Our Policies

Access to sufficient and clean water for every living being in nature is the most fundamental prerequisite for sustaining life and an unquestionable right to existence. In this context, access to water within human relations is one of the essential conditions for social justice.

Neoliberal policies and the nation-state structures shaped by them are turning water into a commercial commodity by pressuring local administrations to directly privatize water and water infrastructure systems or indirectly commercialize them. As a result, large segments of society in many countries are either subjected to water cuts or forced to pay higher prices to access water, which further deepens poverty.

This policy has also become dominant in Kurdistan. Water services in urban areas have been commercialized, while many streams and rivers—especially in rural areas—have been directly privatized. The selling of rivers to corporations for electricity production has caused severe social and ecological destruction. While rivers are being destroyed one by one through hydroelectric power plants and dams, groundwater levels are also declining in certain regions—particularly due to industrial agriculture—leading to environmental degradation and land subsidence.

This commercialization approach, implemented throughout Kurdistan, places the entire burden of water services disproportionately on those who use water, enables profit-making from water, lowers the quality of tap water, and forces people to purchase bottled water. Such developments are unacceptable from the perspective of social justice. Access to water for all living beings is a responsibility that must be ensured by the public. However, current centralized policies ignore this necessity. For this reason, water policies should be entrusted to the will and governance of local administrations.

What we need are policies based on local and watershed-level governance that rest on radical democratic and ecological principles. In developing such policies, the needs of nature must also be taken into account in all planning and decision-making processes.

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Principles for Water Policy

1. Water resource policies must be addressed on a watershed basis. “Democratic-Ecological Watershed Policies” should be developed from the perspective of radical democracy.

2. Decision-making processes must move beyond an anthropocentric approach and take into account all living beings and elements of nature.

3. Water and sewage administrations of local governments should openly discuss water issues and policies together with society. In order to ensure that water-related decisions become more social and ecological, and to raise public awareness about water resources and their use, broadly participatory Water Advisory Councils should be established in every city. These councils should include people’s assemblies, social movements, trade unions, NGOs, and civic networks.

4. Within this framework, local cooperatives should be prioritized in the organization of agricultural irrigation, and existing water associations should be democratized.

5. A significant portion of the water in our geography flows through the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to Rojava and Southern Kurdistan, as well as to Syria and Iraq. Considering that the peoples living in Syria and Iraq have sustained irrigation-based agriculture for at least five thousand years, the historical water rights of the peoples of Lower Mesopotamia must be recognized, and water governance should be democratized.

6. In line with the goal of achieving more ecological, social, and just water use at the watershed level, local administrations should conduct regular measurements of river flow rates and groundwater levels in order to obtain more reliable data on water resources.

7. Comprehensive scientific research should be conducted to assess the condition of water resources in watersheds, and these findings should be taken into account in decision-making processes.

8. Climate Action Plans must be prepared, and local governments should demonstrate particular sensitivity and responsibility regarding water resources.

In recent years, the intensifying energy and food crises, the expansion of mega-cities, the consumer culture created by capitalist modernity, industrialization, and rapidly advancing technological developments have made the issue of environmental and human health increasingly urgent.

While technological developments—an important factor in addressing many of these problems—have provided humanity with new and alternative solutions, they have simultaneously created environments that are harmful to health to a significant degree.

Although these forms of destruction are most visible in metropolitan areas, rural regions have also come under serious threat due to industrial and chemical methods used in agriculture. Among the industrial sectors that contribute significantly to environmental pollution and the disruption of ecological balance are those whose waste contains heavy metals and chemical substances.

Due to the nature of their production processes, such industries use various heavy metals and release metal ions such as mercury, zinc, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, chromium, arsenic, and silver into the environment through their waste. Nuclear power plants also pose serious risks to both human health and nature, and a determined and radical struggle must be carried out against them.

In this century of increasing environmental pollution, the rapid destruction of freshwater ecosystems has reached a dangerous level for all living beings. For this reason, the protection and sustainable use of surface and groundwater resources requires the purification of water from pollutants.

While addressing sewage problems in settlements, the discharge of wastewater into rivers and lake ecosystems poses a serious threat to all forms of life. Furthermore, the use of such waters for irrigation by farmers without the necessary scientific and physical infrastructure in place can also lead to serious environmental health risks.

Another environmental problem that continues to grow each day is air pollution. This issue poses a serious threat to the present and future of our world, exposing ecosystems to significant risks. Increasing energy consumption, industrial expansion, the rise in vehicle use, and urbanization have all contributed to growing levels of air pollution, negatively affecting both human health and other living beings.

Capitalist patterns of urbanization, the insufficient presence of forested areas, and the continued use of fossil fuels significantly intensify air pollution.

The use of pesticides—chemical substances applied in agriculture—also creates serious problems for both human health and the environment. As a result of their use, chemical residues remain in food, soil, water, and air, which in turn negatively affect human health.

In the geography of Kurdistan, decades of war have caused severe chemical damage to rural areas, soil, water resources, and forests due to the use of military munitions. The continuing effects of this conflict continue to destroy many living beings and natural resources, with humans being among those most affected.

The Environmental Health Policy aims to address all of these issues through research, planning, and practical initiatives. Developing concrete solutions and struggling for their implementation constitutes the core principle of this policy.

Starting from the understanding that forests are not merely collections of trees but complex ecosystems, it is essential that forest ecosystems be developed in accordance with their local ecological characteristics. Forests are dynamic wholes in which all components are interconnected and interdependent, requiring countless conditions to emerge and sustain themselves.

The Europe–Kurdistan Ecology Movement adopts this understanding as a guiding principle in all decisions concerning forests. Accordingly, forestry practices must be developed through approaches that also consider their economic, social, and cultural impacts.

Forests are ecosystems of immeasurable value that cannot be reduced to exchange value. They perform numerous functions such as increasing the soil’s capacity to retain water, contributing to the carbon cycle and biodiversity, purifying the air, regulating rainfall, providing habitats for wildlife, preventing erosion, and offering spaces for recreation and rest.

Our policy aims to develop forestry policies and alternative planning models that protect and strengthen forest ecosystems at the local level. In the geography of Kurdistan, forest ecosystems and forest resources have been brought to the brink of destruction as part of state policies of elimination during more than fifty years of ongoing war. Therefore, alongside reforestation efforts, initiatives aimed at protecting existing forest ecosystems are of vital importance.

Forestry policies—including questions of ownership, legislation, state policies, local policies, and social approaches—should be addressed within the framework of the permaculture approach to forestry.

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Principles of Forest Policy

1. A forest is not merely a group of trees but an ecosystem. Forest ecosystems cannot simply be transferred or reproduced elsewhere. They are dynamic systems in which all components are interrelated and interdependent, and their formation requires countless conditions. This understanding must serve as the guiding principle in all decisions concerning forests.

2. Interventions and projects implemented in or around forest areas under labels such as “honey forests,” “income-generating species forests,” or “social forestry,” often introduced in the name of economic benefit or rural development, cause damage to forest ecosystems.

3. Forests must be regarded as public and natural commons. Therefore, the participation of local institutions and communities must be fundamental in all initiatives related to forests.

4. In order to prevent misinformation, local administrations, democratic mass organizations, and ecological assemblies should organize educational programs, conferences, and public panels.

5. The most effective way to prevent destruction in forest and other ecosystems is to design human settlements in ways that enable them to be largely self-sufficient and able to meet their needs from their surrounding environment.

6. Under prolonged and harsh war conditions, many areas of our geography have been depopulated and local production processes severely disrupted. As a result, villagers have been forced to sell their lands to hydroelectric and mining companies. Establishing an ecological and nature-compatible economic infrastructure in rural areas would help reverse this process.

7. In economic activities within settlements, agroforestry and pasture forestry models—based on mimicking forest ecosystems as highly productive and ecologically compatible systems—should be reconsidered within the broader perspectives of agroforestry and permaculture.

8. Planting species that are not compatible with the endemic ecological structure of the region in forests or surrounding areas leads to genetic pollution. Such practices must not be permitted by official institutions or local administrations.

9. In cities, nurseries should be established to produce tree species that can adapt to the local climate and ecosystems. The cultivation of plants and necessary seeds should be carried out in rural areas, cooperatives should be formed for this purpose, and priority should be given to the participation of women in these processes.

10. Forest management plans in Kurdistan were last prepared in 1973. Local administrations should conduct regional inventory studies. Identifying the region’s flora is of vital importance for planning future activities accordingly.

11. Forest areas are increasingly removed from national park status under justifications such as tourism development, mining laws, and claims of “overriding public interest.” Additionally, the concept of “degraded forest” is used to legitimize destruction and open these lands to construction. All forestry activities must therefore be monitored and subjected to social oversight.

12. In the design, establishment, and transformation of human settlements, the creation of systems capable of meeting their own needs and functioning in a self-sufficient manner should be adopted as a fundamental strategy.

Capitalist modernity, through its urbanization model that commodifies everything, is transforming cities into spaces that are no longer truly urban communities. The lifestyle, production, and consumption patterns it imposes not only threatens human life but also constructs a competitive system that commodifies nature and dismantles social structures based on solidarity.

As cities are planned around automobiles, the use of fossil fuels is encouraged. Within this framework, wide roads and highways are constructed, and surrounding areas are transformed into zones of commercial and residential speculation. Cities shaped by the market monopolize economic life through shopping malls, hotel chains, international markets, corporations, and holdings. At the same time, they produce standardized housing, identical neighborhoods, and uniform individuals, stripping cities of their identity.

The capitalist model of urbanization continuously encourages migration from rural areas to cities and produces metropolitan centers dependent on cheap labor. Cities that are encouraged to grow endlessly consume increasing amounts of energy and natural resources from both nearby and distant regions.

Urban planning and spatial design also determine the lifestyles of those who live in cities. Nation-states and ruling powers, aware of this reality, have forcibly displaced rural populations in Kurdistan and exiled them to cities as a means of economic and political control. Today, the same policy is implemented within cities themselves, particularly in neighborhoods where social solidarity is strong, under the pretexts of “urban transformation” and “public security.”

Spaces where solidarity-based, participatory neighborhood relations once flourished in city centers have been handed over to construction and other capital groups, transforming them into spaces dominated by neoliberal economic power. Communities are displaced from their living environments and pushed toward ghettoized areas on the outskirts of cities.

The Europe–Kurdistan Ecology Movement works to develop an anti-capitalist urban policy based on ecological, democratic, communal, women’s liberation-oriented, and culturally diverse principles. Within this framework, it supports an urbanization model that seeks to re-establish balance between urban and rural areas; supports urban agriculture and local production to meet food needs; preserves historical and social textures within shared spaces; values neighborhood culture; promotes cooperatives; and prioritizes construction using local materials.

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Ecological Cities

1. Instead of the hierarchical models and alienating systems of “representative democracy” developed by capitalist modernity, cities should adopt horizontal organizational structures in which decisions are made through people’s assemblies and similar participatory mechanisms that embody radical democracy and enable communities to become self-sufficient in all areas of life.

2. Urban planning should move away from automobile-centered designs and instead prioritize walking, cycling, and light rail systems that promote social interaction while being affordable, healthy, safe, and accessible.

3. Shared living spaces and public areas—such as parks, natural areas, fountains, squares, meeting spaces, playgrounds, sports areas, and car-free streets—should be expanded and revitalized within the framework of ecological cities.

4. The construction of large shopping malls should not be permitted. Local economies must be supported, small local producers protected, and the expansion of global chain businesses that undermine economic diversity should be prevented.

5. Since collective memory carries the continuity of future life, historical and cultural structures must be preserved and integrated into social life. Architectural approaches compatible with the historical character of cities should be adopted.

6. New spaces must be created as alternatives to the male-dominated spatial structures present in existing public areas and built environments. Cities should be liberated from patriarchal spatial logic. Urban areas should not be divided into categories such as spaces for women, children, men, or people with disabilities; instead, living spaces should be addressed holistically. Public spaces in cities must be opened to groups whose access has been socially, politically, and economically restricted.

7. Agricultural lands, riverbeds, and ecologically significant areas with high biodiversity must never be included in new development zones.

8. Local governments should implement and actively support urban agriculture practices. Planning revisions should not allow the conversion of land designated for urban agriculture. The concept of “urban agriculture” should be formally included in local government regulations, and necessary planning and implementation processes should be carried out. The infrastructure for urban agriculture should be developed and communalized.

9. Landscaping practices should not prioritize aesthetics alone. Endemic species must be protected, ecological diversity should be enhanced in ways appropriate to the region, and drought-resistant landscaping methods that consume less water and do not harm the natural vegetation should be preferred. For example, instead of artificial lawns in parks, natural wild grass seeds should be used in urban landscaping.

10. Green roof systems (soil-covered roofs) should be widely promoted. Local administrations should collaborate with professional groups to provide the technical infrastructure and support necessary for these applications.

11. Waste landfills and solid waste collection sites should be located at safe distances from agricultural lands, wetlands, and residential areas, preferably at lower elevations.

12. To prevent land speculation, Democratic Building Cooperatives or Communes should be encouraged by local governments, and public oversight mechanisms should be established.

13. Housing needs in cities should be determined based on long-term projections, and local administrations should support social housing projects. A single standardized housing model leads to uniform rent and property prices. Diversifying housing models will also increase economic diversity.

14. As an alternative to the uncontrolled growth of the construction sector and its pressure on urban public spaces, awareness should be promoted that housing should be based on use value rather than exchange value.

15. Efficiency and conservation principles must guide planning, architectural design, and construction practices. Local and endemic materials should be used in building processes, and the use of asbestos-containing materials must be strictly prohibited.

16. In order to preserve existing natural resources, the boundaries of settlements should be determined not solely by legal regulations but by the needs and conditions of living ecosystems.

Agriculture refers to the integrated practice of plant production and animal husbandry, where these ecosystems nourish and sustain one another. Ecologically, they cannot be separated. Agriculture is also a culture of life. From the moment a seed meets the soil, the manner in which production is carried out, how social cooperation is organized, and how the product reaches people are all stages of agriculture.

Agriculture and food begin with the seed. Whoever controls the seed ultimately controls agriculture and food. Contrary to the hybrid or genetically modified seeds imposed on societies by capitalist modernity, seeds are dynamic living entities that continuously evolve and adapt.

Genetically modified (GMO) and hybrid seeds are produced in laboratories through research institutions and human intervention. Through this system, corporations establish dominance over soil, food, and society. From seed production to the final stage of food production, every step is removed from the control of farmers and placed under the control of corporations.

Women played a major role in the development of agriculture and in the process of social organization during the Neolithic period. The evolution of agriculture took place largely through women’s labor and knowledge. Women were the ones who carried seeds from one place to another, and today women continue to perform a large share of agricultural production. Despite this, women are largely excluded from decision-making processes in agricultural policy. Women must therefore play a decisive role in shaping and implementing agricultural policies.

Particularly in the geography of Northern Kurdistan, state policies—including dam construction, attacks on local economic resources, and the burning of villages and forests—have pursued a strategy of depopulation. Kurdish communities were forced to migrate to cities, creating a consumption-based society. Following forced displacement in the 1990s, agriculture and livestock practices that had historically been conducted in harmony with nature in Kurdistan were gradually dismantled.

The restriction of access to mountains and pastures, along with the mining of land, removed agricultural production from the hands of small producers. Livestock farming was transferred to “new investors.” The state used this process to open space for industrial agricultural models through capitalist corporations. Small farmers became unable to compete, went bankrupt, and were eventually forced to work as cheap labor within these companies.

Through corporate structures, a uniform agricultural and livestock system has been introduced that prioritizes the needs of the capitalist market rather than local communities and places emphasis on energy-intensive production.

As a result of village burnings and forced evacuations, approximately 2.4 million people were displaced, and countless animals perished. With these demographic shifts, patterns of land use and livestock production also changed, promoting monoculture agriculture and monoculture livestock systems. These models were supported through mechanisms such as bank loans and credit systems that effectively concentrated agricultural production in the hands of a limited number of actors.

Agriculture must instead be planned according to natural principles, and an ecological agricultural policy must be developed.

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Principles of Natural Agriculture

1. A drought map should be prepared across Kurdistan. Risk assessments should be developed based on soil, water, and climate conditions in agricultural lands. Areas suitable for agriculture must be identified through consultation with experts, and agricultural planning should follow seasonal ecological cycles.

2. Systems should be developed that enable communities to produce their own seeds and conduct seed improvement research. Seeds capable of withstanding drought and adapting to changing climates should be developed through collaboration between farmers and scientists. After seed improvement, systems should ensure that seeds can be reproduced from harvested crops and renewed approximately every four years.

3. Native seeds should be used in place of hybrid seeds throughout Kurdistan. A new seed policy and seed movement must be developed so that local seeds are both preserved and passed on to future generations.

4. Struggles should be carried out to prevent the use of genetically modified seeds.

5. Educational initiatives should be organized to promote ecological agriculture as an alternative to industrial agriculture. Training programs for communes and collectives in villages should be implemented and directly applied in practice.

6. Practice-oriented academies should be established to strengthen ecological agriculture education, and an Ecological Agriculture Curriculum should be developed.

7. Irrigation methods appropriate to soil and land conditions should be prioritized, and drip irrigation systems should be encouraged. Water used for agricultural activities within urban areas should be provided free of charge.

8. Agricultural and seed cooperatives should be established to ensure socially equitable and ecologically balanced production, processing, and distribution systems.

9. Subsistence farming in villages should be encouraged. Large-scale land use should be organized communally, and associations of small farmers should be formed.

10. Pasturelands and fertile agricultural lands must not be opened for construction. Public lands should be made available for cooperative agricultural use.

11. Programs encouraging return to villages should be actively implemented. Agricultural production restarted through these returns should be organized through cooperatives.

12. Intermediaries in the marketing of agricultural products should be eliminated. Market networks connecting village production with urban areas should be established, and farmers’ markets selling natural products should be created in every settlement.

13. A broad social agriculture movement should be developed. This movement should be organized through assemblies, cooperatives, and communes.

14. Strict measures must be taken against the uncontrolled use of underground well water.

15. Labor-intensive agricultural production should be encouraged instead of energy-intensive industrial farming models.

16. Livestock practices should be developed in accordance with local geography and biodiversity. Indigenous livestock breeds should be supported, and animal husbandry should develop within its natural ecological context rather than through industrial systems.

The growing need for and dependency on energy within the cycle of production and consumption is driving nature and ecosystems towards irreversible destruction. This process is fueled by the profit-driven ambitions of dominant capitalist powers, a lifestyle that imposes endless consumption, and the energy policies shaped accordingly.

The global capital developed by capitalist modernity regards control over the world’s energy resources as essential in order to continuously increase profits, expand financial growth, and open new markets. As resistance to this system has emerged, the market order has responded by intensifying policies of exploitation, war, plunder, and destruction. Behind the discourse of the “energy need” promoted by the capitalist market model lies a system that commodifies energy and imposes excessive consumption.

The continuous expansion of consumption beyond society’s real needs is a profit-oriented approach. Through policies related to energy, urbanization, transportation, agriculture, nutrition, and more, life is increasingly detached from nature. All local cycles, production systems, solidarity relations, and social structures are being dismantled, while living spaces are being re-colonized within the logic of the neoliberal market.

At the center of current energy policies (both for electricity and heating) are large-scale production plants financed and constructed by capital; uncontrolled national and international energy transmission lines and distribution systems managed by states and corporations; the continued exploitation of fossil fuels and traditional energy sources; and the increasing control of so-called “renewable” energy sources by large corporations.

Through energy extraction and production methods such as thermal power plants, hydroelectric dams, nuclear power plants, mining operations, and the extraction of oil and natural gas through conventional and new methods (such as shale gas), the current energy policy is imposed worldwide. As a result, ecosystems and biodiversity are being destroyed, and the global climate balance has changed rapidly over the past quarter century, reaching a dangerous stage.

Unless climate change is seriously halted, ecological and social destruction will reach far more dangerous levels, deepening economic and social conflicts.

As the Europe–Kurdistan Ecology Movement, we ask: Energy for whom? For what purpose? What kind of energy? Within this framework, we reject the model of life imposed by capitalist modernity and all forms of dirty energy policies. In building a free life based on democratic values, we aim to question existing energy policies and promote a holistic approach centered not on consumption but on conservation, prioritizing the fundamental needs of local communities and the protection and restoration of ecosystems.

On this basis, our primary goal is to research and develop clean, democratic energy production methods for local use and to implement them by socializing different forms of energy production.

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In This Context

1. Current global energy consumption far exceeds actual needs. Even renewable energy sources and more efficient technologies alone cannot solve the energy crisis. What is truly necessary is the reduction of energy and material consumption in industrialized countries. Access to energy must be recognized as a fundamental human right.
2. Every person should be able to access electricity and heating sufficient for their basic needs. Just as with access to water, ensuring this right should be among society’s primary goals.
3. Energy goals and policies must be determined through democratic participation of the people, led by youth and women both technically and theoretically, and the concept of energy must be approached holistically. There is an urgent need for a new ecological, social, and democratic energy concept. By comparing Kurdistan’s energy production and consumption data, energy production should meet the needs of local communities rather than capital, while ensuring social equality and ecological sustainability.
4. Decisions regarding energy policies should be made through self-governance. Wherever possible, each region should strive to meet its own electricity and heating needs. Local energy cycles should be created, and all forms of privatization and commercialization in energy production, distribution, and use should be prevented.
5. States have not pursued sincere and credible policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Socially conscious groups and local actors must develop action programs against climate change and take initiative within their own capabilities.
6. The shale gas projects planned in Kurdistan pose serious risks to our land, underground and surface water resources, agriculture (including its conversion into biofuel production), and nature. The struggle against shale gas must therefore be considered a strategic priority.
7. The neoliberal approach that treats all forms of energy production as a means of capital accumulation must be opposed. Resistance should also be organized against the establishment of large solar fields on agricultural land and pastures.
8. Dams in Kurdistan—which cause major ecological, social, and cultural destruction and are often constructed as “security instruments” under the guise of energy policy—must be opposed. These projects have caused some of the greatest ecological and social devastation in our geography.
9. Policies aimed at biofuel production on Kurdistan’s fertile agricultural lands and those that make agriculture dependent on energy systems must be resisted.
10. A clear definition of clean energy must be established, and energy policies that serve as profit mechanisms for global powers and corporations must be ended. The energy debate should not be reduced to a technological debate; the limits and social functions of technology must be clarified.
11. Every local community should develop its own energy policy. Local administrations should be supported in this process, and advisory work should be carried out.
12. In this regard, clean energy cooperatives should be developed as an alternative to marketization. Climate-friendly energy sources should be prioritized in Kurdistan, and our determination to utilize our own energy resources must be made public.
13. An energy policy based on the paradigm of self-governance should be developed—independent from the state, non-commercial in nature, and rejecting all forms of centralized planning beyond regulatory frameworks. Energy technologies must be disseminated across society, discussed, and developed; solutions focused on efficiency and conservation should be produced; and a service-oriented approach must prevail.
14. Clean energy systems should be implemented in the lighting of streets, avenues, and all public spaces.
15. Life must be prioritized over energy dependency and fossil fuels. In this context, we declare that we will resist from today against a future shaped by war and climate change in Kurdistan. Therefore, the most climate-friendly solution—energy efficiency and conservation—must be ensured to pave the way for energy liberation in the region.
16. Climate-friendly energy communes should be established. Energy must become practically applicable in ways that enable individuals, communities, and peoples to become self-sufficient. Workshops, technology-sharing initiatives, and the use of climate-friendly energy fuels should be promoted, and alternative energy techniques should be developed.

The aim of this policy is to develop an alternative approach that makes technology sensitive to ecological principles and promotes the diversification and socialization of both technological production and its use.

Capitalist modernity has monopolized the tools, instruments, and technologies that are the product of tens of thousands of years of collective social development. Through corporations and states, it has separated technology from society and transformed it into a commodity.

It must be clearly understood that industrialism and technology are not the same. What must be emphasized is that, in contrast to the monopolistic character of industrialism, technology is the product of humanity’s cumulative knowledge and capabilities.

Throughout history, societies have developed tools and technologies and have used them to sustain themselves—without establishing domination over nature, individuals, or other societies. However, the five-thousand-year-old system of domination, and its contemporary form represented by neoliberal market mechanisms, has transformed technology into both the justification and the instrument of domination over nature and society.

Capitalist modernity persistently attempts to detach technology from society and restrict communities’ access to it. Yet localized technology production is indispensable for present and future ecological societies—societies that are ethical, cultural, aesthetic, communal, and deeply connected with nature.

Due to the rising costs of fossil fuels and their environmental damage, individuals and communities have increasingly turned toward clean energy solutions. This transition must not be manipulated by global corporations; instead, it should be expanded through non-hierarchical and non-dominating methods.

The fundamental goal is to build ecological and communal community systems based on eco-technology. This stands in contrast to the rapid destruction of rural life and the promotion of metropolitan lifestyles characterized by energy-intensive systems of housing, agriculture, transportation, and heating.

This policy encourages discussion on the methods and pathways through which society can access human-scale technological tools in areas such as agriculture, urban development, recycling, clean energy, transportation, and more. Efforts must be initiated to realign technology with nature and make it widely accessible for self-sufficient eco-communities.

Within this framework, key questions include: How can communities in neighborhoods, villages, and cities produce and use clean energy systems? How can we develop systems that cause the least possible harm to nature? How can locally occurring natural gases be utilized through natural processes? Which tools and methods should guide agriculture and horticulture? And how can we effectively benefit from wind and solar energy?

This policy represents an approach aimed at building systems that encourage diversity and the development of multiple models—systems in which local communities act as active subjects and participate directly in processes of creation and innovation.

The word economy derives from the Ancient Greek term oikonomos, meaning “the law of the household.” For long periods of human history, communities organized production in solidarity according to collective needs and met their requirements through social consensus and justice. The accumulated experience that regulated the production and consumption activities of communities—seen as a large household—came to be known as economy.

In communally organized societies, women played a central role in economic life. From the earliest stages of infancy—when every new individual joins the community entirely dependent on it—women took initiative in planning and sustaining economic activities, ensuring that needs were met and individuals could grow into members of the community. Throughout much of human history, this women-centered economic perspective shaped societies. As a result, communities lived in harmony with one another and with other species as components of ecosystems, understanding that existence depended on coexistence rather than competition, and respecting life as a whole.

In these communal societies led by women, values such as solidarity, a culture of sharing and gifting, respect for collective labor, and democratic participation in decision-making were central. Nature was not perceived as a separate entity to be exploited as a commodity. Instead, knowledge gained through observing themselves and the natural world was used to meet social needs more effectively, leading to the domestication of plants and animals.

This development, which reduced the time needed for economic activities and facilitated everyday life, led—within a relatively short period in human history—to the emergence of state-based societies. The technical capacities achieved under women’s leadership were later instrumentalized by patriarchal systems of domination to strengthen power and deepen exploitation.

The exclusion of women from economic processes marked a profound deviation. A male-dominated system emerged that instrumentalized production tools and nature to maintain power. In this new system, where authority and power were glorified, economic processes were transformed into instruments of domination. Production and consumption were no longer organized to meet social needs but were instead shaped by the interests of those who held power and enforced through mechanisms of coercion.

The dominance established by statist civilization—and its most recent form, capitalist modernity—over society and economy has led to the exploitation of society and the plundering of nature. Capital-power monopolies have emptied the essence of the economy through industrialism, objectifying everything related to economic life and transforming it into subjects of profit, capital accumulation, exploitation, and extraction.

Over the past two centuries—and especially during the last sixty to seventy years—this system has produced profound ecological destruction and imbalance. Irreversible pollution of soil, air, and water; large-scale migration and displacement; widespread hunger, poverty, and unemployment; cultural and moral degradation; rising crime rates; and the growing prevalence of depression and suicide are all consequences of this system.

The destructive impacts of the capitalist economy—defined by the exploitation of humans, other living beings, and nature as commodities for individual gain—have reached an unsustainable stage for both ecosystems and human life. As natural resources approach depletion and climate change becomes increasingly evident, short-term solutions proposed to preserve the capitalist economy—while maintaining its exploitative foundations—are inadequate.

The capitalist economic model, built on individual interests, erodes fundamental human values such as solidarity, equality, and justice in social life while producing destructive ecological consequences that are difficult or impossible to reverse. Without transforming this economic system—constructed around the interests of capital—preventing the ongoing destruction of society and ecosystems is impossible.

An economy based not on individual interests but on the fundamental needs of communities can only emerge through a communal economy, in which communities democratically determine their own needs, decide how these needs can be met through production compatible with ecosystems, and establish fair principles governing consumption. Communal economy represents a social way of life grounded in solidarity rather than individual gain. The economic model capable of restoring lost social values and reestablishing harmony with ecosystems is the communal economic model.

Within Kurdistan, the nation-state system has pursued an economic dimension of war that has driven communities away from rural production. Through dam construction, the destruction of local economic resources, the burning of villages and forests, and forced displacement, Kurdish communities have been pushed toward cities and into consumption-based social structures. During this process, the system opened space for monopolistic industrial models through capitalist corporations. Small-scale enterprises became unable to compete, leading to widespread bankruptcies and forcing many people into exploitative labor systems as cheap workers.

These forms of economic destruction can only be resisted through principles that strengthen and communalize local economies and solidarity-based economic relations among communities.

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Principles of Eco-Economy

1. The value of labor must be measured by its contribution to meeting social needs and its impact on ecosystems. Labor must not be commodified or exploited through wage-based systems.

2. The view that natural wealth and means of production are private property—whether owned by the state or individuals—is a root cause of ecological and social destruction. Property-based ownership must therefore be abandoned.

3. Markets dominated by power monopolies must be replaced by spaces where communities share surplus products and cultural values, enabling exchange based on harmony, cooperation, and collective consensus.

4. Money must cease to function as an instrument of exploitation and instead serve as a tool that facilitates social life.

5. Technology must be liberated from the control of power monopolies and developed and used in ways that serve the needs of ecosystems and communities.

6. Industry must be reorganized away from power-centered monopolies that commodify labor and nature, promote excessive and luxury consumption, and erode the human essence of social life through unemployment and functional dispossession. Instead, industry should be reconstructed by ecological communal communities in accordance with social needs.

7. Trade should be organized on the basis of solidarity and sharing, minimizing the distance between production and consumption while prioritizing social benefit, ecological harmony, and efficiency.

8. Core areas of the economy—such as finance, fiscal systems, budgets, and capital—must be removed from the control of individual interests and power structures. Instead, they should operate under the self-governance of communities and be used to build a non-profit, socially beneficial, and ecologically compatible economy.