For more than three decades the scientists, artisans, peasants,  former street youngsters, and Guahibo Indians living in a village called Gaviotas have elevated phrases like sustainable development and appropriate technology from cliché to reality. Sixteen hours from the nearest major city, they invented wind turbines that convert mild tropical breezes into energy, solar collectors that work in the rain, soil-free systems to raise edible and medicinal crops, and ultra-efficient pumps to tap deep aquifers-pumps so easy to operate, they're  hooked up to children's seesaws. The United Nations named the village a model for the developing world. Others call it a utopia. But Gaviotas founder Paolo Lugari insists, “ Utopia literally means no place . We call Gaviotas a topia, because it's real”.
Yet the heroes of this story are not only human beings and their technology. In the shelter of millions of Caribbean pines, which the Gaviotans planted as a renewable crop, an unexpected marvel has occurred: the regeneration of an ancient native rain forest.