I trained as a landscape gardener and tree worker and worked in these professions in Germany for 20 years in two companies I co-founded: Die Bäumler Gartengestaltung and Grüner Zweig Baumpflege (both still in business).

In the year 2000, I moved to the Tamera community in Portugal. There, I led the ecology group for several years and organized reforestation. From 2007, I was lead engineer for most of the building phases of Tamera’s water retention landscape.

I later started a water landscaping company, Agualands (Aguapaisagens Lda.), which has designed and implemented rainwater retention measures and landscapes across many different properties in southern Portugal, and I have also consulted internationally on rainwater management in Brazil, Spain, Bolivia, Germany and the United States.

I still live in the Tamera community (with my daughters and grandchildren), where the Agualands company is based.