Gaviotas

Gaviotas ( for gulls Spanish) is an eco-estate in the eastern savanna of Colombia ( District Vichada ). It was founded in 1971 by Paolo Lugari, the engineers and scientists brought there to explore how one might live sustainably in one of the most inhospitable areas of South America. Today there live about 200 people.

Technology

Over the years, the community has produced several inventions, including a seesaw that drives a water pump, and a striking pinwheel design of a sunflower, which is well adapted to the plains of Colombia. Lugari emphasizes that you can not import from the temperate climates social experimentation easy. In Gaviotas has made ​​it their goal to always look for such solutions that solve the problems in the local community.

Since existing solutions can be adapted only costly often the inventions of Gaviotas often consist of amendments to existing means of production through which things can be produced inexpensively that would otherwise be unaffordable. One of the most common developments from Gaviotas is a water pump that taps aquifers that are six times deeper than normal, and with less effort. Other pumps in the region rose and fell a piston in the pump, while the engineers in Gaviotas a pump created, which instead can rest the piston and it moves a PVC jacket around him.

As the leading solar panel manufacturers the cost and complex production of high-performance solar collectors explained that would capture enough solar heat in the often -covered area, the engineers at Gaviotas build their own panels for water heating from simple building materials that were better adapted to the specific needs of the area. The eco-estate also produces some building materials themselves, including a unique brick out of the ground in the region.

It is believed that the savannah in pre-Columbian times some of the Amazon rainforest was that the rain forest boundary but increasingly shifted over the centuries. The eco-estate Gaviotas is known that they planted more than a half million trees in the area. This was originally to see what would grow there at all on the leached soil of the Llanos. They have now become a stand-out feature of the local grasslands. Under the forming canopy settled because of the tropical climate again rainforest plants, which were formerly home there. The resin is harvested from these trees is now a sustainable source of income for Gaviotas.

The settlement provides is largely self to some seasons is needed diesel fuel. Work is in progress to produce biodiesel and marketable.

History

The pragmatic approach differs Gaviotas by many philosophies and ideologies. Initially, the project was funded by the United Nations financially, as well as groups who were environmentally friendly solutions for the growth of the population in the Third World. When they ended their promotion in the 1990s, the residents have had to look elsewhere for an income. They realized that the great pine forest is a tremendously sustainable source of resin and the many products produced therefrom such as turpentine, rosin and musical instruments.

The conversion of the Llanos brings residents a thriving life, but this is not an example of the application of a low-tech approach. Gaviotas is largely apolitical. This strategy has allowed the settlement makes it possible to thrive in the neighborhood of Kokapflanzern, paramilitary groups, military and guerrilla fighters. Also to many eco- anarchist groups, there is a distance, because it initially was a close bond to the UN and the Colombian government.