we’re not sitting around with our arms folded waiting for contributions to fall from the sky. We’ve already saved up 5% of the total amount through a few sacrifices, on top of contributions in equipment, plus full coverage of the costs tied to setting up the legal structure.
On the legal side, we have to be realistic, because unfortunately you can’t build this kind of project in an informal setting. So the plan is to create a structure in France to collect contributions and handle the purchase of certain equipment. Where the project itself is based, it will be organized into several cooperatives. For now, as long as the amount we need to reach stays small, it would be unreasonable to create a legal structure that eats up money for nothing. But that doesn’t stop us in any way from staying 100% transparent about the budget, because that’s part of the experience we want to share.
How can you support the project right now?
The goal of making the project real is very achievable once you crunch the numbers. Because all it takes is just 4,000 people subscribing to the site for us to get started. So ask yourself honestly… what’s 2 euros more or less at the end of the month to you? Honestly, it changes absolutely nothing in your life. And this way it stays a genuine exchange, because we’re trading content for support for the project.
On top of that, you can also become an ambassador for the project and spread the word to those around you to build momentum together. If you run a business and the project speaks to you, you can become a sponsor too. You’ll then be listed among the patrons. All it takes is a quick chat. And if you want to go even further and find a real place in this project, we’re all ears.
There’s one last fair question left. What do you get out of becoming a member of the site? First, the real satisfaction of having done something useful that helps prove, in concrete terms, that another world is possible. Then the pleasure of following the whole evolution of the project from the inside. Because as soon as it’s close to being in place, we won’t hold back on sharing. Detailed articles, videos from the field, and the techniques we use shared through high-quality technical guides so you can easily replicate this self-sufficiency model at home. That’s really the spirit of the project, passing on know-how so it can serve as many people as possible.
A subscription to the site also gives you access to the entire knowledge base as well as members-only content. Alongside that, most of what we do and keep on doing stays freely available, either open source or under copyleft. All we ask in return is that, at least for this project, sharing can go both ways. Because that’s the only way we’ll be able to go further and faster together. Thanks in advance for your solidarity.