diff --git a/Rakefile.translations b/Rakefile.translations
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e6d9d24
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Rakefile.translations
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+# This Rakefile is intentionally independent from Rails to it can be used to
+# handle translations without having to load the entire Rails environment
+# (which is slow, requires a database connection and several other
+# inconveniences).
+
+$: << 'lib'
+load 'lib/tasks/gettext.rake'
+load 'lib/tasks/doc.rake'
+load 'lib/tasks/translation.rake'
+
+task :default => 'noosfero:translations:compile'
diff --git a/lib/noosfero/version.rb b/lib/noosfero/version.rb
index 0689835..6bf7f8b 100644
--- a/lib/noosfero/version.rb
+++ b/lib/noosfero/version.rb
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ module Noosfero
   VERSION = '1.1~rc1'
 end
 
-if File.exist?(File.join(Rails.root, '.git'))
-  Noosfero::VERSION.clear << Dir.chdir(Rails.root) { `git describe --tags`.strip }
+root = File.expand_path(File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../..')
+if File.exist?(File.join(root, '.git'))
+  Noosfero::VERSION.clear << Dir.chdir(root) { `git describe --tags`.strip }
 end
diff --git a/lib/tasks/doc.rake b/lib/tasks/doc.rake
index 2e85c98..8644bad 100644
--- a/lib/tasks/doc.rake
+++ b/lib/tasks/doc.rake
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+require 'noosfero'
+require 'pathname'
+
 namespace :noosfero do
   namespace :doc do
     def plugins_textiles
@@ -9,8 +12,9 @@ namespace :noosfero do
       end
     end
     task :unlink_plugins_textiles do
-      rm_f Dir.glob(Rails.root.join('doc/noosfero/plugins/*.textile')) -
-        [Rails.root.join('doc/noosfero/plugins/index.textile')]
+      root = Pathname.new(File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../..').expand_path
+      rm_f Dir.glob(root.join('doc/noosfero/plugins/*.textile')) -
+        [root.join('doc/noosfero/plugins/index.textile')]
     end
     input = Dir.glob('doc/noosfero/**/*.textile') + plugins_textiles.map{|i| "doc/noosfero/plugins/#{File.basename(i)}"}
     topics_xhtml = input.map { |item| item.sub('.textile', '.en.xhtml') }.uniq
diff --git a/lib/tasks/gettext.rake b/lib/tasks/gettext.rake
index 0404663..3de77ee 100644
--- a/lib/tasks/gettext.rake
+++ b/lib/tasks/gettext.rake
@@ -2,6 +2,8 @@
 # Added for Ruby-GetText-Package
 #
 
+require 'pathname'
+
 makemo_stamp = 'tmp/makemo.stamp'
 desc "Create mo-files for L10n"
 task :makemo => makemo_stamp
@@ -37,14 +39,15 @@ task :symlinkmo do
   langmap = {
     'pt' => 'pt_BR',
   }
-  mkdir_p(Rails.root.join('locale'))
-  Dir.glob(Rails.root.join('po/*/')).each do |dir|
+  root = Pathname.new(File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../..').expand_path
+  mkdir_p(root.join('locale'))
+  Dir.glob(root.join('po/*/')).each do |dir|
     lang = File.basename(dir)
     orig_lang = langmap[lang] || lang
-    mkdir_p(Rails.root.join('locale', "#{lang}", 'LC_MESSAGES'))
+    mkdir_p(root.join('locale', "#{lang}", 'LC_MESSAGES'))
     ['iso_3166'].each do |domain|
       origin = "/usr/share/locale/#{orig_lang}/LC_MESSAGES/#{domain}.mo"
-      target = Rails.root.join('locale', "#{lang}", 'LC_MESSAGES', "#{domain}.mo")
+      target = root.join('locale', "#{lang}", 'LC_MESSAGES', "#{domain}.mo")
       if !File.symlink?(target)
         ln_s origin, target
       end
diff --git a/lib/tasks/translation.rake b/lib/tasks/translation.rake
index ed888de..00b6fcb 100644
--- a/lib/tasks/translation.rake
+++ b/lib/tasks/translation.rake
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ namespace :noosfero do
     task :update => ['updatepo', 'noosfero:doc:rebuild']
 
     desc 'Compiles all translations'
-    task :compile => ['makemo', 'environment', 'noosfero:doc:translate']
+    task :compile => ['makemo', 'noosfero:doc:translate']
 
   end
 end
--
libgit2 0.21.2