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.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez has called Paolo Lugari the "inventor of the world." The story of Gaviotas, a village alchemizing peace and prosperity in a stricken land, will change the way you think about that world.

"La Gaviota" by Fernán Caballero is a Spanish novel set in Villamar, a Cadiz town. The book beautifully displays the customs of two different civilizations. The story reveals the character of Stein, a German doctor, who arrives at this seafaring place. He arrives to offer his services in the 1840s Spanish war. After the townspeople help Stein with the restoration of his health, he falls in love with the "Seagull", a local girl with an arrogant and stubborn nature. She grows into a beautiful opera singer trained under Stein and the two get married to live a happy life but a bullfighter from Seville falls for the young singer... Fernan Caballero is, indeed, but a pseudonym: the author of this novel, passing under that name, is understood to be a lady, partly of German descent. Her father was Don Juan Nicholas Böhl de Faber, to whose erudition Spain is indebted for a collection of ancient poetry. Excerpt: "Among them was the governor of an English colony, a tall, fine-looking fellow, accompanied by two of his staff officers. There were several who wore their mackintoshes, thrusting their hands into their pockets; some had flushed countenances, others blue, or very pale, and, generally, all were discontented. In fine, that beautiful vessel seemed to be converted into a palace of discontent."

First Published in 2008. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.