Gravitas at Gaviotas

In the mid-60s, a man named Paolo Lugari walked across the baron planes of the East Andes.  It was here, in the los llanos of Colombia, where Paolo expressed his vision of a sustainable community to a team of scientists, agronomists , engineers, and doctors.  

"They always put social experiments in the easiest, most fertile places. We wanted the hardest place. We figured if we could do it here, we could do it anywhere," Lugari said.

What Lugari set forth is now considered one of the most innovative and sustainable communities in the world, Gaviotas.

Gaviotas is at the center stage of the sustainability movement because of the revolutionary technological work the engineers have done.

Windmill Power that Works

After seeing the need for a mechanical device to pump water from the subterranean lakes below the ground to the dry landscape where Gaviotas is located, engineers went through a staggering 58 models of windmills to power the pumps to bring clean water up to the community before settling with a light-weight, efficient model.

"Civilization has been a permanent dialogue between human beings and water," Lugari said.

Thousands of these windmill-powered pumps have been installed around Colombia; with some even being called Gaviotas in the surrounding communities.

Revolutionary Inventions

Along with the windmills, Gaviotas has made groundbreaking strides in inventions.
 

The village has turned to the fermentation of their livestock's dung for the powering of their hospital.

Their cattle dung is placed in fermentation tanks that turn cow-pies into
methane power. This power is used to keep Gaviotas' 16-bed hospital powered. A Japanese architectural journal has named Gaviotas' hospital one of the 40 most important buildings in the world. 

Another crucial element that Gaviotas has implemented is their water dispersion program.  All water that is brought forth through their ingenious pumps is clean and safe to drink.  The community has used their ingenuity to come up with water-bottles that lock together much like Legos.  These water bottles link up and make for better stacking and reduce the waste of space.  They work so well that the community is filling the used bottles with dirt and are using them as actual building blocks

Forestation of los llanos

The soil that surrounds Gaviotas is extremely acidic and harsh on all plant life.  The community searched for a plant that could help their sustainability efforts, and they found it in tropical pine seedlings from Honduras.

These pine trees have sheltered indigenous plants from the harsh aspects of soil and is allowing them to flourish.

"Elsewhere they're tearing down the rain forest," Lugari says. "In los llanos, we're putting it back."

Gaviotas is continuing its pursuit to be an inspiration to other third-world communities and their effort to be self-sufficient and sustainable.  Something One Tribe Creative sees as one of the most important issues facing the world today