The Community

Sacred Sueños is a mountainside covering over a hundred hectares. Most of this land will succeed into a forest, but some of it will be home to a community. At the moment, Yves is the only full time resident, though there’s always a transient community living at the Seed Camp. Beyond the Seed Camp, and the RADi site, there are a few other locations open for project development, as well as countless beautiful house sites.

 

Yves
Yves travelled through Latin America for a few years after graduating from university with a bachelor of environmental studies, on a quest to learn about sustainable living, and search for a place to put his idealism into practice. After mistakenly believing he’d learned enough, and deciding to settle in the Vilcabamba area, he decided to work for a couple of years in Japan. With the capital he earned, he and his friend Chrystel Starr, bought 10 hectares of land and named it Sacred Sueños in June of 2004. Their requirements for the land weren’t what most people expected: a good hike from the nearest road; no electricity; a small spring rather than a public water supply; and most importantly, land that had suffered from degradation to the point that no Ecuadorian would want to live on it. Sacred Sueños had it all.

It didn’t take long before Yves discovered how little he knew, and how difficult it was going to be to restore the land to productivity, but he persisted, and with the help of numerous volunteers, lots of reading, and even more mistakes to learn from and build on, has made quite some progress.

Yves continues to be a resident and farmworker at Sacred Sueños, and looks forward to teaching what he has learned through the years. He currently resides at the future RADi site, building the main house, making high value cheese from his goat flock, as well as planting an edible forest garden and analog forest. He is also available as a Regenerative Andean Design consultant for land owners within his area and beyond.

The Family Our human family includes Yves, Jennifer, Trini, Chrystel, Bobby, and a transient community of wonderful volunteers. Our animal family includes three wonderful cats that keep the site mice free; Friendly, Meeshu and Nezzie.The area is well guarded with Spud and Bootsy (dogs). All the materials and food have been brought to the site with the help of our donkey, Bonni.Joe and 2socks are our horses that help bring people up and down when they aren’t feeling well, they also help with bringing up groceries. We also have some chickens that help feed our egg consumption, and help build up our soil. Yves also has goats; Santi and her daughters Eli and Eva..