01
Before 2017
Our story
Every story begins somewhere. Ours began with a question.
A fairer way to inhabit the world
We were not experts. We were people who refused to stop searching.
This search took us further than any answer we could have imagined. Every difficulty became an opportunity to understand life more deeply. Every encounter enriched the project. Little by little, a vision took root.
“Pachatopia was able to emerge and pass through its early years thanks to the trust of people close to it, companions and partners who supported the vision, often discreetly.”
Entering the story
Land cannot be encountered in a single day.
02
2017
The conviction takes root
The acquisition of the first land in the mountains of San Carlos marked the passage from dream to action. A still-intimate vision met a territory, its history, its people and a remarkable capacity for resilience.03
The years of building
Learning to inhabit the territory
The resources mobilised did more than purchase land, plant or build. They made possible a lasting presence, learning from the territory and the birth of a social and human foundation.- Build lasting relationships with local people and families
- Search for the right partner, then build the project with Victor Hugo Contreras Cano
- Gradually develop mutual trust
- Create the first jobs and experiment on the ground
- Turn mistakes and difficulties into knowledge that can be passed on
04
Today
More than a farm
Pachatopia has become a collective adventure: a team, local relationships, crops, a reserve and a living laboratory. It is now preparing its transition towards an institution capable of protecting and passing on this mission.Memory and peace
“Peace is not only signed. It is cultivated in the concrete conditions of life.”
In San Carlos, a territory deeply marked by conflict, the team is learning that peace grows when the land feeds families with dignity, work offers a future and the forest regains its place.
This process grants no mission to save others. It invites us to listen, recognise the complexity of each journey and build alongside the people who inhabit the territory.
San Carlos, Antioquia
A wounded land, yet never deprived of its ability to be reborn.
People were rebuilding their future. The forest was growing back. Rivers continued to flow. Life quietly continued its work.
We understood that this land had as much to teach us as we could hope to bring to it. Pachatopia would be built through this reciprocity.
A collective adventure
The project grew through the trees planted, but above all through the relationships created.
Families, farmers, neighbours, volunteers from around the world, supporters and partners each added a stone to the building. Very quickly, we understood that a project like this could not belong to one person.
“A forest never grows from a single seed. Neither does a movement.”
And tomorrow?
We do not know exactly what Pachatopia will look like in twenty years. But we know which direction to take.
The story will never be written only by those who began it. It will be written with everyone who chooses to bring an idea, a tree, knowledge, a smile, an encounter or a little of their time.
Perhaps the next page of this story is simply waiting to meet you.