Profile of Aspen

The training I offer is the culmination of a tri-partite career, which gave me the insight and experience necessary to understand the need for sustainable design and to create the range of environmental education programmes we offer at Semilla Besada.

As a Chartered Administrator, I was involved in the world of management accounting, small business consultancy and business studies lecturing, as well as systems design. My experience in human resource development within this context led me through training and management to experience and training in psychotherapy.

Alongside this has been a love of nature, from a childhood spent in Uganda through to 18 months backpacking in some of the most beautiful areas of the world and a lifetime spent growing my own food. As we worked to meet the challenges of developing Semilla Besada sustainably, I completed the two-year certified educator training in Holistic Management with Holistic Management International.

These experiences combine well to provide the integrated approach to the environmental education programmes we offer at Semilla Besada. As well as the support necessary to take you successfully into the new future you create for yourself and the planet.

I look forward to us getting together.

About us

Semilla Besada is the only research conservation farm in Europe, using Holistic Management® for sustainable land stewardship in brittle landscapes. 

Seventy per-cent of the world’s landmass is brittle, and it is these areas that are desertifying at a staggering 16,000 hectares (39, 520 acres) a day*.The Mediterranean is such a landscape, and yet certain pivotal insights that are successfully reversing desertification in Africa, Australia and America are unknown here.

For the first time in Europe, Semilla Besada is using this knowledge to faciliate sustainable land stewardship in brittle landscapes.

Profile of David

My career as a software designer for a central London computer systems house gave me a deep appreciation of sound design and attention to detail.
When I later studied furniture making and horticulture I became aware that there are certain principles that underpin good design whatever the discipline.

I became fascinated with Permaculture and after spending two months at Crystal Waters in Australia ( the world’s first Permaculture village ) returned to complete a Permaculture Design course.
For the past eight years I have been a trustee of the Agroforestry Research Trust and have been putting the theory into practice by helping to develop Semilla Besada into a sustainably managed subsistence farm. This has given me insights into alternative energy systems, irrigation, land care, livestock management, low impact building techniques and much more.

My practical hands-on approach combined with the above experience enables me to support you in your acquisition of new knowledge through our educational programmes.

I look forward to welcoming you to Semilla Besada and working with you on one of our workshops or seminars.