Eco Caminhos has a beautiful 287.000 m2 farm in Nova Friburgo, Brazil. We are permaculture lovers and are eager to learn more about permaculture every day. We try to follow its principles with each decision we make. Still, we are no radicals and things should be practical.

A few of the goals we have set ourselves:

• We place humans at the centre of our organisation. Human development is our objective number one 
• We work with nature rather than against it
• We build bioconstruction houses (natural building) with local natural materials
• We use natural sources to produce the energy we consume
• We cultivate fruit trees and vegetables organically
• We treat our wastewater with natural banana filters
• We will farm chickens for eggs, manure and cleaning our orchard
• We want to protect our water sources by reforesting around
• We want to reforest the steeper areas of our farm to protect slopes and to recover its original state
• We want to grow a wood and bamboo forest for bioconstruction (natural building) purposes
• We want to grow an edible forest
• We want to reduce waste 
• We want to teach underprivileged Brazilian teens all the skills we have, so they can become independent workers while spreading the permaculture philosophy

Human development as our main objective

Human development is our main objective. We believe that bringing people together in nature and giving them hands-on challenges is exactly what is needed to grow as human beings. At Eco Caminhos many people find a real purpose in life, something that often gets lost in the rush of contemporary existence. We have to work and live together and challenge ourselves physically and mentally to achieve our goals. To make our programme accessible to everyone we have created a number of different volunteer programmes, each providing the opportunity to experience life on our eco farm.