| “Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World” by Alan Weisman, 1998. ISBN 189013228-4 Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 231 pp., $16.95 In the apparently endless flow of bad environmental developments it’s easy to begin feeling a little hopeless about the prospects for humanity’s future. In the early 1970’s a creative gaggle of visionaries and technicians headed out to do something of promise to humanity. They went out onto the rolling savannas of the eastern wilderness of Columbia’s llanos to create a sustainable community in one of the harshest settings on the planet. Practically treeless and cursed with an acidic soil leeched of nutrients the llanos was a challenge wrapped in numerous problems. The only regular residents of this vast area were small nomadic groups of Guahibo Indians and scattered ranching operations both of whom struggled to survive season to season. Into this emptiness came a small army of technocratic tinkerers and experimenters. Chief among this group of high-tech handymen was Paolo Lugari who found in the emptiness of the llanos a lure he couldn’t ignore. In addition to a nimble mind and ramped up imagination, Lugari was also blessed with an ability to convince, charm and cajole everyone from Bogota street orphans and bright-eyed university graduate students to presidents and politicians and even the United Nations to come to the slowly developing village of promise – Gaviotas. Despite a sea of poverty, corruption, right wing death squads, narco trafficking revolutionaries and endless civil war, Gaviotas has become an island of peace and prosperity. Gaviotans have developed highly efficient solar powered water heaters, cookstoves and even a refrigeration system. After three decades of tinkering they have found ways to coax electricity from the faintest of breezes and the most anemic of mid-summer streams. They built a passive solar hospital that has been cited as one of the most important buildings in the world. And on a continent of rainforest destruction, they are succeeding in bringing back forestland. More importantly, they have created a place where people matter and a workable sustainable balance with the surrounding landscape has been achieved. It is a place where there is a need for every member, from the illiterate Indian creating adobe bricks to the Ph.D. engineer re-tooling a solar collector system. While we in America could certainly benefit from such an approach, Gaviotas is decidedly oriented to the impoverished Third World. Most of their inventions are unpatented and free to the world. Teams of Gaviotas workers and technicians have traveled throughout Columbia and the world helping countless small villages become both independent and healthier. While some have been tempted to call such a place utopia, founder Lugari is quick to diagree. “Gaviotas isn’t a utopia,” Lugari notes. “”Utopia literally means ‘no place’. In Greek, the prefix ‘u’ signifies no. We call Gaviotas a topia, because it’s real. We’ve moved from fantasy to reality. From utopia to topia. Someday you need to come see it.” If, as it might well seem, Gaviotas is a “village to reinvent the world” a good place to begin is with this wonderful little book. You can also learn more about Gaviotas by contacting: www.friendsofgaviotas.org |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
