Racheal’s been learning food forest maintenance from helping Kevin on his land. They make a great team! 👏

#permaculturelife #community #fruithaven

A little native wild bush with flowers that look just like lips! Nature is wild. It’s called psychotria or hot lips plant. 💋

We did a little sharing circle, improv, and dance night the other night. It was lovely. 🥰



#community #veganfriends #funinthejungle

Meet Kevin!

Yos enjoying some Marang fruit from the land by the pool!

Lifestyle retreats coming soon!

#FoodForest #Vegan #RawVegan #Fruitarian #TropicalFruits #rawveganretreat

Check out Maria's interview on youtube! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lABmF3cjJI4

Our new volunteer Aimee is getting right at it learning to harvest bananas! 🍌 👏




#syntropic #agroforestry #foodforest #tropicalfruit #tropicalfruittrees #rarefruit #fruitorchard #orchard #naturalfarming #organicfarming #organicfruit #growyourownfood #growyourownfruit #selfsufficiency
#Bananaharvest

The History of Fruit Haven Ecovillage

The history of this community begins with its precedent-setter, nearby community Terra Frutis.

In 2014, a small group of Americans descended upon Gualaquiza, Ecuador, in South America, with the intention of buying land and starting a community. Two huge adjacent parcels of land were purchased by a wealthy supporter along Rio Zamora, and became known as "Terra Frutis." A house near Gualaquiza was purchased as a home base. A website and social media presence began, and profiles were created on volunteer websites such as Workaway and WWOOF. A steady stream of short-term volunteers began to inhabit the community. The volunteer program eventually transitioned to more long-term residents who breathed life into the community itself, which would still be in existence over 10 years later. Defying the track record of the 95% of intentional communities that fail in their first few years, Terra Frutis would go through its high and low periods, finally proving itself as a success, at least in its infancy.

Lessons were learned about the sustainability of single-land-owner communities. Terra Frutis learned the hard way about the need for selecting out problematic individuals, and how this affected growth. Many local Ecuadorians were given full-time work constructing buildings and farming. Terra Frutis residents planted hundreds of fruit trees and maintained many of them to this day. An annual event, drawing tourists from around the world, began in 2019 and helped create many memories.

Terra Frutis was formed at a time when the dietary and ethical movements of raw veganism and fruitarian were extremely popular on social media. Many Youtubers dedicated their channel to raw vegan recipes and lifestyle tips, and several festivals were held around the world celebrating this lifestyle. While that movement peaked from 2014-2017, the popularity of the general vegan movement kept the community going for awhile longer.

Fruit Haven Ecovillage was no stranger to these trends, forming in April 2016 when a group of Terra Frutis residents, members, and visitors began to look for land in the area. They wanted to experiment with the group land buy model of community building, theorizing that owners with an equity stake in the land would be more likely to invest in it. They also theorized that people would be more likely to want to live in a community that was not just owned by one person. Over the first almost-decade, they were proven right when comparing the population of both communities, but Fruit Haven's population growth began to stall years later for varying reasons. Fruit Haven, like Terra Frutis, also started out focused on the raw vegan movement, which brought its share of interesting characters over the years.

Many things would happen in the years to come: Lessons would be learned about land ownership, community management, navigating the difficult legal landscape of a third world country, and how the quality of common interests affects the social fabric of a community. It may very well be that lessons were never learned about how to attract families and grow the community that way, but that's a story for another time.

This is the first of a multi-part series covering the history of Fruit Haven Ecovillage and associated communities in Ecuador. This series is brought to you by Fruit Haven management. Stay tuned for the next episode!