University of Lisbon, Portugal

HortaFCUL – A university-based permaculture garden in Lisbon

HortaFCUL is a community-based permaculture project based in Lisbon University’s Faculty of Sciences campus, or FCUL for short. The initiative was launched in 2009 by a group of biology students whose main goal was to create public awareness amongst the university community towards innovative permaculture practices that could answer some of the biggest challenges we face, such as food security, ecosystem degradation and climate change. This bottom-up project developed an important role as a generator and catalyst of solid practical and technical knowledge based on experimentation and scientific evidence.

Through its years of existence, HortaFCUL became a resilient, sustainable and inclusive community, allowing the public to learn more about nature-based solutions - in an urban context. Nowadays, it has 5 sub-projects at campus level, which include edible gardens, agroforests and tiny fast-growth forests, and relies on a volunteer-based guardians’ collective horizontally organized to maintain and expand the project’s green areas. 

Top 3 Learnings

1. Community based projects should concentrate their energy on creating impact on a local level first.
2. The solution is mostly found within the “problem”. Waste can be a resource.
3. Partnerships should always be win-win. That is how cooperative systems become positively stable with time.