Can Digital Technologies bring us back in Connection with Nature?

Living in our time comes with an increasingly complex set of challenges that none of our ancestors ever imagined. The rate at which our collective consciousness evolves constantly struggles to keep up with that at which our technologies are being developed, as they keep morphing, changing and opening up completely unforeseen realms of possibility. We are presented with immense powers that we are not quite psychologically ready to handle. Like a 3 year old with a knife, lacking the full understanding of what she/he’s dealing with, we end up staring blankly at our screens for hours on end, indulging and doom scrolling unaware that we yearn for something that is nowhere to be found within the bounds of that screen. Ironically that something that we yearn for is actually all around us, it has always been there and will always be, waiting for us to engage and participate with it. It’s the sensation of soil under our bare feet, the breeze caressing our skin and triggering flashbacks as it flies by carrying familiar scents. It’s there when we gaze at a sunset with a loved one, or share a nourishing meal with our family.

Hacking Technology for a Regenerative Intention

There’s a design intention behind the development of any technology, most are made to be practical and useful in daily matters, but others are solely made for us to hit the purchase button (conversion), and some others just distract us. Many of our recent apps and gadgets seem to numb us down and make us feel disconnected. Maybe it’s that feeling of disconnection what drives all the excessive consumption which keeps destroying the ecosystems of the world, perhaps it’s really profitable for some in the short term, however very dangerous for all of us in the long term. But what if we design technologies that will bring us back in connection to that thing that we actually yearn for in the first place? Innovations that will snap us out of our digital hypnosis and reconnect us with nature, inside and outside ourselves.

How can we hack these pocket sized computers and turn them into reconnection devices that help us tune back in with nature while equipping us with the knowledge and skills needed to regenerate our planet?

These are some of the questions that we’ve been asking ourselves at Valle Escondido, our ecological hotel in Monteverde. We’re in the trial period before launching our very own version of that concept at virtualpermaculture.cr, this article is here to tell you all about it and invite you to try it out !

Initial Steps: Seeds for Interactive Learning

At first we started playing around with simple QR codes, we stuck them next to the main plants in our medicinal herb garden, so any visitor could scan a plant and get a PDF with all the information on how to use it and for what specific ailments it is helpful. Having interactive spaces like these that could tap into the power of smartphones was a very promising starting point but there was much more to explore and improve upon.

 We met with Alejandro Arango, a Costa Rican Permaculture designer and Architect who had already developed and implemented a similar concept in various settings, from schools and art festivals to public infrastructure in San Jose.  

”Initially it was about addressing the loss of technical capacity in schools that had vegetable gardens or other eco-techniques requiring specific knowledge to maintain”. It was very common for public schools around San Jose to suffer from high staff turnover, so there was loss of information every time the garden keeper, kitchen or maintenance staff left and new people came in. At schools with vegetable gardens it was normal to see such projects abruptly abandoned, the compost pile stopped working properly and similar situations simply because nobody passed down the tips and tricks. Sticking a QR code on the compost pile was a way to make it come alive and speak for itself by instructing anyone on how it wanted to be used and maintained. And so on with the rain barrel, vegetable garden, artificial wetland or any other feature on site. The code would link to an audio or video clip, a manual or whatever other form of information made sense in any specific situation. By setting this up the training capacity would be installed on site, bypassing the risk of staff members not passing down the “know how” to their successors. This idea quickly evolved into other possibilities and spaces, in 2017 Alejandro had the chance to work in FIA (Festival Internacional de las Artes) where the festival attendees and passerbys would scan different plants, installations, and other items in the festival grounds to get an educational experience from the site itself. The following year he worked in the municipality of Curridabat where they applied this idea to public parks, native trees and plants were labeled and QR coded linking to the first prototype of a virtual library platform which was called Proyecto SANA (Seguridad Ambiental, Nutricional y Alimentaria). BILILI (Biodiversity living library) is a subsequent version of the same idea but applied beyond the bounds of local governments, this platform currently links all the urban gardens and agro-ecology sites in and around Curridabat through the codes and interactive spaces installed in each of them. Fast forward a couple of years and we are working together. It made sense to team up since this is exactly the kind of concept that we needed to develop in order to scale up our capacity to influence, teach and inspire people from all over the world.

A New Platform is born: Virtual Permaculture Library

Our virtual permaculture library is a web based platform, like Bilili and former SANA, that harbors all the information, tutorials, and videos from the QR codes installed at different parts of our property. Rain water harvesting, raised beds, Native bee hives, solar water heaters, we’ve got plenty of eco-techniques being applied as part of our design that anyone can come and learn from. By creating this link between the virtual and the physical world we can get inside people’s phones and in a way invite them to put it down in order to observe and interact with the living systems in front of them. We suspect this may hold the key to hack or address the recent issue of screen addiction in children and young adults, by catching all that energy that constantly goes into their screens we can redirect their attention into real life regenerative solutions that are both entertaining and practical.

The journey begins as you encounter a QR code in a plant or a certain element on the landscape, it sparks your curiosity and invites you to interact with it. Once you enter through the portal into the virtual realm you are presented with interesting information about this element that motivates you to understand how it works, what functions it fulfills within a larger system, and how you can use it, reproduce it or apply it your own life. At this point it evolves into an educational experience where you are integrating valuable knowledge about the design intention behind the various elements on site, it gives you access to the back door or the source code meaning that it enables you to start grasping much of what was previously invisible, and suddenly your surroundings seem a lot more interesting and intriguing than before. The journey ends when you leave inspired and head back home with a bunch of new ideas to improve your life and your relationship with the natural environment all at once.

At this point in history we need to make the statement that you don’t need a fat bank account or crazy advanced technology to make a difference in the world: part of the magic of permaculture is that with the right combination of low-tech, biology and clever design we can go a really long way in solving the issues of our time, or as Bill Mollison puts it:

“Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple.” ― Bill Mollison

The Role of Eco-tourism in Environmental Education

Valle Escondido is among the best places to stay in Montverde for very distinctive reasons, unlike most other hotels we emphasize an authentic experience of reconnection with nature, we are a project that operates and lives by the ethics and principles of permaculture. Instead of focusing on having the largest flat screens and AC units on every room, we invest our resources in creating a space where human beings harmoniously co-exist with the surrounding ecosystems and learn from the interactions embedded in that.

The experience we offer is one conducts you to not only find and nurture your connection with nature, but to also celebrate the fact that you are a part of it. Guests are practically sleeping inside of a private nature reserve with direct access to 15 hectares of protected forest to walk through and explore, finding waterfalls, ocean view lookout points and play/rest areas along the way. Adding to that the luxury of having a farm to table restaurant right in the middle of it all, where many of the meals are prepared with organic and nutrient dense ingredients freshly harvested from our own vegetable gardens. But above all the main aim is to offer an immersive learning experience, we want to have people leave the hotel inspired with new ideas and going back to their hometown equipped with a clear notion of how they can take matters into their own hands to be active participants in the project of planetary regeneration. It is this mission which in part drove us to offer our Permaculture Farm Tours, Night Tours, Bird Watching Tours and so on. However, many times people are cruising through with tight schedules or limited budgets and they miss out on much of that learning experience which makes the place unique. Expanding into the virtual realm with this new platform will help us bridge that gap and take it to a whole new level, making that sort of insights more readily available and accessible to anyone who happens to be wandering around on our site, be it a guest, a visitor or a Monteverde local. This is why we invite you to visit the platform to give us some feedback during this trial period how is the user experience? Does it feel intuitive? Is the information clear and understandable ? We want to know your opinion!

We will be tweaking it and making adjustments according your feedback for about a year until we have a solid product that works smooth and effectively, so your help is greatly appreciated since it ultimately improves our capacity to carry out our mission as an organization that aims to use tourism as a force for good.

Valle Escondido: Pioneering Reconnection

In conversation with Arango, I inquired about the bigger picture behind this idea. It was clear then that implementation in hotels is just the first phase, this is an ambitious idea that aims to expand and span out to greater proportions. In his words:

“Hotels are a key player in the field because they represent one of Costa Rica’s main opportunities to generate income, therefore if we start there we can leverage great influence over employees and the international community in spreading the power of regenerative design. While at the same time funding the development of a platform and a model that will later expand into public spaces and rural communities”

Thus Virtual permaculture will be centered mainly around privately owned projects willing to host an interactive learning space, led by Valle Escondido. While Bilili will be tailored to the public applications, better suited to communicate these ideas in the context of local Costa Rican culture and language. But both platforms ultimately connected feeding into each other and complementing each other’s data bases.

“As a permaculturist I feel the need to figure out how information technology, being a force that can help us so much but often brings us down, can become a tool to create micro and macro spaces for a permanent culture to emerge, the culture of regeneration that is so desperately needed now, not only for our sake but for all future generations to come” – Alejandro Arango

It’s an honor for Valle Escondido to be leading an innovation of this kind in the hospitality industry, it is truly our intention to tip the scales in favor of tourism having a positive rather than negative impact in the world. We openly encourage other businesses and initiatives to integrate permaculture design ethics and principles in what they do, where they do it, and how they do it.  

In no way can this be seen as competition, for permaculture is sort of an open source idea; the more people involved, the better. We need a bigger crew on this boat! We are really happy to be putting this Beta version out there and trying it out to further improve upon it, if you feel inclined to help us with feedback just visit virtualpermaculture.cr, explore the platform much as possible and then let us know what you think by answering a few questions in our feedback form. Of course it’s even better if you come visit us to journey through the interactive space and get the full experience! May this be a warm invitation for all who read this