Bosque Fractal

– Toward Consciousness through Nature –

Bioregional Hub for Regeneration and Spirituality

Project Story

Founded in 2011, Meráki SAS has worked across Colombia supporting processes of social transformation, systems thinking, education, art, and regeneration. For more than a decade, this work moved through communities, territories, organizations, and learning processes across the country.

Throughout those years, there was also a deeper search: the search for a living territory where ecological restoration, ancestral wisdom, spiritual practice, and regenerative community life could take root together.

That search gave birth to Bosque Fractal.

In 2019, after years of accompanying processes throughout Colombia, Meráki found a territory in the mountains of Gachantivá, Boyacá, within the ancestral Zaquencipá Valley in the Colombian Andes. What began as the search for a place to protect and continue ancestral ceremonies gradually evolved into a living bioregional regeneration process.

Bosque Fractal was born to protect and give continuity to ancestral practices such as Vision Quest, the Earth and Sun Dance, and Temazcal, while regenerating forests, water systems, and the relationship between humanity and nature.

At the center of this process lives the legacy of Abuela Margarita — internationally recognized elder, spiritual guide, and member of the World Council of Elders — whose teachings reminded us that human beings are not separate from the Earth, but part of a living fabric connecting water, mountains, forests, spirit, and community.

Our Mission

Bosque Fractal exists to regenerate sacred relationships between people, nature, water, territory, and community.

Our work integrates:

ecological restoration
ancestral wisdom
water stewardship
regenerative learning
systems thinking
and spiritual practice

We believe regeneration is not only ecological. It is also cultural, emotional, spiritual, and collective.

Through direct relationship with nature, people remember that the Earth is not a resource outside of us, but the living system we belong to.

The Territory

Bosque Fractal is located in the Zaquencipá Valley, an ancestral Muysca territory in the Colombian Andes characterized by páramos, Andean forests, water systems, mountains, and agricultural landscapes of deep ecological and cultural importance.

The project currently protects and regenerates four territories:

El Trébol
Calpulli Abuela Margarita
Buenavista
Selva Baja

Together, these lands form a living sanctuary for ecological restoration, water regeneration, spiritual practice, and bioregional learning.

The territory is located near the sacred ecosystems of Iguaque, one of the most important water sanctuaries in the Colombian Andes and a place deeply connected to the origin stories of the Muysca people.

Background & Challenges

When Bosque Fractal arrived in 2019, the land held both beauty and fragility.

The territory had suffered from:

deforestation
cattle grazing
degraded soils
fragmented forests
weakened water cycles
and lack of water infrastructure

Several visible water sources appeared dry, native forests had been reduced, and ecological connectivity had weakened over time.

These challenges reflect a broader reality affecting many rural mountain territories in Colombia: ecological degradation is deeply connected to the loss of relationship between people, water, land, and ancestral ways of understanding nature.

Bosque Fractal emerged as a response to this fragmentation.

Our Regeneration Process

The process began not with construction, but with listening.

Through ancestral knowledge, systemic observation, and direct relationship with the territory, the first step was learning how to read the land: understanding water flows, ecological patterns, sacred directions, and the spirit of place.

From there, Bosque Fractal began restoring the relationship between forest, water, territory, and community.

Since 2019, the project has:

planted more than 15,000 native trees
protected Andean oak forests
excluded cattle from regeneration areas
restored ecological corridors
implemented a constructed wetland for ecological wastewater treatment
developed rainwater harvesting systems
created the Water Temple for decentralized water storage and treatment
initiated laboratory-based water quality monitoring
hosted ceremonies, gatherings, and regenerative learning experiences

One of the main initiatives emerging from this process is Agua de Vida — Water of Life — a regenerative water initiative focused on rainwater harvesting, decentralized water treatment, ecological monitoring, and replicable systems for mountain territories.

Why Water Matters

At Bosque Fractal, water is understood not only as infrastructure or resource, but as life itself.

Within the ancestral teachings carried through the project, water represents emotional, spiritual, ecological, and collective balance. Caring for water means caring for the conditions that sustain all forms of life.

This understanding is deeply connected to the Indigenous principle of Sumak Kawsay — often translated as “Living Well” — which understands wellbeing as harmonious coexistence between people, territory, community, and nature.

For this reason, Bosque Fractal seeks not only to restore ecosystems, but also to regenerate water consciousness and relationship with the living Earth.

Opportunity

Bosque Fractal has the opportunity to become a living demonstration site for bioregional regeneration in the Colombian Andes.

Many communities are already facing water stress, ecosystem fragmentation, and disconnection from traditional ecological knowledge. At the same time, many territories still receive abundant rainfall and retain strong regenerative potential.

Bosque Fractal is developing practical and replicable approaches that combine:

ecological restoration
water stewardship
decentralized infrastructure
ancestral knowledge
and community-based regeneration

The long-term vision is to strengthen Bosque Fractal as a living sanctuary and learning center capable of inspiring similar regeneration processes in other territories.

Use of Funds

Funding from this campaign will support the next phase of Bosque Fractal’s regeneration work.

This includes:

strengthening potable water systems
expanding rainwater harvesting infrastructure
improving ecological water treatment systems
continued native forest restoration
protection of water sources and Andean forests
laboratory analysis and ecological monitoring
educational and community learning materials
documentation of regenerative practices and territorial learning

Funds will also help strengthen Bosque Fractal as a living bioregional sanctuary for ecological and cultural regeneration.

Tracking Impact

Bosque Fractal tracks both ecological and social transformation through quantitative and qualitative indicators.

These include:

native trees planted and maintained
hectares under restoration and protection
water storage and harvesting capacity
water quality monitoring results
reduction in purchased potable water
ceremonies and learning gatherings hosted
participants involved in regenerative processes
documentation through field journals, maps, and photographic records

For Bosque Fractal, impact is not measured only through numbers, but through the restoration of relationships between people, water, forests, territory, and life.

Our Experience

Bosque Fractal is not an idea waiting to begin. It is a living process already underway.

Since 2019, the project has established:

four protected and regenerating territories
more than 15,000 native trees planted
ecological restoration processes
decentralized water systems
ongoing ecological monitoring
ceremonial and community spaces
and growing recognition from environmental and territorial actors such as Corpoboyacá

Bosque Fractal continues to evolve as a living process of regeneration, learning, and stewardship rooted in the Colombian Andes.

Closing Invitation

Bosque Fractal is more than a conservation initiative.

It is a living process of remembrance, regeneration, and reconnection.

In a time of ecological fragmentation and climate uncertainty, Bosque Fractal seeks to become a seed of another possibility: territories where regeneration is ecological, cultural, spiritual, and collective.

We believe humanity can remember how to live in reciprocity with nature.

And that through nature, we can remember who we are.