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Alan Weisman

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Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World, 2nd Edition Paperback – Illustrated, Sept. 3 2008

by Alan Weisman (Author)

4.6 114 ratings

4.2 on Goodreads

771 ratings

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Los Llanos—the rain-leached, eastern savannas of war-ravaged Colombia—are among the most brutal environments on Earth and an unlikely setting for one of the most hopeful environmental stories ever told.

Here, in the late 1960s, a young Colombian development worker named Paolo Lugari wondered if the nearly uninhabited, infertile llanos could be made livable for his country’s growing population. He had no idea that nearly four decades later, his experiment would be one of the world’s most celebrated examples of sustainable living: a permanent village called Gaviotas.

In the absence of infrastructure, the first Gaviotans invented wind turbines to convert mild breezes into energy, hand pumps capable of tapping deep sources of water, and solar collectors efficient enough to heat and even sterilize drinking water under perennially cloudy llano skies. Over time, the Gaviotans’ experimentation has even restored an ecosystem: in the shelter of two million Caribbean pines planted as a source of renewable commercial resin, a primordial rain forest that once covered the llanos is unexpectedly reestablishing itself.

Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez has called Paolo Lugari “Inventor of the World.” Lugari himself has said that Gaviotas is not a utopia: “Utopia literally means ‘no place.’ We call Gaviotas a topia, because it’s real.”

Relive their story with this special 10th-anniversary edition of Gaviotas, complete with a new afterword by the author describing how Gaviotas has survived and progressed over the past decade.

Product description

Review

"...a book telling a tale too lovely for fiction, a lyrical, well-observed book that reports from the llanos of eastern Colombia, savannas tortured by guns and cows and cocaine, of an experiment in solar democracy in which 'appropriate technology' is anything but a sad product on the discount tables of broken, post-sixties idealism."--Tom Athanasiou, The Nation (This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title)

Review

Library Journal-
In the early 1970s, a unique community was founded in the los llanos region of Colombia. Located north of the Amazon rain forest, this region is an expansive savannah, sparsely populated and generally considered uninhabitable. Gaviotas originated out of the belief that the current state of urban expansion and poverty and the continued depletion of natural nonrenewable resources could not be sustained and that the future required people to learn how to live in harsh, inhospitable environments and to do so in an ecologically sound and sustainable manner. Journalist Weisman tells the story of a remarkable and diverse group of individuals (engineers, biologists, botanists, agriculturists, sociologists, musicians, artists, doctors, teachers, and students) who helped the village evolve into a very real, socially viable, and self-sufficient community for the future. The people of Gaviotas today produce innovative technologies (solar collectors, irrigation systems, windmills, and hydroponic gardens) that use the environment without depleting or destroying it. While some of their creative endeavors have not succeeded, even the failures tend to spawn ideas for future successes. Weisman does a fine job of detailing Gaviotas's evolution and placing it within the larger global historical context. The story he presents is wonderful testament to human creativity, commitment, and effort toward building a socially viable and environmentally sustainable future. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

-- Karen Collamore Sullivan

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Chelsea Green Publishing; 10th Anniversary edition (Sept. 3 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1603580565
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1603580564
Item weight ‏ : ‎ 413 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.24 x 2.54 x 22.86 cm

Best Sellers Rank: #1,176,267 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #21 in Ecology of Rain Forests
- #47 in Forest Ecosystems
- #94 in Colombian History

Customer Reviews:
4.6 114 ratings

About the author

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Alan Weisman

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Author of the critically acclaimed New

York Times best seller The World

Without Us, Alan Weisman is an

award-winning journalist whose reports

have appeared in HarperÄôs, the New

York Times Magazine, Atlantic Monthly,

Discover, and Orion, among others,

and on National Public Radio. A former

contributing editor to the Los Angeles

Times Magazine, he is a senior radio

producer for Homelands Productions

and teaches international journalism at

the University of Arizona. He lives in

western Massachusetts.

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"kalisti23"
An Incredible Book
Reviewed in Canada on September 10, 2001
This is truly one of the most inspirational books I have ever read, for a couple of reasons. For the most part, utopian ideals such as this are very hard to envision as a real solution, because they tend to be made up of people who for whatever reasons are willing to give up the creature comforts and bring their standard of living down a few notches. Whether or not their new style of living is actually better, and more enriching is not the issue in my mind, what is the issue is that the vast majority of those in the first world would under no circumstances give up those luxuries.
But Gaviotas is a colony founded not by communalists or hippies, but by pragmatic engineers, who enjoy many creature comforts. They do not attempt to drastically change the social structure into something entirely non-hierarchical; instead, one gets the impression this is a group of very intelligent people, who realized they were destroying the planet they lived on with their lifestyles, and so keep it on a 'selfish' level, rather than introducing an ideological debate. This is terribly important, in my mind, to creating a new world in which we can live sustainably.
This book is well written, full of intriguing concepts which will send you out looking for more information about photovoltaic systems and how exactly pumps work, and most of all, full of more hope than anything I have read in... well, forever.
After all, if this can work in the middle of a virtual desert, in -Columbia- of all places, than it should be able to work anywhere.
I recently bought fifty copies of this book, and I give them to almost everyone I meet. I'm not a zealot by nature, but this book is so very important, I would urge every single person who is considering buying it to do so, and to tell fifty friends as soon as you've read it.

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Jason N. Mical
A Book to Reinvent Our Goals
Reviewed in Canada on September 15, 2001
Alan Weisman, a journalist hired by NPR to investigate solutions for environmental crises, spent years collecting information in a tiny, remote village at the eastern edge of the war-torn country of Colombia. That village was Gaviotas; this book is his result.
I read this book on a recommendation from Daniel Quinn, author of "The Story of B" and "Beyond Civilization." Quinn's entire philosophy rests on two ideas: living in a sustainable manner, and allowing the reader to come up with their own solutions for doing so. Gaviotas is a community where people did just that - through ingenuity, creativity, and hard work, the residents of this planned village created a place where water is pulled from the ground using pumps attached to children's see-saws, heat is provided by the sun, and electricity by the wind.
It's a progressive's dream come true, and an experiment that has succeeded in all possible ways. This book lays out the history of Gaviotas and its unique founder, Paolo Lugari, and places it within the context of the ongoing struggles in Colombia. In the wake of the World Trade Center attack, I decided to re-read Gaviotas to remind myself that not only is there hope for humanity as a whole, but hope that individuals will begin to take responsibility to begin freeing ourselves from the confining forces of our self-imposed prisons called "civilization," but still manage to retain the good things, too.
Every person on earth should read and re-read this book. If you haven't, buy it now or start hoofing it to the library.

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R. Griffiths
South American Shangri-La
Reviewed in Canada on July 28, 2000
Do you believe in Utopia? Throughout history people have looked for the ideal community, a place where problems are solved, not created, where a dream of peace and harmony can be fulfilled. In the words of the high llama of Shangri-La, in Capra's classic film, Lost Horizon: 'the world must begin to look for a new life and it is our hope that they may find it here. For here we shall be with their books and their music and a way of life based on one simple rule: Be kind. When that day comes, it is our hope that the brotherly love of Shangri-La will spread throughout the world.' Alan Weisman writes his account of the Columbian settlement of Gavoitas firmly in the tradition of utopian literature: he has found his Shangri-La and it is not only a utopia but an eco-topia too. I found the story he has to tell immensely inspiring from an environmental point of view, especially his description of the way in which the Gaviotans have managed to reforest the pampas. However, I also found that the way he tells the story detracts from some of its potential power. At one point, he mistakenly claims that 'utopia' is the Greek for 'no place'and that therefore Gaviotas cannot be a utopia because it exists. In fact 'utopia' is Greek for 'good place', which would admirably describe Gaviotas, I would have thought. The problem with utopian writing is that it often leaves the reader doubting the reality of the place described. Can Shangri-La really be found? Can Gaviotas really exist, magically protected as it is from the twin ravages of marxist gorillas and cocaine barons? In promoting the positive aspects of the Gaviotan experiment, Weisman downplays any negative aspects that must surely exist. I would have liked to have read an account that presented the settlement 'warts and all', rather than this rather one-sided eulogy. Sure, Gaviotas may well be a utopia, a 'good place', and so many of its discoveries could well change the world, but please, Mr Weisman, let the reader decide.

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Annemarie B.
Gemeinschaft
Reviewed in Germany on June 23, 2023
Verified Purchase
Ein Modell der Zukunft? Wunderschön!

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HB Shopper
Good read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 9, 2016
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Purchased for a friend who loved it.

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Emmanuel Baeten
Une merveilleuse aventure, porteuse d'espoir
Reviewed in France on March 12, 2014
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J'ai trouvé ce livre très passionnant et bien écrit. L'auteur retrace une vingtaine d'année de recherches en science appliquée et en expérimentation sociale. Le projet est toujours actuel, les menaces sans cesse renouvelée, les réponses que les habitants de Las Gaviotas y apportent toujours innovants: pragmatiques et durables.
Le livre reste donc très actuel !

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Kindle Customer
Utopia? No. Topia? Yes.
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2000
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In 1966, when he was 22, Paolo Lugari and his brother drove over barely passable roads to a desolate area 200 miles east of Bogota, Columbia. The llanos area is a poor-soil barren that grows only a few nutrient-deficient grasses, a vast expanse of sun-baked plains in spite of over 100 inches of rain per year. A place of deadly water and hungry mosquitos. Conditions were so daunting that the Columbian government abandoned an attempt to build a road through the area. Lugari saw an opportunity to create something very special. And he did it. Today Gaviotas is a thriving, sustainable community of hundreds of joyous people studying, inventing, producing, singing and dancing amidst a huge forest that they planted. Residents from all walks of life have designed and built, planted and harvested, birthed, nurtured, taught, and entertained. There are teeter-totters that operate super-efficient pumps to bring water to the school, solar heat to cook meals, solar kettles to sterilize drinking water, ultra-light windmills to provide power. The hospital has been designated one of the 40 most important buildings in the world. Some have called Gaviotas a utopia. Lugari insists that, "Utopia literally means no place. We call Gaviotas a topia because it's real." Gaviotas the village is surprising, uplifting, extraordinary. Gaviotas the nonfiction book is as compelling as a novel, as educational as a textbook, as inspirational as the biography of a great person. If you need to rise early, do not take this book to bed with you.

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Zachrey Helmberger
A book filled with hope
Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 1998
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When Jessie Jackson refrains, "Keep hope alive! Keep hope alive!" we were with him, but I, for one, was left wondering where this hope was. Alan Weisman's "Gaviotas", a chronicle of the Colombian village Gaviotas, is the real McCoy in black and white. Over and over again, "Gaviotas" details the hope-filling victories towards a smarter, more harmonious way of living with simple, clever, appropriate technology leading the way.
"Gaviotas" talks about the power of creative thought sharply focussed on simple, appropriate technology for totally ignored boonies of the Colombia's tropical plains. It talks about the creation of an extremely dedicated community out of an infertile, barren plains in the middle of war-torn Colombia. It talks about the seemingly miraculous transformation of grassland into rainforest and the tireless dedication of it's creators. It talks about the power of community, networking and partnerships with universities.
I was, however, disappointed by the relative lack of contact people, organizations, and publishings for people interested in creating their own community. The story of the Gaviotas community is so inspiring it deserves a newsgroup of its own on the internet!
Being an engineer by trade, I was left brimming with questions. How did they come up with the process for ultra-black copper sheeting? Where can I get the six films about Gaviotas made by Pepe Gomez? How can a roof focus and reflect heat away from a building? Can a Gaviotas be created here in the U.S. or is life too easy here?
"Gaviotas" is beautifully written; a real turner. I had to tear myself away from it each night so I could get to work on time in the morning and had dreams of creating my own Gaviotas in the U.S.

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