Developing nations keep coming up with ever more ingenious ideas and solutions to mix development and sustainability. Whether the preservation of traditional knowledge and the communal management of some territories or the use of innovative technologies, developing countries have to face, alongside the old economic challenges, new problems arising from pollution, lack of water and global warming.

Therefore, not only have sources of energy, safeguarding the forests and the slow, painstaking task of reforestation become fundamental, but also important, as in the Columbian settlement of Gaviotas, is experimenting with models of sustainable development and habitation. Let us not forget either, that help is also at hand from the past, from traditions like mud architecture, which allows a reduction in the use of wood, helps the local economies and creates homes that are ecological and dignified.