Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World

by Alan Weisman, 1998. Chelsea Green Publishing, Inc., White River Junction, Vermont. Hardcover, 230 pages, $22.95.

Gaviotas is a community in Colombia that exhibits, in many respects, what sustainability might look like. Over the past 30 years, a team led by visionary engineers and artists has developed and implemented appropriate technologies and lifestyles, turning a previously barren landscape into a thriving and largely self-sufficient economy/ecosystem. Journalist Alan Weisman has been telling the Gaviotas story for several years now—on National Public Radio, in

The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and now in this compelling book.

Weisman credits home-schooled visionary Paolo Lugari with founding Gaviotas and inspiring its evolution. Touring the harsh savannas of eastern Colombia, Lugari saw an opportunity to demonstrate the potential of appropriate technology and effective social structures. As Weisman presents it, the results are nothing short of remarkable.

Weisman does not go into detail about the architecture, except to describe the combination of ancient and modern technologies that keeps the buildings comfortable in this equatorial climate. Some of the technologies developed at Gaviotas are now seeing widespread use in Colombia, such as solar-thermal collectors that heat water effectively in conditions with little direct sunlight. Engineers at Gaviotas also refined wind turbines for the less-than-ideal wind conditions and developed water pumps powered by pedals and children on seesaws.

Perhaps most remarkable is the unexpected revival of the rainforest in this land that has been barren for centuries. The Gaviotans planted Caribbean pine—one of the few species that could survive in the acidic and depleted soil—in the hopes of selling the pine resin for income. The resin crop has been successful, but even more valuable is the fact that under the pines many species of long-dormant rainforest trees gradually sprouted, to the point where the pine plantations are now seen as a transition to a diverse forest. In this way, the Gaviotans are literally reversing the deforestation taking place elsewhere in South America.

The Gaviotas story is indeed remarkable, and Weisman tells the story well. If we have a complaint about the book, it’s that Weisman’s excellent journalistic voice is less effective in this longer format. He doesn’t shy away from mentioning failures as well as successes, yet his enthusiastic descriptions leave one with a sense that there is another side to events that remains untold. This minor complaint aside, anyone who is seeking models of sustainable human community should read this book.