EcoVillage at Ithaca is a cohousing community located on 175 acres two miles west of Ithaca, New York. The one hundred dwellings and associated infrastructure are clustered in three neighborhoods on 30 acres in the center of the land, leaving 145 acres of open space on the periphery. About 50 acres that are heavily wooded and 40 that are shrubby have been set aside for wildlife and recreational use. Three small farms occupy  25 acres, with 30 more acres reserved for future agricultural ​projects.

Some of the reserved land was so overgrown with honeysuckle, multiflora rose, and autumn olive that a forest chipper was brought in last fall to transform it from this​:

to a field of stubble, like this:

Mark Shepard visited in October to do the preliminary planning for a comprehensive water management system for the property, a portion of which will be installed during the workshop. After the terraces, swales, and berms are constructed on the area that was forest chipped, several thousand trees will be planted using a tree planter like the one​ pictured below.

The main planting will be of butternuts, chestnuts, and hazelnuts along the contours. But there will also be an experimental planting of trees and shrubs to form a living fence.

With adequate moisture this summer, our plantings may look as promising at the end of this summer as the trees planted last year in April at Back the Lane farm in Stephentown, NY did just four months later.

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While homesteading in Alaska, Mark Shepard received his Permaculture Design Certificate through a correspondence course with Bill Mollison, the founder of the international Permaculture movement, and started developing his ideas for restoration agriculture.

 ​​Then he moved with his family to southwest Wisconsin, where he began converting a typical row-crops grain farm into a commercial-scale, perennial agricultural ecosystem using oak savanna, successional brushland, and eastern woodlands as the ecological models. His New Forest Farm is considered by many to be one of the most ambitious sustainable agriculture projects in the United States.

After spending over two decades developing his 106-acre New Forest Farm, Mark now crisscrosses the country and travels the globe helping others to design their own perennial woody-crop systems. As a grower for Organic Valley cooperative since the beginning, he is a big advocate of locally owned cooperative enterprises. His first book, Restoration Agriculture, offers an introduction to his approach, while his second book, now in preparation, focuses on water management. Weekly in-depth training featuring his work at sites around the world is available through the Ecolonomic Action Team.

Mark founded Forest Agriculture Enterprises to grow and distribute genetically superior woody crop seedlings throughout the country. He offers his consulting services through Restoration Agriculture Development.