In the words of Paolo Lugari, founder of Las Gaviotas:
At Las Gaviotas we believe in the following:
Appropriate technology has to be technology that is technically, financially, socially, environmentally, and culturally acceptable; it must fit the conditions of the various regions of the world like a tailored suit.
For the developing countries, which are located in the tropical belt of the planet - which in turn coincides with the poverty belt of the planet, as is the case of Colombia - technology must be guided by the following parameters:
- It must require low capital investment
- It must be labor intensive and serve as a counter-measure to unemployment
- The price of the products must be adjusted to the low per capita income of the population. (This condition would not apply to export products or products manufactured for the wealthier sectors.)
- The contamination generated must be low to maintain a balance in the revenue-cost ratio of production with respect to the environment.
- [Appropriate technology] must generate (or lead to the development of) long-term and continuous research, because the creative imagination of humans defines - at every step of history - what is a resource, and what ceases to be one.
The redistribution of knowledge could be as important as the redistribution of wealth.
Science continuously offers us knowledge. Technology helps us to produce well-being and wealth. Science becomes marginalized and non-productive without technology, and technology would die without science for lack of sustenance.
Any appropriate technology that fails to combat poverty can never be called "appropriate." Science without conscience is a blow to the soul.
Let's be protagonists of the future rather than simple spectators.
- Paolo Lugari
(Translated by Karin Stein from C.A. Torres Acevedo, editor-in-chief. Los Llanos de Colombia, Litografía Arco, 1986, Bogotá, Colombia. ISBN 958-9045-29-4)
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Paolo Lugari Castrillón
Founder of Las Gaviotas
Photo credit:
The Sustainable Village, 2003 (http://www.thesustainablevillage.com) |
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Below are some of the philosophical principles followed by Paolo Lugari and fellow Gaviotans, which we hope will be thought-provoking to our readers and generate good class discussions.
- Gaviotas never committed to publicize its achievements. On the
contrary, Paolo Lugari refuses to be considered a model for the
world, and claims that he has the right to be wrong and correct
himself as he learns new things every day. (1)
- We always put social experiments in the easiest, most fertile places. We wanted the hardest place. If we could do it there, we could do it anywhere. (Paolo Lugari) (2)
- The only deserts are deserts of the imagination. (Paolo Lugari) (3)
- All our development models have been created in countries with four seasons, with totally different conditions from tropical countries. When we import solutions from northern countries, not only don't we solve our problems, but we import theirs. (Paolo Lugari) (4)
- There is no such thing as sustainable technology or economic development without sustainable human development to match. (Paolo Lugari) (6)
- There is no such thing as failure here. Every obstacle is really an opportunity in disguise. (Paolo Lugari) (7)
- No one demands anything of anybody except to get along with each other and work hard, in cooperation. We do this simply because we love to. In Gaviotas, we're driven by something different than competition or pecking orders. We're content here. (Jorge Zapp, formerly an engineer at Las Gaviotas). (8)
- ...from the beginning, Gaviotans had refused to patent their inventions, preferring to share them freely. (9)
- There is nothing more unstable than clinging to stability. (Paolo Lugari) (10)
Quote (1):
http://www.scizerinm.org/lasgaviotasupdate.html
Quotes (2), (3), (4), and (5):
http://www.dharma-haven.org/five-havens/weisman.htm
Quotes (6), (7), (8), (9), and (10):
Weisman, Alan. Gaviotas: a Village to reinvent the World, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, White River Junction, Vermont, 1998. |
