Perhaps a way

[Tsteu'itan]

To knock the problem of finding land and be super-green at the same time:

A couple of years ago, I saw a news report on a man who had made himself his own self-sustaining island to live on.  http://ecoble.com/2007/11/18/250000-bottles-amazing-recycled-mexican-island-paradise/  He did so by taking thousands of empty plastic bottles and connecting them all together (I believe it was some sort of net system that held them under the water).  He then proceeded to cover the entire floating "island" with enough Earth to sustain plants and animals and a small house.  He kept chickens and other animals for meat, and he planted vegetables and fruit trees.  And since the "island" was in the ocean, he fell under international law.

Granted, doing something of this sort would take a lot of bottles.  But Americans and other Industrialized nations throw away enough of these things every day to provide more then enough.  So during the time that you used to get everything set up, instead of putting your money towards buying land, you could put it towards finding ways of procurring used bottles and hitching them together and buying the earth and seeds and animals needed, and wood to build the housing structure.  And it might be easier to for everyone to have their own personal island, which would then be hitched to the rest of the islands - with bridges or ropes or something of the sort - so that then everyone could still be part of the tribe.  Everyone could be responsible for their own "land," and then once those were created, you could work on a communal island in the middle, linking them all together, where everyone could meet.

What would be neat about this is that not only would you be living eco-friendly, you would also be doing your part to recycle millions of bottles that would otherwise become useless landfill.  As well, you could rely on fishing to sustain yourself.  :>

[Tsteu'itan]

I also remembered:

You can also construct buildings out of empty glass bottles.  They create insulation and allow light to stream in through each individual "window."    It's warm in the winter and cool in the summer because of the foot-thick mud-construction and spaces of air in the middle created by the bottles.  Plus, it just looks really nifty!

ETA:  Here's an ehow page illustrating how to make your own bottle-island.    http://www.ehow.com/how_4478359_make-floating-island.html  I notice they show pictures of 5-gallon water jugs for the bottles.  If you used those, you wouldn't even have to have near as many of the plastic bottles for the flotation devices!    You'd save even more money, I think!  Each of those costs maybe 5 dollars, I think?  Something along those lines.  And they hold lots of 2-liter/3-liter soda-bottles worth of liquid, which means you'd be saving money by going that route!  Plus, they're thicker, and therefore more sturdy then the thin plastic soda-pop bottles.

And hey, if you end up having more then you need, you could always make fun tribal drums for music out of them!  

Sorry if I'm rambling, and this is probably absolutely completely against what everyone wants, I just thought it was a fun idea, and could conceivably solve a few of the problems that were being face.  Plus, it's just totally nifty!  

[Key'ìl Nekxetse]

I think the time and money it would take for us to build this sort of structure and then populate it might mean that it would take more money than buying some land. It could solve some problems though, careful control of where soil, plants and animals come from could remove some parasitic organisms and diseases and it may also avoid some problem with the laws of the countries we might want to settle in. My main worry is that the amount of space required to sustain the community will probably be quite large, which may well be as much of a problem with this approach as with simply buying land. Creating a sustainable ecosystem could also be quite challenging.

[Tsteu'itan]

Someone calculated it on another site that if the plastic coke bottles cost 5 cents to recycle, at 250,000 bottles for the first island, it would only have cost $12,500.

You also have to consider, though, that the bottles can be found in ways other then buying that much soda and drinking it yourself.  Humans throw away so very many bottles every day that if you just made it your goal to go out one day out of the weekend and look for bottles that have been discarded - go to the local dump and see if they have any set aside, ask your friends if you can keep their bottles when they're done drinking with them, etc - then you could come up with them pretty easily.  Apparently all the man did to make his was set up a small booth in a high-traffic tourist area and ask for their empty bottles when they were done with them.

It would require a large amount of "land," though, I'll admit.  That's why I thought it would be best to have individual floating islands set up for each "family" in the tribe, which would then be connected together.  Apparently there are already people trying to make floating islands more numerous as well.  If you google it, there's lots of information on how to do it, on groups that are trying to do it, and so on and so forth.

['Itan Atxur]

I like this idea. I'll look into it a bit more when I have the chance

[Predict]

Key'il's right though. A single island to support one man maybe but for our tribe we would require too much land and the difficulty in establishing a stable ecosystems is far too great.

I would also be very concerned about the affect of weather: we would be totally undefended from any storms. This is a very interesting concept but, when it comes down to it, it is very different from our aim. I think currently we are hoping to avoid farming (or at most very small scale), this concept necessitates farming. The bottles might be cheap, the real cost would be in soil (and getting it to the island), animals, and plantlife for the island. Add to that no existing natural building materials.   

Although it may be sustainable I would be concerned we would be creating a very controlled, artificial environment. Something that could not survive without our influence, I don't think this is a desirable situation. It's cool though, and seriously impressive that he managed to get it going.

['Itan Atxur]

Well, one way or another we are going to need farming. I agree this idea is a long shot, but then, so is our entire goal.

[Predict]

It depends entirely on our location, in a tropical rainforest the land is very poor for farming and with sufficient land the tribe could function as hunter gatherers. I admit the eco-village will need some farming, to provide for at most 20 (more like 10) individuals it would be very small scale.

What I am trying to say is that building an island doesn't seem to be sticking true to our initial goals. It may be sustainable (but not long lasting) and it would not be likely to satisfy the desire to return "back to nature" so to speak. It is a very different proposition.  Although the tribe is a long shot it is feasible, if you stick two ideas together that are both long shots it's only going to be harder to accomplish either. From what I have read on this we would be restricted to open waters, otherwise we still fall under national laws so that's really a disadvantage.

A self-sustaining, ocean going settlement is fascinating but it is very much an experiment. At least we have templates for what we are doing (Tonbogiri's Anthology and all), this introduces way more unknowns and is a significant break from the original idea. And it's bloody difficult, this guy hasn't made it to sea yet with one small island let alone a whole colony.

['Itan Atxur]

Yeah, I agree. Still a cool idea though.

[Predict]

Very cool indeed.