When we were sustainable Learning from the Barbanza the keys to the future
Expanded Second Edition of When We Were Sustainable. Learning from the Barbanza the Keys to the Future
This publication brings together the conclusions from the first three years of work by the Barbanza Ecosocial Lab, a project created to understand and share the practices and processes that once made rural communities sustainable and self-sufficient, and to assess which of them can be replicated and adapted to today’s context to promote territorial revitalisation and prevent abandonment.
In 2021, after one year of activity, the Barbanza Ecosocial Lab published the first edition of When we were sustainable, the result of its initial phase, focused on researching local knowledge and traditional land management practices.
The second phase of the Lab began by putting the lessons learned into practice through an open call to support sustainable initiatives —referred to as seed projects— across the Barbanza peninsula.
Thanks to the strong interest the publication generated at the time, in 2023 we launched an expanded second edition that also includes the experience of the first three seed projects of the Barbanza Ecosocial Lab and outlines a roadmap for the future.
This expanded second edition is available for purchase at a non-profit price of €15, which allows us to cover production costs and allocate €10 from each copy sold to support sustainable agricultural, livestock, forestry, or cultural initiatives in the Barbanza region. You can reserve your copy —in Galician, Spanish, or English— by sending an email to info@barbanzaecosocial.org.
In addition, you can access the digital version for free through the following links:
The Barbanza Ecosocial Lab
At the time of publication, the Barbanza Ecosocial Lab was coordinated by the Fundación RIA and supported by the HISTAGRA research group from the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela in the research component. The editing and production of the book were made possible thanks to the co-funding of Fundación Banco Santander and the collaboration of the Cátedra Juana de Vega.