Surviving (and thriving) in the desert
75% of Spain could become desert within the next two decades. We traveled to Andalusia to find out how residents of an eco-village are inventing solutions to adapt to and thrive in a warming world.
The phrase “Spanish summer” brings to mind idyllic visions of rest and relaxation: tapas, flamenco, and long siestas on Mediterranean shores. With over 100 million international visitors in 2022, the tourism industry in Spain has long been a pillar of the economy; it’s on track to add more than 150 billion euros to the country’s financial resources in 2023. From partying through dawn in the nightclubs of Ibiza to pumping your legs cycling the notorious climbs of Girona, there’s something for everyone to try during el verano.
But there’s a darker side to the country’s peak tourism season. In a warming world, “Spanish summer” is becoming downright scary. 20% of the Spanish mainland is already desert and another 75% is at-risk of desertification. This year, popular destinations like Valencia (also coincidentally Europe’s Green Capital for 2024) recorded their hottest temperatures ever. Combine the record-breaking droughts and stifling heat with sudden, deadly floods, and it becomes clear that the country is on the frontlines of the climate crisis in Europe.
Mitigation efforts, like the transition to renewable energy and employment of regenerative agriculture techniques, are underway. But given the current trajectory of locked-in warming, adaptation measures are urgently needed to protect the lives and livelihoods of Spain’s 47 million citizens.
To better understand how adaptive strategies and more sustainable ways of living can be put into practice under conditions of extreme heat, we traveled to Sunseed Desert Technology, a self-described non-formal education project for the transition towards sustainability.
You may be wondering what that means — think of Sunseed as a ‘living laboratory’ for the transition towards a more healthy and responsible way of life. The transition to a more sustainable way of life requires a multi-faceted approach, and Sunseed provides a place for practice and experimentation with many methods, ranging from using only self-produced renewable electricity to cultivating crops for a hyper-local diet.
Located in a tiny, off-grid village in the Tabernas (the only desert of Europe – for now), Sunseed has been home to eco-conscious innovators looking for sustainability solutions for almost four decades. We had the privilege of spending time with its coordinators and volunteers – here’s what we learned.
Traveling deep into the desert
To reach Sunseed, we found ourselves facing the most complicated low-carbon transport arrangement yet! The settlement is located in Los Molinos del Río Aguas, an ancient village situated on a life-giving poza (natural pool of water) that has since evolved into an off-grid community hosting about 35-40 people and several different eco-projects. The village is so small that you can’t see its hiding place in the hills from the main roads winding through the Tabernas. To get there, we had to take a bus to the nearest village, Sorbas, and then complete a six-mile-trek into the desert.
A mile and a half in, just as we were starting to sweat buckets under the midday sun, we stuck out our thumbs to catch the only car we’d seen passing. He pulled up right away. Lucky break, considering hitchhiking in Spain hadn’t been working so well up until that moment!
“You’re headed to Sunseed, right?” asked the driver, who was tanned, with an Italian accent and blue eyes. We nodded, yes, we were, and he motioned for us to hop right in. As he drove towards Los Molinos, he introduced himself as Marco – a forestry student turned resident of the eco-village and thus neighbor of the Sunseed crew.
“There’s lots of young travelers, such as yourselves who pass through on the way to Sunseed,” he said. As it turned out, Marco had been living in Los Molinos with Dave, another long-term resident and environmental advocate, while he prepared a new eco-project for the village, that included the development of his own huerta (garden). After a bit more chatting, Marco invited us to stop by later in the day, and dropped us off at Sunseed, just in time for lunch!
The history of Sunseed Desert Technology
Once we arrived at Sunseed, we sat down to interview several coordinators and then spent the day touring the Drylands and the Garden. It was here where we received a history lesson on the settlement:
Gray and damp Cambridge, England is hardly the place that one would imagine the genesis of a desert research project, but it’s exactly in this soggy environment that the idea for Sunseed was born. Established in 1986 by a group of British scientists and volunteers from a charity called Green Deserts, the initial idea of the project was to construct a research center in Europe that would inform the group’s continued work in ecosystem restoration and the development of solar technology for deployment in Sudan.
After scouting Los Molinos as the site of their learning lab, the scientists banded together and established the Sunseed Trust to fund the project – and then, promptly packed up their lives and moved into the desert.
From the commencement of the project, community participation was built into the DNA of the effort; newspaper ads dated to 1988 invited “working volunteers” to the project. At the commencement, the project lacked diversity – in an old interview, Nick Pasiecznik, an early volunteer at the project, wrote that at its beginning, Sunseed was “almost entirely an English project” with very few European and Spanish-speaking participants.
Although the initial lack of diversity in the project participants left much to be desired, its founders were undoubtedly ahead of their times in the regenerative agriculture movement. Their mission being to “green the desert”, the prevailing philosophy went one step beyond stopping the ecological destruction wrought by humankind on nature to focusing on restoration.
Over many changed governance structures, and with hundreds of volunteers and coordinators passing through over its decades-long history, Sunseed persisted.
Over time, the project evolved into what it is today: a non-formal education project in the Andalusian desert that focuses on building a community of sustainability educators and advocates who are living in close communion with the land, from across Europe and beyond. Through the participation of Erasmus (an EU-wide student exchange program), The European Solidarity Corps, and the Global Ecovillage Network, Sunseed has grown into a thriving, long-standing part of the Los Molinos community.
Defending the drylands, growing gardens
Ranging from organic gardening to drylands maintenance to appropriate technologies, there’s something for every interest at Sunseed. Daily activities include tincture-making workshops, eco-maintenance, tending to the garden, and planting seedlings to reforest the drylands.
When we traveled to Sunseed, we met with the Drylands Coordinator, Agata. Understanding and combating desertification has long been a part of Sunseed’s DNA, and this mission persists today in many forms.
“We have several ongoing initiatives in the Drylands Department,” Agata said. “The lifecycle of the process starts in our nursery next to Sunseed, where we germinate wild seeds to then plant in the desert, with the hopes that we can bring more greenery and thus nutrition to the degraded soils.”
In addition to planting a wide variety of local vegetation in the areas surrounding the village in an effort to restore and re-wild the area, the Drylands department also does Earthworks to combat soil erosion, irrigation, and manages a seed bank.
Sunseed also has a thriving organic garden, where regenerative agriculture practices are used to produce food for the project’s residents. Walking through the gardens with Simone, the current Coordinator for the Organic Garden, we learned about the context of growing fruits and vegetables in Southern Spain.
“Because of the temperature, many agricultural products can be grown here: cucumbers, watermelons, eggplants, tomatoes, lots of different stone fruits,” said Simone. But intensive, industrial agriculture requires that these are grown in greenhouses, taking advantage of the warmth but controlling the environment carefully, to grow more than there’s really water to support.”
The proliferation of greenhouses has caused the region to be dubbed The Sea of Plastic, because the farms form a white patch that can be seen from outer space. Over 2.7 million tonnes of produce are grown here annually, most of which are exported all across Europe to feed demand for warm-weather fruits and vegetables year-round.
“Sunseed is the opposite of the Sea of Plastic, where you have every available technology at your disposal to grow, even when it might be better to give the soil a rest,” said Simone. “At Sunseed, it’s true that we face more challenges, and have to work more with our hands, when raising crops the natural way, but when you think about how to do otherwise stands in contrast to living in harmony with the planet – this is how we need to shift things as a society.”
Appropriate Technology
One of the most intriguing elements of Sunseed is the “Appropriate Technologies” department. Born from the legacy of the initial Green Deserts project, its mission is to “promote innovation in the use of available technologies to reduce our impact on the environment”. Early Sunseeders experimented with solar ovens, solar dryers, and solar panels (back in the 1980s and 1990s, still quite new and quite expensive). Today, the Appropriate Technologies department still maintains many of the original-style solar and water systems, while also innovating and researching new deployments of bio-gas, solar energy, and human-powered machines.
Some of our favorite “appropriate technologies” were the original solar-powered oven (which cooked our dinners and lunches) and the bicycle-powered washing machine!
The Summer Solstice at Sunseed
As our luck would have it, we happened to be at the settlement just in time to celebrate the Summer Solstice, a traditional time of reflection and turning inward in preparation for the next cycle.
After a vegan dinner, we hiked with the volunteers out into the desert and circled up for stargazing, reflection, and singing. As an American who’s traveled extensively in Utah, I’m no stranger to the beauty of the Milky Way on a warm desert night, but there was undeniably something magical about experiencing the same stars I grew up with on the other side of the ocean. With the group, we wrote down some of our intentions for the months ahead, before sealing the celebration with a nighttime dip in the poza.
When we exited the desert (this time, with a long and somewhat painful hike – no hitchhikes to be had in the direction back to Sorbas, unfortunately), we were almost immediately left with the desire to return. Filled with gratitude to the Sunseed community for opening their doors to us, we hope to return again some day!
Closing
Sunseed was the first – but definitely not the last – eco-village project we visited on our journey to document climate solutions around the world. We were deeply inspired by the people we met at Sunseed, and we can’t wait to watch the incredible things they go on to accomplish in their lives! Did this article pique your curiosity? Here’s some next steps you can take to dive deeper!
Work at Sunseed: After a busy summer, Sunseed is currently recruiting for several full-time positions. If you’re interested in a long-term (9 month), paid commitment they have openings in Appropriate Technology, Education, Communication, and Administration! Not sure if you’re ready to move to the desert for a year? They’re also accepting volunteers to join for shorter periods in November and throughout 2024.
Check out the Global Ecovillage Network: Looking for an opportunity to get involved in an eco-village closer to your home? There are participating projects all over the world, including opportunities focused on youth! Browse their site to learn more about the movement – there’s something for everyone!
Spread the word: If this article has inspired you, please share it with your network!