What did it take me to become environmentally committed?

Chloé Hartmann
Nov 2 · 5 min read

I can now assume that I have had a life-changing experience.

You know the event that puts everything back into perspective as if you were a fish, getting out of its tank for the first time? Or the one that makes you come back feeling wiser (as if Yoda returned…)?

A picture of our hike in the desert’s mountains at 6a.m.
A picture of our hike in the desert’s mountains at 6a.m.

I still remember my first night: it was Salsa night. As the old van was driving in the night, everyone was singing to chaotic and unknown Spanish music. I had known everyone for two hours and the only thing I had in my stomach was tapas and 33cl of beer. In this ultimate moment, I felt some warmth in my chest and told myself “Wow, I am happy”. It had been a while.

One person I once interviewed summarised my adventure simply:

‘Either people have a life after Sunseed, or they crawl back to it’.

Anyone who has spent enough time at Sunseed Desert Technology (SDT) would agree on this quote and wonder what makes the place so distinctive.

“Well, at some point, I tried to explain Sunseed.”

This sentence was in everyone’s mouth when they came back from their weekends away, often followed by collective chuckles (like a bad American comedy). We all knew it was such a difficult place to explain.

Consequently, I wrote this article, to explain the unexplainable. To understand SDT, you first need to know its narrative.

A pioneering English foundation

Everything began in 1987 when this English charity was born with one mission in mind: Regreening the desert. The Desert of Las Tabernas (Andalusia) was already grey and arid, to the delight of Spaghetti Western film directors.

A picture of The Desert of Las Tabernas.
A picture of The Desert of Las Tabernas.
Clint Eastwood’s first leading role in “A Fistful of Dollars” (1964) was filmed in this landscape.

However, where the cinema industry only saw decor, Sunseed found a place with a unique ecosystem.

  • A region at the heart of climate change in Europe
  • Very few rainy days
  • Huge agroindustries with very deep water extraction methods

All of this in one place.

Over time, this organisation ,which was originally a center of research turned more towards educating people on how they could live sustainably.

Before I even put a foot in the desert, I was what we could nominate an ecological virgin. Meaning, the consumer who was picking up their trash, separating the waste, vaguely aware of the meaning of ‘sustainability’ and feeling like it was enough. Enough by the ‘acceptable by society’ spectrum.

SDT did its job since it opened my eyes to a situation that is more than tropical. This instruction was through presentations, workshops but ,above all, through discussions I had with its participants.

The easiness of the relationships

Driven by curiosity or the thirst for knowledge and truth, individuals were traversing the globe to come to Sunseed. During my time there, I met outstanding beings:

  • a Corean ex-fashion designer
  • a Greek sound-recordist
  • an ex-snake hunter from Ibiza
  • a German/Indian yoga teacher
  • an Israelian who gave bread workshops as a therapy
  • a Brazilian gardener practicing permaculture

A surprising mix, right? Add to this pot a French business student, unsure of what brought her to the middle of nowhere.

After one week in Sunseed, I began to note down people’s opinions. Some arguments were unconventional with my culture and education so I wanted to retain them to have more authentic thinking, less conditioned by my personal past.

It was intellectually orgasmic: I was traveling through their words (temporally and geographically). For instance, conversations were slipping from the subject of femininity and vulnerability to the point of the Westernisation of Asia during WW2.

I am grateful for developing powerful relationships as the community lifestyle encouraged our concern for others and our immediate bonding.

An unusual structure

I was in the middle of nowhere. SDT is in an off-grid village so I was spending whole days with a group of a maximum of 30 people.

Even if some people were not innately altruist, they grew that skill unconsciously. Since we were assigned daily tasks: cooking, gardening, cleaning… we were all interdependent. Thus, someone’s issue was everyone’s issue because it was affecting the whole community.

Add to this community the particular organisation of Sunseed and you start to understand how it alters how people interact.

At Sunseed, there is no hierarchy, no structure, no CEO: it is a sociocracy. Fundamentally, every decision must be a consensus and everyone is free to discuss ideas and concerns.

I truly think that sociologists and economists should look more into this system. Since everyone is on the same level in terms of power, everyone’s voice is heard. By working like this, people are boosted with creativity and they feel supported, more precisely since there is an approach towards continuous improvement.

The only drawback I found was towards efficiency. Without any established facilitator, meetings were easily lasting for hours. Every attendant wanted to share their opinion which made some discussions repetitive and inhibited the meeting from moving on.

SDT’s actions

Its unusual structure is also what led Sunseed to its most promising projects like No Water Day.

The village of Los Molinos is subject to high water pressure. Its inhabitants even wonder if they will still have access to water in 5 years.

Therefore, Sunseed decided to establish a water protocol that would anticipate every possible scenario and reaction to each of them. Thus, No Water Day is when the project’s participants do a simulation of those plausible scenarios to test their accuracy.

This exercise shouldn’t be limited to Sunseed, but to the worldwide population. Indeed, the World Resources Institute declared in one report that ¼ of the population was facing a looming water crisis.

The New York Times article ‘A Quarter of Humanity Faces Looming Water Crisis’

Do we want a future where climate change migrants will create new mobility dynamics and where water will become the primary source of conflict?

Some initiatives give hope, like in Aanore (India) where groundwater produced water again in three months. The villagers were asked to plant two trees in front of their houses and other small changes.

What is interesting is that the leaders of this project emphasized the role solidarity played in the success of this project.

This brings me to one question. Do people need to be more united to positively impact their environment?

If the answer is yes, will the growing awareness around climate change make people more united around this cause?

Overall, Sunseed taught me a better way of living.

Now that I am back in what we called the “outside world”, I am more aware of all the resources I use. There is not a single moment when I don’t curse in front of the monstrous quantities of plastic used to wrap every good in Hong Kong.

I needed such an experience to realize my Earth footprint but do we really need to all go through such an ecological rite of passage to figure it out?

I hope not but I believe most of us do.

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