The intentional community, Sundog's early successes and growing pains informed a theme that began to develop in Penelope’ Baquero's mind, a concept of a new kind of human being: not Homo sapiens, but Ecosapiens. "How painful it is!" says Baquero. "Imagine a tree growing out of your body. That is painful. And to see yourself as dependent on the Earth, that is difficult, because we're always making decisions that are not Eco sapien." "Nature goes beyond judgment of human action," says Baquero, But we need the Earth. That may be the first lesson of becoming Eco sapiens”.

The prefix eco- is derived from the Greek oikos, or house. Lately it has come to mean "green" or "environmentally friendly" and refers generally to the ecology of our planet, our home. So this new race isn't based on thinking (sapiens) about itself (homo) but about its environment, its home and the planet Earth.

The term was popularized by David Haenke, coordinator of the North American Bioregional Congress and one of the founders of a growing ecological movement that attempts to explore humanity's place in the ecology of the planet rather than consider "the environment" as something external to civilization.

Haenke's predictions for Eco sapiens go beyond a shift of ideals, according to Baquero. She recalls his description of scientific advances that include human uses of chlorophyll to gather energy from the sun, like plants, and the image struck her quite literally.