In the Beginning

After years of feeling rather useless and helpless with regards to doing something meaningful against the tidal wave of s**t that’s starting to hit the fan in our seemingly-constant drive to destroy our environment, and thus ourselves, we’re finally on our way to realizing our dream!

The plan was and is still this: find a plot of land that’s big enough for the four of us to build ourselves ecological homes, and have enough space to build more of them in order to create something of an eco-village, along with space to farm sustainably and rear a bunch of rescued dogs, cats, pigs, goats (hmmm, fresh goat´s cheese!), chickens, rabbits, and anything else that wonders into our lives.

Importantly though, we were determined to find a plot which was predominantly inhabited by trees. Francesco asked around a bit after we´d had a squizz at the monstrously big map of Brazil and couldn´t make any real decision in that way, and it was suggested that we look in a place called Biritiba Mirim, which is about 1h45 from Sao Paulo.

A week ago, after a month of Sundays driving around this part of the country-side and making enquiries in ramshackle bars frequented by the oddest combination of local farmers, we were taken to what, we hope, is soon to become the start of our very own eco-village.

Why so long (ok, it wasn´t that long, but it feels like it when you´re chomping at the bit to get the sustainable ball rolling) to find a place? We had quite specific criteria.

We needed land that:

1. Was predominantly forest - the point being that we´d be able to save some forest for ever as Kimberly Clark does everything it can to chop it all down and replace it with rows and rows of Eucolyptus, under which absolutely nothing grows
2. Had its own water - in preparation for the looming and imminent water wars that are going to take place in an attempt to jack the last big source of water in the world - u guessed it, Brazil! [watch the documentary “Water Wars” for lots more information about our current fresh water crisis]
3. Had not already been farmed - the plan being to farm organically, which would not be possible on soil that had already been destroyed by synthetic fertilizers, etc.
4. Already contained 1 or 2 simple houses - so that we could move in immediately and get to work on transforming our new land.

And that’s just what we found!