Staci Sylvan bio

Staci Sylvan, a birth doula, lives in Heartwood, set up on the principle of non-violent cooperation. Heartwood is in Carmarthenshire, a region of Wales that’s historically attracted Britons keen to live alternative lifestyles, but where feelings can run high about English incomers. Sylvan welcomes a recent flurry of interest from younger would-be communards, many of whom, she says, have arrived at alternative living through Extinction Rebellion and climate camps. “I came to communalism through protest groups in the 1990s. When I first joined Heartwood I was in my 20s and would thrash about trying to change things in the commune. Now I accept all the compromises that this kind of living requires.”