Monte da Vida

Monte da Vida is a regenerative forest farm on 90 hectares of forested hills near São Martinho das Amoreiras, in south-west Portugal. Activities centre on the trees and what they provide. The team works to keep soils, plants, wildlife and the wider ecosystem healthy, growing nutrient-dense foods, harvesting wild aromatic herbs and producing flower and tree essences. Under the Forest Alchemy label, Clare makes tree essences and hydrosol distillates from wild aromatic plants found on the land. Servan builds benches by hand from wood harvested on the property. The benches are sold through Earthlife Goods, a sister organisation dedicated to marketing and selling regenerative forest products under the ethos of 'goods from the woods'. The farm also follows a meditation-based philosophy drawn from Taoist practice. The community regularly practises Inner Dissolving, a method from the Taoist Water Method as taught by Bruce K. Frantzis, alongside Tai Chi, Qigong, Bagua and Wing Chun martial arts. These are understood not merely as relaxation techniques but as tools for deep personal transformation and embodied aliveness, a felt awareness of the body and its connection to the living ecosystem. Honesty, physical groundedness and a close connection to natural cycles matter here. Seasonal silence retreats, timed to key earth rhythms, are held on the land to deepen meditation practice. The farm is drug-free, alcohol and tobacco included, as part of the community's commitment to well-being.