In Article 2 of its Social Contract, the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria declares that it is "based on a democratic and ecological system and on the freedom of women". In Article 57, democracy is the "way of achieving the balance between economics and ecology". Giving such importance to ecology in a direct democracy based on self-reliance and federalism is not surprising when its promoters take their reference from Murray Bookchin, founder of social ecology and libertarian municipalism, and to Abdullah Öcalan, inspiration behind the design of its democratic confederalism. What about the ecology in Syrian North-Rojava? International volunteers gathered in an assembly called the Internationalist Commune of Rojava, with the support of the Federation, lead the Make Rojava green again campaign. An inventory of the environment in Northern Syria, making proposals and explaining the actions undertaken, with a foreword by Debbie Bookchin and design by Matt Bonner was first published in english in 2018. Find out more below, and from the original French version, "Reverdir le Rojava", published by Another Future.
The Internationalist Commune, which was founded in 2017 in order to integrate foreign militants joining Rojava, is an exemplary eco-village and a model for agricultural solidarity. In this vein, it also strives to be an “academy” destined to train internationalists and the population of Rojava to “be conscious about and concerned with the environment”. It sees itself as a laboratory for the “construction of an ecological society”. Given the contemporary lack of an “environmental consciousness shared by the whole population”, the Commune launches a campaign supported by the Democratic Federation of Northern and Eastern Syria and described in the pamphlet “Make Rojava Green Again”.
