The Clean and Green Club

The first words out of Lawrence “Lorenzo” Gottschamer’s mouth were “I’m a guerrilla in the eco-war. Everything we do here is to repair the planet.”

Lorenzo owns the aptly-named Valhalla, an organic macadamia farm a few miles outside of Antigua, Guatemala. In 1976, he came for a three-day visit, and never left. Now he employs about 25 people on three sites, living in a beautiful forest, harvesting nuts from the trees he planted in 1978, and removing a pound of carbon from the atmosphere with every pound of nuts he produces.

The nuts fall to the ground when ripe, and are very easy to harvest. He built a sheller out of a spinning tire and some rebar, and built an equally simple but equally effective size-sorter (it looks kind of like one of those toys where marbles roll downward through a maze) so that processing plants are willing to take his crop.

The trees themselves create hundreds of new varieties, no grafting required. And Lorenzo conducts meticulous research on the properties of the new varieties.

Lorenzo is a giving kind of guy. Visitors are welcomed with a personal tour from him or one of his co-workers (in English or Spanish, as appropriate), free samples of chocolates, nuts, and the macadamia-based cosmetics he sells to companies like Nivea, even free facials. His outdoor restaurant serves macadamia butter laced over fresh
fruit and pancakes, herbal tea, and more, all very reasonably priced.

And the proceeds go to his reforestation and sustainable economic/agricultural development work with indigenous people. He has donated over 200,000 new trees, and is involved in numerous development and reforestation projects. Much information can be found at the Valhalla website, https://www.exvalhalla.net