Las Gaviotas: An Eco-Village to Reinvent the World
Please join us for a discussion with: Paolo Lugari, visionary activist.
Las Gaviotas, founded by Paolo Lugari, is an eco-village with a twenty-three year track record of rainforest regeneration, developing more sustainable lives for the inhabitants of the Vichada region of Colombia.
In 1965, when Colombian activist Paulo Lugari was flying over the impoverished region, he mused that if people could live here they could live anywhere. The following year Lugari and a group of scientists, artists, agronomists and engineers took the 15-hour journey along a tortuous route from Bogotá to the Llanos Orientales (eastern plains) bordering Venezuela.
Today, their venture has grown to a village of 200 families that generates its own energy from renewable sources and grows its own food. Inventions from Gaviotas designers—including windmills, high efficiency pumps and solar kettles—are not patented and have spread quickly to villages across the country.
The pine forest they planted for income in the 80’s has become a nursery to over 200 native rainforest species and the community now sells voluntary carbon offsets.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Lecture 4:00 p.m.
Reception 5:00 p.m.
115 MacMillan Hall
Brown University
167 Thayer Street
Providence, RI