Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Box 11.5
A story of leadership, hope and achievement: Gaviotas
In 1966, Colombian activist Paulo Lugari and a group of scientists, artists, agronomists
and engineers took a fifteen-hour journey along a tortuous route from Bogotá to the
Llanos Orientales (eastern plains) bordering Venezuela. They wanted to immerse
themselves in the ecosystem and develop alternative technologies that could meet
the basic needs of any community. They chose Gaviotas, where the soil is 'like a
desert', where employment prospects were poor and where a high level of violence
existed.
Soon the Gaviotas pioneers were planting trees and digging gardens to grow food
for their day-to-day needs. The soils of the river banks were too poor for vegetables,
so they grew tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and eggplants in containers made out
of rice husks, washed by a manure tea. By the late 1970s, they had created a square
kilometre of hydroponic greenhouses and set up co-operatives to sell and exchange
produce with villages in the region.
By 2003, many of the indigenous GuahÃbo people and rural peasants living in
Gaviotas were riding to work on Gaviotas-designed savannah bicycles. The settlement
has a decent school and a solar and wind-powered hospital, where patients enjoy
the aesthetic pleasure of shrubs and benefit from the 250 species of tropical medicinal
plants cultivated in its greenhouses. In the wards, indigenous hammocks alternate
with traditional hospital beds.
The electricity needed to run Gaviotas comes mainly from the winds of the savannah.
Around fifty-eight types of windmill were tried and tested before the pioneers came
up with one that functioned best in the plains. That is how the gigantic 'sunflowers',
so characteristic of Gaviotas, came into being. Originally manufactured at Gaviotas,
there are now thousands throughout Central and South America as their creators
are determined not to patent their invention.
Around 8,000 hectares of forest were planted, in ever-increasing circles. As the
pine forest grew, it provided shade for other seeds dropped by birds. The rainforest
started to return - as did its creatures - deer, anteaters, capybaras and eagles. The
resin harvested from the trees made eco-friendly turpentine, replacing imported
petroleum-based products. And the pollution-free factory built to refine the resin won
Gaviotas the 1997 United Nations World Zero Emissions Award.
Source: adapted from Pilar and Marin (2003).
hope of achieving a fulfilling, equitable and sustainable existence. The leadership
task within sustainable development processes should therefore be clearly apparent,
but how is it to be done?
Summary
The final chapter explores the concept and practice of leadership for sustainability.
Much of the academic and professionally orientated work on leadership seems to
have its roots in either the experience of business, the military, and to a lesser extent
politics and government. This is reflected in the ideas and the writers discussed here,
