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After answering these questions, we hiked up to Cerro Seco which we had chosen as the site to end the first term of Bioregion Education. We had a big barbeque and the students had a great time. We all stayed until 7 o'clock at night. In the end, our class had 18 active students, though only 10 could attend the final three classes because of vacations. For the next term, it would be helpful to have more information in Spanish about what we are teaching the children, such as pamphlets for each of the subjects we are teaching (Bioregions, Birds, Trees, Food, Indigenous history, etc). This would make it easier for them to learn. It would also be nice to have more interactive work for them to do, such as planting, which unfortunately we weren't able to do this time because of the lack of rain. They always want to participate in activities and it helps keep them motivated and feel like they are a part of something bigger. But I was able to achieve my goal of having a large group of students (composed of a majority of girls) and next time I think I can recruit even more students. Translated by Clay (The vast majority of students have gone on break for a couple months. The classes will resume towards the end of April or the beginning of May. There are some students who aren't going away for vacations and are interested in continuing to have informal meetings on occasion. We will try to include them in greenhouse transplanting, tree planting and other activities when feasible. Clay) [Top]<<<<><><>>>>Field Report #4Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager
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Date |
Activity |
Place |
Participants |
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01/12/07 |
Fixing up the park in the Fanca Neighborhood |
Entrance to Fanca |
Friends of the Eco-city, Sucre Municipality |
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01/16/07 |
Painting, watering, planting |
Entrance to Fanca |
Friends of the Eco-city, Sucre Municipality, local students |
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01/19/07 |
Collecting Mangrove seeds |
Beach in San Vicente |
Friends of the Eco-city, local students and volunteers |
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01/23-26/07 |
Painting a mural |
Fanca |
Friends of the Eco-city, Sucre Municipality, local students, muralists |
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01/27-31/07 |
Community work (education talks, reforestation, clean-ups) |
Bellavista |
Bellavista muralists, Friends of the Eco-city, Sucre Municipality, local students |
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02/02-07/07 |
Trash Clean-ups and painting |
Various Bahia neighborhoods |
Local residents |
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02/09-11/07 |
Painting a mural |
Equitativa neighborhood |
Muralists, Friends of the Eco-city, Sucre Municipality, students, local volunteers |
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02/17/07 |
Festival Parade |
In the city streets |
Ecocity residents, Municipality, private companies, local authorities |
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02/18/07 |
Artists Festival – Concert – “Green Night” (“Noche de Verde”) |
At the beach |
Friends of the Eco-city, Sucre Municipality, private companies, national police, Captain of the Port |
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02/21/07 |
Open house of local Eco Groups |
1st floor of the Municipal Building |
Friends of the Eco-city, Sucre Municipality, private firms, local press |
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02/23/07 |
Formal Session |
Municipal Theatre |
Friends of the Eco-city, Sucre Municipality |
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02/24-25/07 |
Eco-tours: Dry tropical forest, Ferry through the estuary |
Bellavista and Cerro Seco nature preserve; city pier |
Friends of the Eco-city |
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02/26-27/07 |
Initial visit to Mangrove reforestation site |
Neighborhood to be determined |
Friends of the Eco-city, Sucre Municipality local residents, students, volunteers, local press |
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02/28/07 |
Planting Mangroves |
In the chosen Neighborhood |
Friends of the Eco-city, Sucre Municipality local residents, students, volunteers, local press |
'Friends of the Eco-city' includes all local participants in ecological preservation and restoration, including Planet Drum Foundation
We began the week with a downpour on Sunday night and what was likely to be the commencement of the raining season! The “festival of nature” as it was described to me by an eco-amigo. Since we needed to wait for a few of days of hard rain to begin planting—the earth needs to soften up a bit before we can transplant our trees—and because we didn't have to manually water our old sites, we were afforded a couple days to take care of some sidelined projects. Then when it was clear that the climate here has changed patterns and that we are now in the Ecuadorian winter, we began what has become a marathon of reforestation. Since there is such a short wet season in this region of the coast, two to three months, we need to maximize every day of potential rain. As a result we are now in the middle of planting all of our sites one after another, postponing our usual weekend until after we are done. Additionally, our community participation is on the rise and I am re-establishing forgotten contacts with the municipality.
Our first loose-ends project was to finish some staircases and handrails in Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas, which we took care of on Monday. This is a unique park in the city center that was hit particularly hard during the El Niño phenomenon of 1998. Numerous houses were washed away and some people were even killed in mudslides there. Now what remains is a protected natural area, ruins in the middle of the forest. Planet Drum has done (and continues to do) tremendous work to reforest this area and maintain trails within what is now a park. Thanks to the work of previous volunteers in December who took care of most of the handrail and staircase work, we were able to finish the leftovers in a day. Now there are painted handrails and staircases along all the steep sections of the trails. We will have ample opportunity to show off our hard work there, including two newly planted reforestation sites, during the upcoming Carnaval and Eco-week when tourists come from all over Ecuador to visit the coast.
On Tuesday our next project involved weeding all of the trees that we have transplanted out of seedling beds and into three-liter bottles. Hundreds of bottles of trees had small weeds competing for nutrients that needed to be removed. It rained heavily during the day and we pulled weeds while getting soaked as we worked. It was an unusual and refreshing experience.
On Wednesday we moved trees to two of our sites in the Maria Dolores neighborhood in preparation to plant in the upcoming days. Compost needed to be mixed at the greenhouse, trees organized and then loaded onto our friend's truck (thanks Ricardito!). The trees were moved to a safe place nearby and divided into separate groups for the two sites we have there: Don Pepe and Maria Dolores.
Now planting commences! Light rains Wednesday night gave way to our hard work on Thursday. With the help of Ramon, the Bioregional Education teacher, who is on break right now, we planted all of our Don Pepe site, nearly fifty trees. First holes were dug in the catchments we had prepared, compost was mixed and sprinkled in the holes and the trees were gently moved from their plastic bottles where they will be planted in the open earth. This site sits on a clear-cut hill that already has erosion problems beginning. Hopefully our plantings will be able to prevent these problems. It is hard to not have high hopes for it.
In the evening I attended a community meeting to discuss the distribution of a large donation of fruit trees that have been given to the municipality for planting in the communities around Bahia. This particular meeting took place in a neighborhood called Astillero. Neighbors came by to listen to a presentation on the importance of protecting the environment. We then shifted gears to cover the logistics of preparing the sites that have been designated for planting. These sites are municipal lands that were recovered from displaced people who lost their houses to mudslides. They will now be used to grow fruit trees which can provide food and possibly income to the neighborhood residents. It was inspiring to see the turn-out of people who are interested in this project. A clean-up was organized for the upcoming weekend to prepare the sites; and planting will take place next week. Towards the end of the meeting I was given the chance to present myself and Planet Drum. I talked about the work that Planet Drum does and offered our help in this project.
Thursday night one of our volunteers ran into some visitors from California who were passing through Bahia. It didn't take long to convince them to join us in our tree planting the next day. We rounded up some of our local Ecuadorian friends to pitch in as well. With the surge of labor, we tackled one of our more treacherous sites, El Toro. For a few dollars, we rented a truck to move some trees (the others were awaiting us there) and our crew of nine out to the remote site. En force we dug over eighty holes and filled them all with our trees. Despite the tiring work it was an energizing day spent in great company, working hard to do our part in reversing the destruction of nature. Many thanks to Tashina, Ariel and Ben for the unexpected volunteering!
Between the rains, community work and the Eco-week preparations, things are getting pretty hectic around here. Hopefully we will get a chance to take our weekend at the end of next week. I'll include the work from this weekend in next week's report. We continue to press on. Our bodies tire, but spirits remain high.
Clay
Although the rains have ceased since the initial few days of rain we received, only teasing us with an occasional sprinkle, we continued to plant our sites. At a certain point you have to plant no matter what. Once it gets too late in the season it's not worth planting anyways since the trees don't have enough time in the ground before the dry season, and we were getting very close to that time. So we stuck to our plan and now our work is in the hands of the climate. Every day that passed it looked more and more like it would rain. The humidity built, the heat intensified and the air became thick, but nothing came of it. Now having made it through the week, we did finally receive some rain over the past weekend, but it was a long week of anticipation.
We also had a fair share of community action in the past week, some of it inviting local groups to participate with Planet Drum on our work, and some of it branching out to help others with their work. There is always a bit more positive energy in the air when we get to work directly with others to help improve their surroundings.
And finally, there's been nearly a full turn over of volunteers. We were down to just one, thanks John for making it seem like there were actually more of us around, especially when it came to finishing planting trees at our new sites. But in the coming week we will be filling our ranks again with some new arrivals and we're definitely looking to the increase in our workforce.
As you may remember from the last report, we worked straight through the weekend at the beginning of this week in order to reforest all of this year's new sites as quickly as possible. So on Saturday we continued with our mission by planting trees at Maria Dolores. This is a particularly important site because it is on a partially eroded hill above a small cluster of houses. The land has already been used for maize plantings and the topsoil is particularly poor. We planted fifty trees in rows that will hopefully stabilize erosion.
Sunday morning I visited the Astillero neighborhood to meet up with local residents for a cleanup and preparation for the planting of fruit trees. This work was planned during a community meeting the previous Thursday (see last week's report). I helped clear brush and pick up garbage at two different planting sites. The trees will be planted on the coming Wednesday. It was great getting a chance to meet some of the people from this neighborhood, particularly in such an encouraging situation. While I was chopping away with my machete all morning, Wyatt and John got invited to the local radio station for the weekly environmental segment. They were interviewed by the radio host and got to promote our Planet Drum work and message over the airwaves. Way to go!
In the afternoon we planted our new site in the Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas (Forest in Middle of the Ruins). See the previous week's report for a description of this park. We also made an impromptu site in a natural clearing at the top of hill there. We planted twenty-five extra trees from our greenhouse. They will be much happier out in the open and should provide a nice improvement to the summit of Ruinas. Thanks again to Ramon for giving your help to us for another day. You really helped us out with our plantings this year.
On Monday we began work at our most treacherous of the new sites, Bosque Encantado. It includes one hundred trees that are far up on an erosion prone hillside. The walk in is arduous enough without hauling trees, compost and shovels. Furthermore we were down to our last volunteer. So it was just Jaime (our local Ecuadorian field expert), John and I working. Wyatt finally moved on after holding out for weeks waiting for a chance to do some planting. (He was the only one from our Planet Drum crew back in December to make it all the way to the plantings in the middle of February.) Many thanks are due; your work is greatly appreciated. Trees were moved up to the site, along with tools, but this alone took an entire day of work. In the afternoon I rode along with a couple of people from the Municipality to visit a site where the city will be planting palm trees. The plan is to line the median of the road from outside of town all the way into Bahia with two-thousand palms. We also took a tour of the composting facility for Bahia. In an effort to increase our contact with the Municipality I told them that Planet Drum would be willing to help them, as much as we can, with their palm tree project. It's a shame they're not planting native trees, but it's still nice to see the effort they are putting into to make Bahia look more beautiful.
And since we just couldn't get enough of Bosque Encantado on Monday, we had to go back to get some more on Tuesday. More trees were moved up while we began digging holes and planting trees. It was a long day, but between the three of us, we planted all one hundred trees. Exhausted, we trudged down the hill to the bus home. In the afternoon I visited some of the residents of the La Cruz neighborhood, where we had one last site left to reforest. I invited anyone from the neighborhood who was interested, particularly the kids, to join us the following day to help us plant trees.
Wednesday morning I attended a meeting at the municipality building while our other workers, John and Jaime with the help of Ricardito and his truck, gathered the trees we would be planting at La Cruz from the greenhouse and took them to the site. At the meeting we discussed plans for the upcoming Formal Session (part of the Eco-week), where Bahia has a chance to present outside politicians with work that's been done and future plans and ideas for the Eco-city.
From the morning meeting, which spilled over into the afternoon, I went directly to La Cruz to meet up with John and Jaime and to get the site ready for the kids who would be helping us plant. Shortly thereafter we were joined by a local community group of children called 'Mangrove Baseball' along with a handful of kids from the neighborhood surrounding our reforestation site. In total about thirty children showed up. I began with a talk about the importance of protecting our environment and why Planet Drum is working here in Bahia and why we are planting trees. La Cruz is situated on a steep hill within the city. Numerous houses are located below the site. It was easy to explain the importance of protecting such a dangerous hillside. I then gave a demonstration of how we transplant the trees from bottles into the ground using compost. After the demonstration we went to work. The kids did excellent work and really enjoyed it. It was great to see them getting into the work so much. It was truly a wonderful time, and it helped us finish that much more planting.
On Thursday we finished the last of our planting which entailed replanting trees where old ones from the previous year had died. We did this at the Bosque Encantado site where unfortunately there was a somewhat high mortality rate, possibly due to the late planting of trees there last year. Of about one-hundred and eighty trees, forty had to be replaced. We also had to do a quick watering session at two of the sites that we planted the previous week. They are rather exposed to sun and went a full week without water because of the lack of rain.
On Friday there was another municipality meeting for Eco-week preparations in the morning. Preparations are looking good. In the afternoon we went to help begin the planting of the palm tree project for the city. Things are run a bit differently with their operations, but it was still good to show our support. That night we had a small party at Cerro Seco and painted banners in preparation for the Parade, part of the Eco-week and Carnaval celebrations, on Saturday.
It was a busy week planting our final sites and getting ready for the upcoming Eco-week, but the community aspect of our work provided us with an extra boost of energy. Now all of our trees are ready for the upcoming week and it seems as though we are getting a bit more rain these days. With every rain all of this year's trees are reaching out with their roots into their new homes, strengthening themselves and supporting the surrounding soil.
Until next week …. ¡Viva la Eco-Ciudad!
Clay
Now that all of our planned new sites for the year have been planted and the rains have been keeping up a semi-regular basis, we've been able to devote most of our energy to the Eco-week and local community activities. Unfortunately we had to make it through this time with only one volunteer; it would have been nice to have some more faces representing Planet Drum. On the bright side, we had two new volunteers show up at the end of the week and the house feels more like we're a real group again.
The beginning of the Eco-week festivities coincided with Bahia's Carnaval. For a long weekend the streets we're packed with lots of people. That Saturday the local eco-amigos joined up with the city parade to show off some of our 'Green Consciousness.' We marched with banners and painted faces in the parade from one side of town to other. There were lots of people lining the streets and our messages got out to a large audience. Due to some poor organization on the part of the local government there was less involvement in marching from the local neighborhoods than usual in the parade. But I would guess that this was related to a general increase in the responsibility of coordinating the Eco-week on part of the local government and decreased responsibility of local community leaders. While on one hand this shows a growing role of the local government in Eco-activities here in Bahia, it also shows a potential pitfall of relying on them for too much and in the process overlooking neighborhood groups. We were still able to mobilize our group with the help of the Manglar Baseball group of kids and in total we numbered about twenty-five people marching. Sunday night the festivities of Carnaval continued and our next Eco-week event was the “Noche de Verde,” an artist's festival. Lots of people turned up for a great night of music.
Since there was nothing planned for the Eco-week on Monday and Tuesday, the last two days of Carnaval, we decided to take our long overdue days off from two weekend's before when we were planting on a Saturday and Sunday. We went with our bioregional education teacher, Ramon Loor, to a family house of his a few kilometers down the coast from Bahia. It was a perfect way to relax after a stretch of hard work. Upon returning Tuesday afternoon we gathered some of our trees from the greenhouse to bring to the municipality building for the open house on Wednesday.
Wednesday morning we set up our trees, some posters and a demonstration area with compost and plastic bottles for showing how we transplant trees at the municipality building. We had a fair amount of visitors show up to ask about our work and we were able to show off some practices. A few people showed up who have some potential planting sites that we can use to get rid of some extra trees from the greenhouse. It would be much better to have the trees out in sites as opposed to sitting for another year in the greenhouse. We are in the process of investigating these options, and there are at least two solid leads for new sites nearby La Cruz and in the Astillero neighborhood. We will be getting to work on these as soon as possible since we want to plant them before it gets too late in the rainy season. Two newspapers, El Nuevo Globo and El Mercurio, showed up as well as a local radio station. I gave interviews describing our work around Bahia and participation in the Eco-week. The Nuevo Globo article should be available on their website at: www.elnuevoglobo.com. There could have been a better turnout of visitors in person to our exhibition, but between the newspapers, radio station and some new contacts, the open house was still a success.
On Thursday we returned trees to the greenhouse and began doing some trail maintenance and a clean-up of Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas in preparation for some eco-tours that we will be conducting there. We are hoping to be able to help local residents of the neighborhood there begin their own tours of the park and possibly even be able to make some money in the process. This is a long term goal that we are beginning by keeping the park clean, planting new sites, and renewing relationships with the residents there and helping to begin interactive tours of the park. Look for more information about this in the next report.
On Friday there were two government meetings, one in the morning at the municipality building, and one in the afternoon at the city theater. The morning meeting was of local citizens concerned with the ecological progress of Bahia. We saw two presentations about possible projects in the area. One is a potential Private Protected Area that could unite Bahia and surrounding landowners who are interested in preserving their lands. The other project was for a Bahia ecological attraction for eco-tourists. Due to a lack of time we had to forgo a presentation I had prepared on Planet Drum. Despite this, the presentation is ready, and I am now thinking about giving smaller presentations directly to local residents within the neighborhoods in which we work. The afternoon event was the Formal Session of the Eco-week. Various government representatives gave speeches about the importance of conserving the natural resources in and around Bahia, as well as continuing with the mission of being declared an 'Eco-city.' After the speeches, some of the local government representatives went to an inner city park to plant Tamarind trees.
So far the Eco-week has had its ups and downs, as should be expected here in Ecuador. We've been able to get our message out a lot and have met some interesting people as well as seen some real dedication to the Eco-city mission, but there have also been some organizational problems throughout. And now we've delayed our planned Eco-tours a week to allow ourselves more time to publicize the events better. It definitely is an accomplishment that we are here working with a variety of other ecological groups to preserve this bioregion, but it is a constant uphill battle and you can never be sure how anything is going to turn out. Such is the environmental movement in Ecuador.
Hasta luego,
Clay
We survived the Eco-week with only one volunteer and a lot of support from our local Ecuadorian constituency. Our Planet Drum family has grown anew and we are back to a full house; it's amazing how quickly things can change and how much more we can get done with six people instead of two. These days we are focusing on getting extra trees out of the greenhouse. A lot of trees are getting far too big, some of which are even growing through the roof. Since we already planted the planned sites for the year, we are adding some impromptu sites, as well as beefing up some of the former sites. But as we plant more trees, we commit ourselves to more and more watering throughout the dry season (since we hand water our trees for their first year in the field). We've already planted over five hundred trees, and I suspect we are very close to the limits of our labor force once we hit the dry season. As a result, we are going to have to investigate the possibility of donating the remaining couple hundred trees in our greenhouse to make room for a fresh batch of plantings this coming year.
Despite arriving nearly two months late, the rainy season has finally kicked in. Since the beginning of March the rains have been very cooperative. Several consecutive nights of steady rain thus far. These rains saturate the ground much better than heavy downpours. Our sites are looking great and so far only a few trees have died in the process of transplanting.
Apart from planting sites we have also been keeping up community connections. We've reinitiated Planet Drum's contact with the Maria Auxialadora community and are attempting to position Bosque in Medio de las Ruinas as an attraction of the Eco-city, complete with local tour guides from the neighborhood. This project is taking off quickly, and hopefully if planned carefully it will be able to sustain itself. A couple of the residents have been secured as potential guides, some local children have been involved with planting in the park, and provincial consultants were contacted about receiving outside funding to help buy new interpretation signs for the park.
On Tuesday, February 27th we prepared a last minute site below the large cross (La Cruz) which overlooks Bahia. This is a spectacular site that has incredible views of the city being much higher than the streets below, but is also exceptionally close by. Additionally, the entire hillside is already in a badly eroded state with terribly poor soil. It's hard to say if our trees will make a difference here, as it may already be too late to prevent further erosion. But we had the extra trees and it's worth a shot, especially given the danger involved of this hillside that is directly above houses and the downtown of Bahia. On Wednesday we planted sixty trees, mostly Algarrobo and Aguia, fast growing, hardy trees that adapt easily to difficult terrain and require very little watering.
On Thursday we joined up with a nearby neighborhood in Leonidas Plaza that borders on the river Chone. We helped the residents come out and plant a couple hundred mangrove seeds on their waterfront. They hope to re-grow mangroves that were cut for shrimp farms to improve the estuary and create a future tourist attraction. Mangrove seeds were planted in circles around existing Mangrove clusters to increase their chances of survival. A large force of children and adults from the neighborhood showed up to help out. As with most of our community activities we began with a talk about the importance of protecting the environment, in this case the mangroves. Afterwards all trudged through the mud, sticking in Mangrove seeds, and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.
That Friday we collected Tierramonte leaves to use for compost on newly planted trees. Tierramonte leaves are regarded locally as being high in nutrients and decompose easily to make rich new soil. There are several Tierramonte shrubs at the Bosque Encantado site and we loaded up sacks with the rich leaves from under them. We also watered the new Maria Dolores and Don Pepe sites a little bit since they are exposed to direct sun and the consistent rains still haven't quite begun.
On Saturday we went out to Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas to lead an eco-tour for the residents of the Maria Auxialadora neighborhood. This was the first event of resumed relations with this neighborhood. A group of about twenty children and ten adults were through the park. We showed off the recently renovated staircases and painted handrails, along with the new trees that have been reforested there. Along the way we discussed the history of the park, the importance of maintaining it and replanting trees and the intention of trying to assist this neighborhood to lead their own eco-tours as a way to have a bit of income. The kids all seemed to have a fun time walking around the park. There are several adults who could be available to help lead tours. We will try to involve the children in future activities such as planting, maintenance and watering so that they can actively participate in their park. And continue to make improvements to the park so that it can serve as an ecological attraction in Bahia.
The following Monday, Tierramonte leaves collected from the previous week were planted at Bosque Encantado, El Toro and La Cruz sites.
That Tuesday some of us went back to Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas to prepare a new site there that was planned to be planted with the children of the neighborhood. This involved a lot of machete work to clear trails to the sites for the trees. This site will help get rid of some of extra trees and provides an excellent excuse to do some work with the local kids. At the same time two other groups headed out to transplant baby trees dug up from the field to grow in the greenhouse. We collected Samango seedlings that had sprouted under a large Samango tree near our Bosque Encantado site. These seedlings can save us the trouble of germinating seeds and starting them in the greenhouse. We collected about fifty seedlings, transported them to the greenhouse and planted them in bottles to grow until next year's planting season.
Wednesday we joined up with the neighborhood children of Bellavista to help them plant some trees donated by a provincial group, and held an environmental education session with the children outside on their basketball court while we were waiting for the trees to arrive. The kids were very enthusiastic and clearly enjoyed the opportunity to be able to help out with the work. That afternoon I had the opportunity to meet with the Matabi provincial consultants and ask for help at Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas.
On Thursday some of the volunteers put more Tierramonte leaves at the base of trees at La Cruz, while others collected more Samango seedlings and transplanted them to the greenhouse. I went on a field trip with Planet Drum founder Peter Berg, who is down visiting our satellite operation for a month, to investigate the possibility of road access to recently acquired Planet Drum land.
On Friday we carried seventy trees over to Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas and met up with the children of barrio Maria Auxialadora. After singing some songs and talking about our trees they helped us plant a new revegetation site there. Hopefully their enthusiasm will remain as high into the dry season when we will be asking for their help in watering this site. It's been exciting to see this neighborhood come out and participate in the work we are doing there. They seem genuinely interested in making this project happen. It's been started several times before over the years, but if we can take it step by step without getting too far ahead of ourselves, I think we have a good chance of succeeding.
There's been a lot of interesting work going on these days. The rains are sparing us the task of watering our sites and we have been able to increase our maintenance efforts so that the sites can strengthen up for the dry season. The more the trees can grow in this short period of rain, the better off they will be during the dry summer. Tierramonte and catchments are our main strategies for this. Apart from our revegetation, our community ties are doing great and will hopefully continue to flourish, especially with the Maria Auxialadora neighborhood and Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas. This park has always been our model site and hopefully our current project of beginning eco-tours there will allow the residents of the neighborhood to get involved in what is a sustainable resource for them. As the rain nourishes the trees we've planted, our Planet Drum team pushes forward…
…Trabajando para nuestro futuro.
Hasta luego,
Clay
Greetings from Bahia de Caraquez. It's been awhile since there's been an update and a lot has happened. March was our one month of real rain this year, and even so it was still pretty sparse. We finished the planting we will be doing this season, all in all about eight hundred trees. That's a lot of trees that are going to need watering this dry season. We ended up planting more than initially planned, but with a good team of volunteers I think that we'll be able to handle the watering. Thus far in April there have been a few small showers, which bodes well for all the trees in the ground. The plants in this region are incredibly well adapted to maximize the little rain water they get during this season of the year; and the recent sprinkles should prepare them nicely for the upcoming dry season. Even the hand watering we do for our trees throughout the year can't compare to a natural downpour. Given the short rainy season this year, these light rains are critical for our revegetation projects.
There's been more volunteer turnover as well. We were down to two (Liz and Lise) but are now up to four, welcome Rox and Christine to the Planet Drum family. It was sad to see John (Juan) from England leave. He and I were the only two workers at one point during our marathon tree planting in February. He made it through our tough times and helped make the good times that much better. We wish him the best in the rest of his travels across South America. We're shaping up to have a great crew for the next few months leading into summer, when it's looking like we're going to burst at the seams with volunteers. There's no shortage of work here, so it will be fantastic to have so many volunteers around.
Peter Berg, Planet Drum founder, came and visited Bahia for the month. It was great having him around. He really helped to boost the energy here and we were able to accomplish more than usual. Of many, the final highlight of his trip was a bilingual presentation at the city museum about Planet Drum and the Eco-city. Preparations for the event included numerous trips to local media outlets which provided an excellent excuse to further publicize the work we've done here. Local awareness of the ecological work going on in Bahia could always use a boost, and this was a great way to do it. In fact one of the many reasons for giving the presentation was to begin a monthly series of presentations which will allow for local eco-groups to share their experiences with others. The next event in the series will take place at the end of this month and will be presented by Marcelo Luque of the Cerro Seco nature preserve. He will talk about the rich diversity of birds in the area and developing local private protected areas among other topics.
The other major event of March was a visit from the Children of Ecuador foundation of Canada (www.childrenofecuador.ca). Forty-seven of them came to Bahia to help out with a variety of volunteer projects, including Planet Drum. Fortunately they split up into groups of 15 for the work. They spent seven work days with us and although hectic at times, the amount of work they helped us accomplish was incredible. We were able to give them a nice slice of our projects, including work in remote revegetation sites and getting involved with local communities working to assist in the sustainable development of their neighborhoods. With the rain we have been receiving, and plants triggered to grow like crazy with a few drops, weeds have been overgrowing the trails through our revegetation sites to the point where they become completely unrecognizable. The first day of the Canadians' visit we took them to help hack out our most treacherous (and ironically named) site, Bosque Encantado. The fun continued with the creation of the last sites we will plant this year, supplements to the sites we already have. The groups helped us clear, plant trees and water them. One of these days took place in Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas in the Maria Auxialadora neighborhood and we got local kids to come help us out. Our relationship with this community is really growing, it's very exciting. Most recently we're in the process of making interpretive signs to put around the Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas park and they've invited us to take part in the painting of murals (financed by the city) along the main road through their barrio. We also got the Children of Ecuador group involved with the Bellavista community. We all pitched in to help prepare their lookout (mirador) for it's opening this past weekend. The lookout includes a gazebo and roofed picnic tables to attract tourists. The opening was a big success and incredible fun. The Bellavista community has worked incredibly hard for years to develop themselves from practically nothing. They have particular interest in environmental restoration and education, of which Planet Drum has done a large part in the past. It's great to continue this relationship and see them doing so well. The Canadian volunteers got really into all the work we did here and elsewhere. And it was great to be able to share some of the Ecuadorian experience with them.
One of our main side projects these days is the creation of educational booklets on a variety of topics for use in our bioregional education class resuming at the end of April. Topics include Bioregions, Soil, Flora and Fauna, Recycling, Compost, Nutrition, Alternative Energy, Natural disasters, and Indigenous culture. Liz and Lise have spearheaded this project. Once we have the booklets we will be able to distribute them beyond our own bioregional class and possibly help start other classes.
Some miscellaneous activities from the last month include writing a letter to contribute to the fight by the local government against the construction of cell phone towers in populated areas. The letter included the possible harm the towers could cause to humans and recommendations as to how to minimize the environmental impact of tower construction. The jury is still out on the outcome. Our volunteers also took a field trip one day to visit the provincial government greenhouses in Portoviejo for their revegetation projects. It was interesting to see other greenhouse techniques and to see that the government is taking interest in creating their own revegetation projects.
It's been another exciting month here at Planet Drum. Come volunteer or get involved by emailing planetdrumecuador@yahoo.com.
Hasta luego,
Clay
This week we had two new volunteers show up, Christine from California and Roxanne from Scotland. We said goodbye to our Canadian friends from the Children of Ecuador foundation. We celebrated Semana Santa (Holy Week), a national holiday, and we got a bit closer with the Bellavista community by celebrating the opening of their lookout tourist attraction.
On Monday I went out with a group of 15 from the Children of Ecuador volunteers. We helped the municipality with the planting of Algarobo trees along the road that goes by the trash dump and composting facility. The city is planning to plant roughly one thousand trees along this road. We started this process with about one hundred trees or so. Although the premise is somewhat superficial, planting trees to block the view from the road of the city dump, the project involves planting these native trees, which were donated from Provincial greenhouses. It was a good way to give the Canadian group a glimpse of some of the municipality's projects and the way they operate. It wasn't the most inspiring project but it involved using native trees, which we are always in favor of. Helping the city out with some of their projects now and again also aids when Planet Drum needs to ask a favor of them.
While I was out on the roadside with the Canadian volunteers, Liz and Lise remained back at the office to work on preparing materials for our Bioregional Education class which is going to start sometime within the next month. We're making progress, but there's still a lot that needs to get done and the beginning of the classes is rapidly approaching.
On Tuesday I led all the forty-something Canadians from Children of Ecuador up to Bellavista to give them a tourist's visit of the community after some of them had already gotten the chance to do some work there. We walked through the community, and had a tour of the school, its cafeteria, and their community greenhouse. We then all went on a hike through the Cerro Seco Nature Reserve which led us out onto the beach and then back into the community. We hiked up to the Bellavista mirador (lookout) and were served a typical lunch of delicious shrimp viche (soup). It was a whirlwind tour of the community, but a nice way to show off a lot of the hard work they've been doing in order to develop themselves. The lunch also provided a test run for cooking up large amounts of food to serve community visitors at the mirador. The Mayor came out at the end of the visit to thank the Canadian group for their work around Bahia which include: volunteering for Planet Drum, helping with construction at a local school, and cleaning up at the hospital. Afterwards we thanked them for all the hard work they did for us, said goodbye, and they then took off to Canoa Beach for some relaxing.
At the same time as I was leading the Bellavista tour, the rest of our volunteers went out to water the El Toro site. The trees are looking good given the marginal amount of rain that has been falling.
On Wednesday the Planet Drum crew headed over to our Ruinas site for some more watering. A brief lull in rains required us to resume some watering; fortunately it was disrupted by some light evening showers which saved us from getting into full watering mode for a bit longer. The resumed showers allowed us to take a break from field work to get some much needed house cleaning done on Thursday, and take a well deserved vacation with the rest of Ecuador on Friday to celebrate Semana Santa.
On Saturday the celebrations continued. In the afternoon all of Planet Drum and some of our eco-amigos returned to Bellavista for the opening of their mirador. We joined in with their festivities by participating in traditional dances. Liz sang some songs and played guitar and I gave a speech about Planet Drum's history with the Bellavista, which includes years of working together in ecological restoration. I congratulated Bellavista on the great strides they have made in developing their community, and stressed the need to continue the hard work of protecting and restoring their natural environment, and also that Planet Drum is proud to be able to work with such a dedicated community. It was a special occasion and quite amazing to be part of a real celebration of the accomplishments they've made. Long live Bellavista.
Until next week,
Clay
This week we focused efforts on reforestation projects and the greenhouse. We've planted most of the trees from the greenhouse for this year and are beginning to think about growing trees for next year's sites. With an initial goal of 2,500 trees for the coming year, we need to begin growing now (and collecting a lot of bottles to grow them in).
On Monday we collected bottles around town and then went to the greenhouse to dump our house compost. We turned decomposing compost to keep the process moving as well as cleaning out a lot of the weeds in the greenhouse.
On Tuesday we picked up some more bottles around town and prepared identification signs for our latest Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas (Forest in the Middle of the Ruins) site. Identification signs make finding our trees for watering easier and also serve to distinguish the site from the surroundings so that people passing by are aware that there is a project underway and are less likely to tamper with our trees. We put the signs up at the site that was planted with the Children of Ecuador group and at the same time improved the water catchments around the trees there. On Wednesday we did the same, but at the site we planted with the Canadian group at Bosque Encantado. These sites are now ready to brave the dry season, because they are loaded up with mulch and have circles to catch water.
On Thursday we went and watered the two sites, Maria Dolores and Don Pepe, which have the least shade and are the most exposed to the sun. A brief lull in the rain made us nervous for our trees there, but as luck would have it, that night it rained really hard.
In a light morning rain we went out and collected baby Samango and Algarobo trees from around Ricardito's farm. Tons of small Samango trees are growing under two large ones on his property. We transplanted them from the ground and took them to the greenhouse where we made soil with our compost in order to plant them into 3-liter bottles where they will be grown until next year's planting season. It was pleasant work in the cool morning and exciting to see the greenhouse filling up with trees again.
Hasta la proxima vez,
Clay
The rains continue and so does the reforestation work. We are underway with loading up the greenhouse with trees for next year and this will occupy much time in the coming weeks and months. The slower growing trees are being planted early so they will have the most time to grow before being transplanted in the sites. Faster growing trees will be planted closer to the next rainy season so that they don't get too big.
Our bioregion education preparations also continue. It is slow going preparing individual booklets on the topics we've chosen (such as Flora, Fuana, Marine Life, Esuaries, Nutrition, and Compost to name a few), but I think it will be worth it because once they are completed, we will be able to distribute the materials beyond our Bioregional Education class to communities and schools as well.
On Monday we collected more bottles. Aside from walking around town and picking up discarded bottles, we have developed what is now a steady source of 3-liter bottles, a local school of about eight-hundred students, who unfortunately drink a lot of soda. On the bright side, every bottle is going to be turned into the home of a native tree. We leave large sacks with shop owners who sell the soda, and every couple days we can collect the empty bottles. A new stash of baby Guayacan trees was discovered at our Maria Dolores site and we collected many of them to transplant into the greenhouse. The bottles don't stay empty for long as we are finding more and more trees to fill them.
Liz and Lise worked on Bioregional Education materials on Tuesday while the rest of the crew went to Bosque Encantado to do some trail maintenance on the new site there. We found a new trail that is less treacherous and will be less erosion prone. On a lower section where there is only one possible entrance up a steep ravine, we began construction of stairs to make the ascent less difficult.
We were invited Wednesday to help plant some trees on land recently acquired by the Bahia mayor, Dr. Carlos Mendoza. The land happens to be adjacent to the Interamerican school where we have an old reforestation site from a couple of years ago. The mayor received several hundred trees from the Provincial greenhouse and is excited to plant them. Despite being late in the season for planting (we would have recommended planting a couple of months ago) the mayor insists on pushing forward and has excellent water access and people to water his trees on a regular basis. We helped with the planting in order to further improve our relationship with him as well as scope out a potential new site for next year. There are a lot of barren hillsides on his land and he wants to plant trees everywhere so there are a lot of possibilities.
On Thursday and Friday we continued transplanting little Guayacan from the Maria Dolores site to the greenhouse, turned compost and then finished the staircase at Bosque Encantado, while Liz and Lise worked on Bioregional Education materials.
Hasta Luego,
Clay
After a slight lull in our community work, this week saw a strong resurgence. Through further developing relations with La Universidad Católica de Bahia I was able to connect two groups which now have a great opportunity to benefit from each other. The Maria Auxialadora neighborhood, where an eco-tourism development plan exists for the Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas (an inner-city park heavily revegetateded by Planet Drum over the past eight years), and the Universidad are now working together with our assistance. La Universidad Católica's eco-tourism education program does practical work on local projects. They have the technical expertise to assist with tour guide training and promotion, as well as species identification in the park. There is a lot of work to be done, and much at this early stage relies on the motivation of the neighborhood residents to sacrifice their time and energy for a project with benefits that will not be realized in the short-term. We are using our influence in the neighborhood to help show the importance of conserving the park and how it can be developed into an attraction and hopefully one day a sustainable source of revenue. Involving the kids of the neighborhood in our activities is one example of this, but ultimately the motivation will need to come from the residents themselves. It's their park and they are the ones who will be giving the tours, protecting the landscape, and sustainably gaining from a green resource.
At the same time we began planting seeds, which we collected from various sites around Bahia, in the greenhouse. The greenhouse continues to be transformed from containing larger trees that have been there for months or even over a year (three to six feet tall) to small trees that are only a few inches high. It's inspiring to see the little trees that with our care and water will be ready to plant at next year's sites.
On Monday we turned our compost, transplanted more Guayacan trees from the Maria Dolores site, and prepped seed beds for planting. That afternoon we prepared seeds for planting by scratching them to speed germination and left them overnight in water.
Tuesday we collected some more 3-liter bottles on the way to the greenhouse, where we planted beds of Guachepeli and Dormilon seeds. In the afternoon I secured a lecture hall site for the second part of our adult education series to be presented by Marcelo Luque of Cerro Seco. The presentation will be given at the brand new Eloy Alfaro University in Leonidas Plaza, a suburb of Bahia. Marcelo Luque will present on the biodiversity of local ecosystems: very dry tropical forests, dry tropical forests, wet tropical forests, Mangrove estuaries, and marine life. Look for coverage of the presentation in next week's report.
On Wednesday I gave a tour of Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas for the director of La Universidad Católica in Bahia as well as two students currently enrolled in the eco-tourism program. While out touring with them, we had volunteers working in our office preparing materials for our Bioregional Education class, as well as a team in the greenhouse who had picked up baby Algarobo trees from Ricardito's farm and were transplanting them in the greenhouse. That afternoon several of us (with Marcelo Luque) headed out to a neighborhood that borders on the Rio Chone river. It has a small patch of Mangrove trees which we have been helping them expand. We rounded up some neighborhood kids and gave a lecture on the sidewalk about the birds and animals that live in Mangroves. Then with their help we trudged through the low-tide mud, sticking in Mangrove seeds along the way. Walking barefoot through estuary mud with local Ecuadorian kids planting mangroves is a lot of fun.
On Thursday while the Planet Drum crew was back at the greenhouse transplanting more hardy little Guayacan trees, I took off to the El Toro site to meet with the landowner there. We discussed the options for water access during the dry season so that volunteers can fill up watering containers directly at the site. We also resolved a previous problem where another family member who is an inheritor of the land was considering letting pigs into the site where we have year old trees. Additionally we scoped out a promising area for a new site for next year. The land owner is also going to talk to his neighbors to help look for other ecologically minded landowners in the same watershed where we may be able to have more sites.
In the afternoon I attended the first meeting of the development of the Cordillera Balsamo which will be a conglomeration of private land owners in the Bahia area with the city municipality, the mayor, and local schools and universities, among other groups, to form a pact for environmental conservation, reforestation, eco-tourism, and sustainable development. The group is clearly very wide reaching in scope, but hopefully by uniting similarly minded groups we will be able to form a stronger force for ecological restoration and sustainability. Together, the group will have greater political clout, including the possibility for legal support and drafting of environmental laws, as well as the support of a network of private protected areas throughout Ecuador and Peru. More on this in coming reports as well.
On Friday we stayed in Bahia and did another top to bottom house cleaning to keep our abode in order.
Nos vemos, cuídense,
Clay
We started off the week with more Bioregional Education preparations and a trip to the greenhouse. At the greenhouse we turned compost and weeded trees. While volunteers took care of this work, I had a meeting inside the Universidad Catolica, to discuss possibilities for working more closely together, beyond using their land for our greenhouse. University students may be able to help us with site maintenance, including tree watering. There is also the possibility of making a new reforestation site on their land for next year's rainy season. The university has lots of available students, who we may be able to connect with volunteer projects, such as our eco-tourism work in Maria Auxiladora. It was a promising meeting and I look forward to working more closely with the people at the University.
On Tuesday we took a field trip over to the Bellavista neighborhood and met up with our good friend Orlando. He led us around his neighborhood and we collected seeds from a Laurel tree and a variety of Cascol and Uña de Gato trees there that are dropping their seed pods. We collected hundreds of seeds from all three species of trees.
On Wednesday we were back at the greenhouse. There is a stash of baby Guachepelli growing in a field nearby and we are going to try and transplant them into bottles to grow in the greenhouse. We also did a trip with Ricardito to the dump to throw out a barrel full of trash—the rest of the pickup truck was full of plastic bottle cuttings, which we took to a man we know in Leonidas Plaza who runs his own recycling business in his backyard. Plastic recycling collection is surprisingly non-existent in Bahia, which is one reason finding 3-liter soda bottles around town is so easy. Wednesday night three new volunteers showed up: Judith, originally from England, has been teaching English in Quito and is taking a month to volunteer on the coast; and Kirk and Crista from Canada, Kirk is fulfilling the field portion of his masters program and they will be here for the next three months.
Thursday we did more Bioregional Education preparations and transplanted another batch of Guachepeli trees. I had to stay in Bahia for a meeting at the municipality about a group of landowners who are joining together to make a network of private protected areas in the Bahia region. We also discussed preparations for a related international exhibition of ecological work in Bahia that will take place May 10th and 11th at the municipal theater. More details on this as progress unfolds. That evening Marcelo Luque and I presented the second part of our evening adult education program at the Eloy Alfaro University in Leonidas Plaza. I gave an introduction with a background of the work that Planet Drum has been doing over the years, including a detailed description of our reforestation project, with slides from the past four months. I then left the stage to Marcelo who gave an excellent presentation about the Flora and Fauna of Canton Sucre (this region of Ecuador), detailing the different ecosystems present here: Very dry tropical forests, Dry tropical forests, Wet tropical forests, Mangrove estuaries, and Marine life. With an audience of over seventy students, members of the community and the staff of Planet Drum, the presentation was a big success.
The next morning as we rode the bus to the greenhouse, we heard a detailed description over the radio of the previous night's presentation, which was repeated several times. Once there, we finished our transplanting of Guachepeli trees. Some of us stayed home and did even more Bioregional Education prep and that afternoon I went up to Bellavista to talk to some locals about helping make some bunk beds for one of the dorm rooms in the house. The bunk beds will allow us to have another volunteer stay in the house, which will bring the total space for volunteers in the house up to six.
More volunteers keep showing up and soon we will be able to accommodate one more in the house. As our numbers increase so does the amount of work we can take on. If you're interested in volunteering, send an email to: planetdrumecuador at yahoo dot com.
Hasta luego,
Clay
It's been an interesting week full of greenhouse visits and international outreach. On Monday we worked on the bioregional education materials. A nearly thirty page booklet, in Spanish, on the concept of bioregionalism, with a focus on the Bahia bioregion, is taking shape, complete with field trips and outdoor exercises for kids. We dumped off our house compost at the greenhouse, collected some 3-liter bottles and then took care of some weeding. During the day I attended another meeting on private protected areas and finalized plans for the international event slated for Thursday and Friday.
On Tuesday we split into groups, some stayed at the office continuing educational preparations, others went to our Bosque Encantado site and a few to our La Cruz site to clean weeds, do trail maintenance and check on trees. The trees are looking great, only a small percentage have died since being transplanted in mid-February. The semi-consistent rains so far this year have been good enough to maintain trees with only minimal manual watering. The same rains have also sustained a healthy number of 'weeds' competing with trees that need to be cleared periodically.
On Wednesday a group headed to planted sites in Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas to clear weeds there as well, while others went to Leonidas Plaza to help pick up 3-liter bottles from the streets. We found over 8 large sacks before going to the greenhouse to cut them so they will be ready for holding transplanted trees. On the way home a handful of trees were brought along for a display at the international event in the municipality.
Thursday was Day One of a two day event that brought environmentally minded groups from around Ecuador and northern Peru together in Bahia to share experiences and ideas about how to protect and restore the environment. Representatives of numerous communities and organizations gave presentations of their hard work throughout the day. Planet Drum had an interactive booth set up to show off some of our trees and greenhouse techniques for revegetationing. In the afternoon the group of private land owners convened to sign an accord to enter the network of private protected forests of Ecuador. It provides participants with resources and legal services to better protect, actively restore and sustainably develop land. The initial group of fifteen members included Planet Drum, the Mayor of Bahia, Sra. Flor Maria Dueñas, Jacob Santos, and Marcelo Luque among others. The Bahia-based participants agreed to work together to further ecological awareness, environmental protection and actively working to restore natural balances, such as revegetation.
On Friday the visitors to Bahia, many of them sponsored by DarwinNet, were given a tour of some of the natural resources and ecological projects in the area. The group of roughly fifty people was taken through Isla Corazon, an island of Mangroves protected by local residents who give eco-tours. From there they visited the Planet Drum greenhouse. I gave a tour of the greenhouse including an in-depth explanation of revegetation practices. Response to our project was very positive and there were a lot of great questions from the visitors. From the greenhouse, everyone took public buses back to the Bahia and went to the Bellavista neighborhood to see some of the community development that has been going on there as well as take a tour of the Cerro Seco nature preserve. It was an action packed day, but it really showed off the strengths of the ecological projects that are taking place in Bahia. It was great getting to share experiences with people from other regions, some of which were also dry tropical forest areas. Overall I think the event was a big success.
Until next week,
Saludos,
Clay
There are Ceibos and Guarango trees in our greenhouse that we seeded in November that are already two meters tall. Some of them are poking through the lower sections of the roof of the greenhouse. Although it is very late in the year to be planting, we are finding homes for them. We will plant a fresh batch of these species for next year's reforestation sites later in the season, roughly three to four months before scheduled planting so that they are the proper size. With some more rains like we've been having, these late planted trees should be fine, and the extra space in our greenhouse will allow us to grow even more trees for next year.
On Monday and Tuesday we made an impromptu site next to the Inter-Americana School (where Planet Drum has planted in the past). This site is on the Mayor of Bahia's land. We planted 65 trees (Ceibos, Guarango, and some leftover Guasmos) on an entirely deforested hill. The Mayor is very excited to be reforesting on his land and has even installed tanks for water and has caretakers there who will water the trees for us.
On Wednesday we split up into a variety of small groups taking care of Bioregional Education material preparations, a greenhouse trip to do some upkeep and bring home five big Ceibos that we are donating to the Bellavista community, bottle hunting, and sign painting for the Bosque en Medio de Las Ruinas. We are making signs to put up in the Ruinas park that will identify some of the native species that we have planted there. This will be part of the eco-tours that we are hoping to help start.
Thursday some volunteers went back to the greenhouse, picking up bottles from the Fanny de Baird school on the way, to meet with a friend of ours from the Los Caras barrio at kilometro 16. This is another very motivated community who are trying to develop eco-tourism and ecologically friendly growth. They have soy bean farms and make their own soybean products, including a soy meat substitute similar to tofu, soy yogurt, ice cream, milk, cakes and a variety of other creative foods. They are also a member of the Cordillera el Balsamo group (see previous report). They expressed interest in some of the extra trees we have in our greenhouse. They even brought their own truck to the greenhouse to pick the trees up. And we are invited to visit them in a few weeks to check up on the trees and get a tour of their community. Maxi, our friend from Los Caras, helped us load up a bunch of Ceibos, Guasmo, Cedro, and Seca. The greenhouse is looking pretty empty with so many of the big trees gone. This is good since we already have a bunch of small trees sprouting out of our seed beds.
While those volunteers were at the greenhouse, others stayed home to work on Bioregional education. I graciously thank Tomas and Mariana from Portugal who came by for a week of volunteering at just the right time. Tomas, your translation of bioregional education materials for the booklet we are making for the children of Bahia was an incredible gift, which we can now proudly use to teach them of the importance of finding balance with our natural surroundings. At the same time, Marianna and I made preparations for a presentation to the city consejales on the topic of cell phone antenna tower construction in downtown Bahia. Apparently a letter that we wrote in March about the potential dangers of cell phone antennas led to the halting of construction of a cell phone tower in the middle of Bahia. Because of this initial involvement, we were invited to give a presentation to city government representatives who will be deciding whether or not the tower construction will continue. Other presenters included representatives from the giant cell phone companies Porta, Alegro, and Movistar, the commissioner of health for Bahia, and an Ecuadorian telecommunications official who had rather overt connections to the cell phone companies. It should be rather obvious who was on which side of the debate. With the vital help of a surprise volunteer, Marianna, who has a degree in environmental law, we spent the day touring the municipality building gathering information and developing our argument. Mariana, your determination and wit helped to put together an excellent presentation, which drew from the constitution of Ecuador and declaration of Bahia as an eco-city. Many of the other presenters used detailed scientific data and studies to support their arguments for why the towers and antennas are safe or why they are dangerous. In the end, the presentation I gave attempted to question what Bahia represents as an eco-city, what that entails, and how its citizens can relate to the technologies that have become an integral part of daily life. The overall response to my presentation was very positive. Additionally, there was clearly an overwhelmingly strong sentiment against the construction of antenna towers within the compact city center. Many local residents came out for the public event, some of them live in houses bordering or very nearby the potential construction site. The latest news is that construction has been halted, and it seems as though future tower and antenna construction will happen outside of downtown Bahia. A movement to remove the few (three?) antennas which already exist here seems unlikely to succeed. The entire event was quite intense and there was a lot of tension in the air between the opposing sides of the debate.
On Friday we took sanctuary in the greenhouse and decompressed a bit after the antenna presentation by planting a bunch of Guachepeli, Dormilon, Caoba and Seca seeds. Confronting multinational corporations makes working in the greenhouse that much more soothing.
Sunday morning I took a visit to the semi-weekly, ecological radio program and participated in their discussion of some of the environmental issues facing Bahia. Afterwards I talked to Don Pedro Otero who runs the radio program and owns lands in the El Toro water basin. He invited me to take a tour of his land and scope out potential sites for reforestation next year. That afternoon we went out and hiked around his farm and admired the forested hills he is dedicated to protecting. Though beautiful, unfortunately much of this land was pillaged of the most valuable wood as recently as fifteen years ago. There are two possible locations on his land that would make great sites for us with water available close by. Don Pedro also expresses interest in delivering a presentation as part of our monthly adult education series.
We started the week with a greenhouse trip to drop off some fresh compost material from our house, water and clean weeds. While there we planted some more Guachepeli and Cascol seeds. We then filled up water jugs to take over to the Don Pepe and Maria Dolores revegetation sites. A slight dry spell forced us to resume watering a bit. The Don Pepe site looks great, while a handful of trees have died at Maria Dolores. Those that died suffered a lot since being transplanted and never had a chance to really take root. The trees that are alive look very healthy.
Also, a rather large undertaking of installing watering systems for each of the trees at this year's sites has begun. The most economical, natural and hopefully efficient method appears to be using Caña (bamboo) tubes. This is a method used in the past with some success. I have modified the technique a little this year to hopefully improve upon the previous design. The tubes are cut slightly longer and dug into the ground further to be able to deliver water more directly to the tree roots. Caña trees grow rapidly in the wetter climates nearby Bahia. A nine meter trunk costs two dollars and can be used to make roughly twenty-seven tubes suitable for watering trees. The plan for installing them is to dig as close to the tree as possible without disturbing the root system and bury the entire tube except the top couple of inches. The tubes will help get water to the soil around the roots. They should also minimize the effects of evaporation since they will allow the ground under the surface to get the water directly. The top couple inches of the tubes are painted to help identify trees. This is helpful for volunteers who are carrying water around in the woods who need to be able to tell quickly where planted trees are. It also helps to notify passerby's that there is a project underway on the land; this is more important at some of sites than others.
On Tuesday after going to Bosque Encantado to do some watering, I acquired the poles from the local Caña dealer. At the same time part of our ten person crew stayed at the house translating Bioregional Education materials and starting a mural on the wall outside the house.
On Wednesday, Caña poles were cut into pieces small enough to fit in Ricardito's pickup truck to take them to the greenhouse. At the greenhouse we filled up gallon jugs and took a trip to El Toro to do some more watering. Water sources at El Toro, Don Pepe, and Maria Dolores still need to be finalized, so for now water has to be taken to them. Back at the house resident volunteer artists finished up a beautiful new house entrance. Tomas continued translating the Bioregional Education booklet. That night it rained, perhaps because we had begun watering our sites by hand again.
On Thursday we cut and painted a load of Caña tubes, carried them to the Maria Dolores site and installed them at the trees.
Friday the same was done for the site at Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas. While there, we discovered that more of the hand rails had been stolen again. This is clearly an act by someone determined to prevent progress in the park. The handrails themselves are worthless; they only represent the work of volunteers who are trying to create an attraction to help the neighborhood. The local residents are clearly upset by the news, but they don't have much in the way of solutions. For now it seems as though there isn’t a lot that can be done to prevent someone from stealing Muyuyo poles (the handrails) from a park which can't be monitored. This represents an unfortunate hindrance to developing the park, particularly at a time when more people, such as the Universidad Catolica, are getting involved in the project. Since this has already happened three times while I've been here (since January), I'm quite reluctant to simply replace the stolen handrails again. We'll have to see what the University thinks about the situation and decide how to continue. My current plans are to begin development in a different direction, which is to build a community greenhouse. I've talked to some community members and it appears as though there is a possible location, and definitely high interest among the local kids. This will take some planning an organizing, but keep an eye out for developments down the line.
Despite the unfortunate set back at Ruinas, it's been another jam-packed week. I'm hopeful for the new watering system which I think will make a big difference in helping the little trees make it through their first dry season. Additionally, the rains have been picking up, suggesting that the real dry season may be a little ways off. This is great news for the trees that have been planted this year.
Hasta luego,
Clay
It rained consistently from last Wednesday through
Saturday night. Although very late this year, they have been real rainy
season rains, every night, almost all night long. Some people are talking
about delayed rains since they were never that strong during the actual
rainy season. The climate has definitely changed from winter (typically wet
season, hotter and sunnier) to summer (typically dry season, cooler and
cloudier), except for the rains. We haven't had multiple days of rain in a
row all year until now. We'll have to see how long they last, but they've
been great for our trees.
Another week began with a greenhouse trip. We turned compost, cut Caña tubes, and took some big Guarango trees to replace the nine trees that died at Maria Dolores. Some of us stayed home finishing up Bioregional Education materials for the class which begins on Wednesday.
On Tuesday we installed cut Caña tubes at Bosque Encantado. It's quite a feat carrying sacks of bamboo up the hillsides to where there is a site of over one hundred trees. Fortunately the numbers of volunteers are strong these days.
On Wednesday a group went to buy and cut more Caña. Others were working on some bunk beds being built for one of our rooms, so it can hold four volunteers instead of only three. That will bring the total spaces for volunteers in the house up to six. Lise and I put the finishing touches on the Bioregional Education booklets and had them printed (photocopied). That afternoon we handed them over to the latest class of bioregionalists, twenty bright students who will receive bi-weekly instruction from Ramon. Look for reports from him in the coming weeks.
On Thursday the Bellavista neighborhood invited Planet Drum to help out with some of the environmental work that they are doing. We helped them plant some trees and did maintenance on their greenhouse. I took a trip to La Universidad Catolica to get a signature from the director for the Cordillera el Balsamo private protected areas group. While there we discussed the idea of using the greenhouse at the Bahia campus as a model for the two other campuses they have in Portoviejo and Chone. It is possible to start eco-clubs at the other schools to get interested students together. We would then help them construct their own greenhouses; and show them how our current greenhouse is run. They would then be able to maintain the greenhouses on their own and with just a periodic check in. Clearly this project will take some time, but I think it's quite feasible. Thursday night two new volunteers showed up: Farhad and Angela from Berkeley California. There are currently eight volunteers, four of whom are staying at the Hostal Bahia Bed and Breakfast.
On Friday there was a field trip into the woods of Fanca to hike through some of the dry tropical forest we are working to restore. Jaime led the group along the ridge between the El Toro and Fanca watersheds, in which there are multiple reforestation sites. Along with a great view of Bahia at the mouth of the river Chone, we saw hundred year old Guayacan, large Caoba, Ceibo, Dormilon, Seca, and Matapalo, among other trees. It was a beautiful hike and everyone enjoyed getting to see what the trees in the greenhouse will look like in twenty, fifty and a hundred years.
I'm taking a couple weeks of vacation, part of which I will be heading back to my home town of Philadelphia. I'll be leaving our most senior volunteer Lise in charge, so she'll be taking care of the next two reports. See you all again in two weeks.
Nos vemos. Cuídense.
Clay
It has been a busy and interesting week. Clay has gone on a holiday to his homeland and left us with a long list of things to do, but at the same time new volunteers have arrived to help out with these tasks. The Planet Drum work force increased with two new volunteers this week, Maria from Argentina and Melissa from California. Maria studies biology and environmental science and speaks fluent Spanish and English, and Melissa, also a Spanish speaker, studies literature and environmental science back home. We are now 10 volunteers, and with such a big team we have had time to get a lot more involved with the community.
We started the week with a good clean-up of the house and the bodega (storeroom) downstairs. Two volunteers went to the greenhouse to check on our trees, do watering and empty the compost. In the afternoon I took a group of volunteers up to the neighborhood of Maria Auxiladora to celebrate El Dia del Niño (Children’s Day) with the kids. We had a fun afternoon singing, dancing and playing games.
Tuesday was dedicated to art. We went to El Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas Park and brought one of the entrance signs back to the house to repaint. Other volunteers painted colorful signs for the greenhouse, so that volunteers and visitors can easily identify the different tree species. We also had a couple of volunteers working on designing new presentation signs for Planet Drum displays, as some of them were damaged by water last time we used them.
On Wednesday a couple of volunteers stayed back in the house to cut Caña trunks. The rest of us went to our site in Don Pepe to install Caña tubes there. The ground was hard, but we managed to install tubes for all the trees, and we should be able to water the site more efficiently now without having problems with water running down the steep hill.
On Thursday we did the same procedure as Wednesday. A couple of people stayed in the house preparing Caña tubes for the next day and our by now well-experienced tube installing team went to our la Cruz site to install about 75 tubes. The process went smoothly. The ground was more humid than at the Don Pepe site the day before, and it was a lot easier to dig holes for the tubes. One of our volunteers went with Ricardito on a field trip to Charapoto to get a truck load of rice hulls. Within the next week we are going to put handfulls of rice hulls on all our trees. The rice hulls are going to decompose slowly and through this process create nutrients for the trees, while also providing excellent mulch.
Friday morning ten school kids and their teacher knocked on our door. All the kids had prepared questions and wanted to know about what we do and how they could help to protect the environment. They were very interested in coming to help us one day and within the next couple of weeks we will take them on a trip to our greenhouse. Later that day we divided into groups. A couple of people stayed in the house cutting the last load of Caña tubes that are going to be put in el Toro on Monday. Another group finished painting the signs for the greenhouse and the entrance sign for El Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas. The rest of us took bags of rice hulls to the sites at la Cruz, Don Pepe and Maria Dolores.
The week finished off by going fishing with some of our local friends in Bellavista. We caught 10 big fish, cooked them on the fire and had a feast!
Con conciencia verde,
Lise
This Wednesday we began a new cycle of Bioregional Education classes. Students received Bioregionalismo booklets made by Planet Drum volunteers. Clay passed out the booklets and welcomed the fifteen students who are from different parts of Bahia and San Vicente. With the help of some of the students who have been in this class before, we went over the characteristics which make up the bioregion of Bahia. After a discussion we began to read the booklet together. At home, students started answering some of the questions in the booklet.
On Friday we gathered at the school to take a field trip to the Mirador (lookout) at the statue of a cross above the city. From on top of the hill overlooking Bahia we were able to point out the main distinct natural characteristics which define Bahia's bioregion such as the mountains to the south of the city, the Leonida's Plaza suburb, the green spaces within Bahia, the watersheds flowing into the Chone river; and the students were able to see first hand the examples from their booklets.
Additionally, we are planning to form a high school eco-club which will be called "Bioregionalistas Eco-Club".
Translated by Clay
This week we split into three work groups of bioregionalista students to analyze an article by Peter Berg about bioregionalism from their booklets. During their discussion they made many conclusions, but also had a lot of questions about what a bioregion is and the Eco-city. Some of the students asked why Bahia is called an eco-city if it doesn't look like it. I answered that this is a process and that the changes don't happen immediately. The objective is to have the majority of people who live here develop a conservation consciousness and not to contaminate their environment. Also that it is now part of the students mission to help disseminate the information that they are learning in this class to their friends and families.
On Friday we took a trip to Leonidas Plaza for a walking tour through the neighborhood as we made our way back towards Bahia. The students noticed a lot of garbage along the road that goes to the beach. They also observed many birds, of which the species that caught their attention the most were the "lincheros," because of their color and song. We saw many varieties of trees. We even found a shark’s tooth lodged in a rock. One of the objectives of our trip was to prepare ourselves for the next class when students will have to make drawings of their own bioregions, remembering everything they saw while on the walking tour.
Translated by Clay
With
six volunteers staying in the Planet Drum house and five volunteers staying
in the Bahia B&B Inn we manage to get a lot of work done. New people keep
showing an interest in what we are doing. We got an 11th volunteer to help
us out this week when Tom, a traveler from Australia, passed through town
and offered his work skills. It hasn't rained for a while and usually this
means watering every day, but because of the big group, we managed to get a
lot more done than just watering including a field trip to our good friend
Orlando's farm at the end of the week.
The week started off by sending two volunteers to the
greenhouse to water, weed and empty the compost. Having so many people
working for Planet Drum also means that the compost bin fills up twice as
fast! The rest of us filled up Ricardito's truck with Caña tubes, sacks of
rice hulls, the hole diggers and machetes and went to El Toro to install the
very last load of tubes for our trees. Watering from now on is going to be a
lot easier and more effective because of Caña tubes. While there, a few
handfuls of rice hulls were placed at the base of each tree to help maintain
soil humidity and provide mulch. Rice hulls decompose more slowly than
leaves so we don't need to replace them as often.
[Caña
tubes ready to be installed]
Ecuadorian life can have an unpleasant surprises at times. On Tuesday three of our volunteers stayed in bed with food poisoning. The rest went to sites at Maria Dolores and Don Pepe to water. Usually watering these sites means that each of us has to carry 4 gallons of water on the 20 minute walk from the greenhouse, after we fill up the jugs, to the sites. However, we were lucky as the local petrol station offered to supply water, so from now on watering these two sites is going to be an easier job.
On Wednesday we split into two groups. One group went with Ricardito to Bosque Encantado to water and put rice hulls on the trees there. In the afternoon one of the volunteers went to help out Ramon with Bioregional Education, while the rest of us went to La Cruz to water. We also managed to establish a water source there as one of the residents nearby has offered to supply water from now on. It is really nice to see how interested and helpful the residents are.
On Thursday most of us went to the greenhouse. A lot of the seeds planted in the seed beds have sprouted and the morning was spent transplanting them into plastic bottles, where they will continue to grow until the planting season next rainy season. Also, new colorful signs made for each tree species in the greenhouse as well as the repainted entrance sign were installed. The greenhouse is shining! On our way back we passed through sites at Don Pepe and Maria Dolores to water there for the second time this week. It has not rained for a while, and because these two sites get a lot of sun exposure they need watering twice a week. In the afternoon three volunteers went to Bosque en el Medio de las Ruinas to water. Afternoon watering is beneficial to avoid the hot midday sun and if our schedules demand doing more of this. The residents in this neighborhood are also supplying us with water, so even though this is our biggest site, watering does not take that long. All of our sites now have on-location water sources, minimizing the amount we have to move water around, just in time for the dry season, too. Our afternoon group also started painting a second entrance sign to Bosque en el Medio de las Ruinas.
We finished off the week by going on a field trip to Orlando's farm in San Isidro on Friday. His family has a house in a beautiful spot an hour's drive inland from Bahia. We feasted on fresh bananas and oranges, cooked fresh fish on a wood stove for lunch, and went on a hike up to a little waterfall in the afternoon.
On Wednesday the 13th class began with a new helper, a volunteer from the Planet Drum Foundation. We split into two work groups where the theme of the day was to remember the different sites seen on our various outings. Both groups had to draw the bioregion of Bahia, identifying various characteristics that make up a bioregion while drawing. They accomplished this with confidence. Afterwards, one person from each group gave a presentation of the drawings. This activity helped to reinforce the students understanding of what a bioregion is.
On Friday we went on a walk to Cerro Seco Reserva and followed one of the nature trails there. Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to finish the hike because one of the girls hurt her foot. But later while sitting in a group together we saw a woodpecker, which none of the students had seen before. They liked its different colors: red, black and green. The students are talking about organizing a small cleanup one day since we've seen a lot of trash on our field trips. The class is also discussing the possibility of creating a small garden to grow our own food.
Translated by Clay.
Things can change so quickly here! I went back to the US for a short family visit and left one of the volunteers, Lise, in charge of taking care of the Drum family. Many thanks for her help and wonderful reports. I returned to a brand new house of volunteers and a new season as well. Farewell wishes to Lise, Andy, Jim and Rox. Thanks for making the most of your time in Bahia and all the work you gave to Planet Drum. You will be missed.
It is now definitely into summer, the dry season, which means watering on a very regular basis. Fortunately volunteer numbers are still in the double digits so we can cover more ground easily. Also, the tube watering system has drastically cut down on the time that it takes to water the trees. Hardly any water is wasted in runoff down hillsides, and each tree only takes a few seconds to load up with water. The rice hulls put down around the trees also seem to be doing a great job of maintaining soil humidity. So despite the repetition of watering trees, this process is going nice and smoothly. And the planted trees are looking nice and healthy.
This week was pretty much defined by watering. On Monday we went to the greenhouse, and watered the trees and seed beds, and also collected some Guachepeli seeds from some nearby trees and planted them in fresh seed beds in order to stockpile more trees for next year's planting. Hopefully regular watering of the seed beds will facilitate seed germination. From the greenhouse we walked over to the Maria Dolores and Don Pepe sites and took care of watering trees.
Tuesday we watered at the La Cruz and El Toro reforestation sites. A small group went to transplant one hundred Algarobo seedlings which sprouted by the side of the road near the beach. Cleanup crews with trucks will be trampling the area and the Algarobos would have been crushed if not moved. After taking the trees out of the ground, they were taken to the greenhouse and transplanted them into 3-liter bottles with fresh batches of soil prepared with our own compost.
On Wednesday a group went to Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas to water the trees there and put down rice hulls. A couple of volunteers headed to the greenhouse to water seed beds while others took care of installing tubes and watering some trees at an "extra" site planted at La Cruz.
Thursday we dropped off compost at the greenhouse and did some watering. A dozen Guachepeli that were growing into the ground itself went to Bosque Encantado to plant at the entrance. It's late in the season, but the trees had to be moved out to make room for next years seedlings. Hopefully they will be alright despite being planted late. On the way we watered the Maria Dolores and Don Pepe sites again, and also watered the Bosque Encantado site while there.
On Friday some of us went to Bosque en Medio de Las Ruinas to repaint an entrance sign, do some trail maintenance and water the trees there. Another group of volunteers stopped by the greenhouse to water seed beds again and then went to the Don Pepe site to repair a fence, which protects the trees from local cattle, that was falling down and to also take some GPS readings. A few bilingual volunteers began work on what will be a monthly Eco-city newsletter of the ecological happenings around Bahia. The first issue will come out in July. Currently they are gathering interview materials and scoping out Bahia for current ecological work. The newsletter will give much needed publicity to the hard work that is being done in the name of the Eco-city.
¡Conciencia Verde!
Clay
Announcement: Our volunteer numbers are still strong, there are currently eleven, but for many, their stay here is coming to a close in the near future. And soon we will be understaffed, so if you're thinking about volunteering, now's a great time to get in touch. planetdrumecuador@yahoo.com
This week we took care of a lot of site upkeep by installing a few more bamboo tubes at overlooked trees, did some trail maintenance, and of course, lots of watering. The bi-lingual Argentinean volunteers have been on the prowl for stories to put into the soon to be released green-city newsletter, entitled Econoticias (Econews). And we even squeezed in a field trip to the local permaculture practicing, organic farm Rio Muchacho.
On Monday some of us visited the greenhouse, dropping off compost, weeding, and watering. On the way home, there was a stop at the Don Pepe and Maria Dolores revegetation sites to water the trees. Others stayed home to take care of some house cleaning. Another group walked over to Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas to do some watering, and clear trails through the inner-city park. Despite having hand-rails stolen from some of the stair cases built there, it's still a beautiful park, with over seventy new native trees planted this past rainy season. And although a little off the beaten path, it still makes for a good green attraction in Bahia.
Tuesday Ana, Maria and Flaca went on an Econoticias
excursion, visiting the environmental division of the local city government
to get the scoop on their latest projects. They took a trip through El
Astillero barrio to check out the recycling program there and then out to
the site of the city garbage disposal, with the temporarily paralyzed
organic separation program. The rest of the Planet Drum crew went on a
watering marathon, taking care of the El Toro, Bosque Encantado and La Cruz
sites in one day. Thanks to Ricardito to shuttling the crew around in his
truck with the enthusiasm he always has for our work.
Wednesday some of us watered Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas and the greenhouse again. The rest continued work on Econoticias.
With watering under control, and some of the more exposed sites receiving water twice per week, we did a bit of ecological cultural exchange on Thursday with a Planet Drum outing to Rio Muchacho. All eleven took a bus north of Canoa to the entrance of the Rio Muchacho community. From there, we hiked the six or so kilometers into the organic farm. Although only slightly north of Bahia, the climate is much wetter and still overwhelmingly green, despite being in the dry season. It was beautiful and lush. There was a complimentary tour of the grounds, including their organic pigs, composting, solar seed drier, biogas collector, rotating chicken coup, grey water filtration system, and enormous garden with an incredible variety of tasty and nutritional fruits and vegetables. On the way there was an enormous strangler fig tree. Many thanks are due to kind host Nicola who showed us around and offered the invitation in the first place. It was a wonderful day. It was great to see all the hard work they are doing there and to spend time in a nearby but quite different ecosystem.
On Friday Ramon and a small group of his regular school students (apart from the Bioregional Education class) who were interested in doing some volunteer work joined us. Although perhaps motivated by getting out of school for the day, they really helped out and it was fun getting to explain and show some of the restoration work Planet Drum is doing. We headed to Bosque Encantado and in one large group took care of the watering there. The kids didn't even seem to mind the arduous hike into the site while carrying jugs of water. They had a great time. From there they went to the greenhouse to water and learned how we grow our trees. It was fun spending time with some young volunteers who are interested in nature.
Life at Planet Drum keeps on rolling…
Hasta la proxima vez…
Clay
This week we almost completed assignments in the Bioregional booklets. All that's left is to do the activities. On Wednesday we focused on detailing the themes of bioregionalism, such as climate, water and watersheds, culture, etc. We made three groups as usual and with the help of a couple of Planet Drum volunteers, reviewed the topics among groups. Unfortunately this day was short because all of the students have lots of homework from their regular school and were unable to analyze and synthesize all the themes.
On Friday the students and two of the Planet Drum
volunteers hiked through the trails of the Cerro Seco nature preserve. It was a fast
trip. On the ridge of the hill there is a resting spot and we sat there and
finished the work that was left over from Wednesday's class. Group One began with a presentation by Anita and
Mateo who talked about the need to protect the environment, have a
culture of recycling, and make good use of waste, and about how the garbage
separation program of the city does not work but should be working. Group Two also had an excellent presentation, in which they
highlighted everything that we must be done to be able to live in a region.
Then Group Three talked about the use of contaminating vehicles,
especially the buses that take people to the Leonidas Plaza suburb of
Bahia. They also talked about
the different types of alternative energy. In conclusion they said we need to live in harmony with nature.
Translated by Clay.
On Wednesday we all sat down in a circle and began to
explain the work of the day, which was to synthesize the entire
Bioregionalismo booklet. We have covered everything in it except to
elaborate some of the answers to questions. Emily and Laura arrived a
little late to class, but when they showed up we formed our three work
groups. In the groups we discussed the importance of knowing the
characteristics of the bioregion and how to live within it. Class was a
little short because the students had a lot of homework, but were able
realize the objective of the day, which was to reach a general conclusion.
On Friday each of the groups gave conclusions from Wednesday's class. Once again everyone said that we need to live in harmony with nature, which means respecting the environment, not polluting, and not cutting trees, etc. We also began the next topic in the class which is soil. We talked about the types of soil that are present in this region. To show the class what layers of soil there are, we went for a walk down the beach south of Bahia. Where the water meets the land, the earth is cut and you can see the different layers of soil below the ground. We were going to walk back on a trail through the mountains, but the students saw a snake, and left running, throwing down everything they were carrying. It was actually a very fun day.
There are new kids from a different high school that
would like to be part of our class. I told them that this was fine. Next
week we will talk about the birds in the estuary.
Translated by Clay.
On Wednesday I talked to the class for twenty minutes
about birds and their importance in this bioregion, especially the birds
that can be found in the Rio Chone Estuary. I explained the principal
characteristics of the birds, the different species, their songs, and
reproduction, etc.
Then we split into work groups. One group went with
Angela (Planet Drum volunteer) and the other with me. After working in
groups, students gave short presentations on the topics they analyzed.
On Friday we left the dock in Bahia in a rented boat
to take a field trip to Isla de Los Pajaros (Island of the Birds) in order
to observe the different types of birds that live there. We went with all
the volunteers from Planet Drum and our friend Cheo who gave a tour of the
island and explained more about the birds. The kids got to walk through
Mangrove trees and saw lots of birds.
It was a really fun and great day.
Translated by Clay.
This is our last complete week with a full house.
Many are beginning preparations to take off and soon our numbers will
dwindle. Nonetheless spirits remain high and everyone is enjoying
themselves and working hard. Despite the occasional nighttime drizzle and
lots of overcast days, we continue watering. We are also planting seeds
like crazy in the greenhouse to have more trees ready for next rainy
season. Additionally, the first issue of Eco-Noticias, assembled by Planet
Drum volunteers, was turned into the environmental department of the
municipality and will be printed soon.
Unfortunately this past week we had a couple of
hang-ups with watering at one of our sites. One day water had not been
delivered yet, and the next, our ride broke down while going from one site
to the next and so two of the days weren't as productive as they could
have been. Part of the problem was that the water source at the El Toro
site has fallen through due to waning cooperation with the landowner
there. Alternative solutions will need to be investigated. In the meantime
we need to truck water into this site when watering there, and hopefully
we won't have any more breakdowns.
On Monday, as one big group we went to do an overhaul
of the greenhouse, planting Caoba and Tierramonte seeds and preparing
other seed beds for planting soon. Old seed beds were dug up and the
nutrient-depleted soil was replaced with a fresh mixture of compost. We
also watered, weeded and dropped off the compost collected daily at our
apartment. In the afternoon we did some cleaning and tidying up around the
house.
On Tuesday we were back at the greenhouse watering
recently planted seed beds. From there we walked over to the Don Pepe and
Maria Dolores sites to do some watering of the reforestation sites. There
was time to catch the bus back to Bahia and water at the La Cruz site
before calling it a day. Meanwhile, Flaca and Ana put the finishing
touches on the first edition of Eco-Noticias.
On Wednesday a big group went to Bosque Encantado to
water the large reforestation site. Upon arrival they discovered that
there was no water, and after waiting for awhile found out that the water
wouldn't come until the next day. Others did more watering at the
greenhouse. On the home front, Flaca and Ana used their bi-lingual skills
to help do some translating of Bioregional Education materials. Also,
Flaca and I did an interview with Flor Maria Dueñas for the second issue
of Eco-Noticias.
In the afternoon I wrote a letter, which was well
received, to the director of the Javier Rodríguez Mieles School, where
Ramon (our Bioregional Education teacher) also teaches. The letter asks
permission to take groups of students out to work with us, show them the
reforestation process and also have them help out in the greenhouse. So
now, every week or so we will be taking a group of students out to
volunteer during the day, in addition to the afternoon Bioregional
Education classes. It will be great to give the students more
environmental exposure as part of their education.
Thursday there was yet more watering at the
greenhouse. Freshly planted seed beds need lots of regular H2O. We also
went to the El Toro to water there. On the way out Ricardito's truck had
some problems and couldn't make it over one of the hills. There was a wait
for another truck to go by and haul it out. Fortunately after making it
over the hill we were able to drive away, but because of the delay there
wasn’t time to water Bosque Encantado for the second day in a row. Ana
and Flaca continued translation and Eco-Noticias work at the Bahia
office.
Finally on Friday there was an opportunity to water
the Bosque Encantado site, and also water the trees in Bosque en Medio de
las Ruinas, and one last time at the greenhouse before the weekend.
Despite the setbacks, all the ground we needed to
cover for the week was accounted for. We had to say goodbye to Flaca and
Ana, two volunteers from Argentina. They are continuing their travels
North, through Colombia to Costa Rica. Almost entirely by themselves, they
put together the first two issues of Eco-Noticias—Bahia's first
green-city newsletter. Here's to keeping it going and thanks to them for
getting it started. Disfruten Sud America.
Hasta luego,
Clay
This week on Wednesday I was surprised when all of the students showed up to class early to begin work. The theme for the day was flora. We talked about the flora in this area and the different species of trees that are here. We were able to relate this class to the previous one, about the different birds in this region. We also talked about the problem of deforestation, and how the majority of the land surrounding us has been deforested. I explained how trees maintain soil stability and integrity with their roots and the decomposition of fallen leaves, in addition to providing habitats for birds and animals. It's because of these important reasons that there are groups such as Planet Drum and the Consejo Provicial that have reforestation projects. After class we took a walk around Bahia and ended on the ocean wall overlooking the water and watched the sunset.
On Friday we met up with Melissa and Angela, Planet Drum volunteers, to go on a hike up to the La Cruz overlooking Bahia. From there it was possible to visit one of the reforestation sites that Planet Drum has on a nearby hillside. The students could see the trees that Planet Drum planted in order to help prevent further erosion and so that more biodiversity can return to the area. On the way home we stopped by the store for tee-shirts where the students picked out the shirts that this group of students will wear for their bioregionalismo group.
Translated by Clay.
Summary: As volunteers continue to depart from
Planet Drum, the rest of the family keeps the work going.
We are planting seeds like crazy to build up the arsenal of trees
for next year's reforestation sites.
Dry season weather persists with many overcast days and breezes
that could be described as "cool."
There was another field trip this week, to a community called Los
Caras, named after one of the indigenous groups present in this area from
pre-Incan times.
Monday started off the week by checking out the
greenhouse. While there some
Guachepeli and Algarobo seeds were planted and some other seed beds were
prepared as well. The seed
beds from last year are dug up and replaced with fresh soil and compost. From the greenhouse there was the familiar walk back towards
Bahia to water the Maria Dolores and Don Pepe sites.
Tuesday was the big field trip. We took a bus beyond Kilometro 8 and the greenhouse towards
the town of Tosagua. We
hopped off at kilometro 16 and started walking up a dirt road in the
direction of some denuded hills above the Rio Chone.
Along the way farms, a school and the typical bamboo houses on
stilts were passed. My friend
Sebastian, one of the members of the Cordillera el Balsamo (a corridor of
private land owners interested in protecting and restoring the natural
habitats on their lands) took us into his house to introduce his family. From there a tour of the community began.
First we went back to the elementary school passed on
the way into the pueblo. In
the one-room school, to a group of thirty children, I gave a small
presentation of some of the ideas of conserving nature, its importance and
how it relates to the kids and their community.
Passing through the central square of the town, a couple of
Guachepeli trees that we had donated a month before had been planted and
could be seen. They were looking particularly healthy amidst the wide,
dusty streets. From there we visited the construction site of an office of
water administration, a pre-school and then a family sized operation of
mangar (a sweet, milk based food) production.
A woman stirred a large pot of the mangar over an open fire and
offered tastes. The family
sells mangar in the community and in Bahia.
We passed Sebastian's house, a community co-op for bulk, staple foods, and then got to his farm. Fields of maracuyá (passion fruit) and a mandarin and lime orchard were looking quite green and we tried some of the fruits.
Fruits
from these fields are taken to the central Bahia market on a regular
basis. The fields of soybeans
lay fallow because of the weak rainy season this year.
The community prides itself on its organic soybean cultivation.
They process the beans themselves to make milk, yogurt, sweets, and
tofu among other soy based foods. Unfortunately,
at the time of the visit there were no products to sample or buy.
Sebastian has several large and healthy Caoba trees growing on his property that were dropping seeds. We took the opportunity to collect several hundred seeds of this native tree to bring back and plant in the greenhouse.
Some
Guayacan and Algarobo trees that had sprouted nearby were taken back to
the greenhouse as well.
We then went back to Sebastian's house to eat lunch
with him and his family. He
had another visitor, too, an elderly woman who was spending the morning
with them. After talking to
this woman for a bit we discovered that she was one of the victims of the
1998 El Niño mudslides in the Maria Auxialadora who were displaced to the
Fanca neighborhood. Her son
and husband were two of the sixteen people killed in the mudslides there.
The site has since been reforested by Planet Drum and is a
recognized green space by the city government called 'El Bosque en Medio
de las Ruinas.' (The Forest in Middle of the Ruins)
After lunch, Sebastian and his family were cordially thanked for
hosting us. We will keep up
contact with him and Los Caras and hopefully have a chance to help out
their community once in a while. On
the way back to the main road, we helped the old woman carry some of the
fruits and vegetables that she was bringing home.
At 80-something years old, she took care of the half-hour walk
without a second thought. She
got off in Fanca.
That was Kirk, Crista, Maria, Farhad and Angela's
last day. Travel plans
obliged them to keep on moving and they bid farewell to the rest of the
Planet Drum family. You guys
will be missed, and enough thanks can't be given for all the hard work you
did. Safe travels and
hopefully we'll cross paths again some day.
Despite the sad goodbyes, the rhythm of life here has
a way of continuing to tick, and without missing a beat we were back in
the hills of Bahia on Wednesday morning watering the La Cruz site, and
headed to the greenhouse and to plant the Algarobo and Guayacan trees from
Los Caras into 3-liter bottles.
On Thursday the remaining three volunteers and I went
to Ricardito's farm to water the beast of a site, Bosque Encantado. That afternoon we did some cleaning up around the house.
On Friday some Ecuadorian friends were invited to come help out with watering. With the extra hands it was possible to knock out the El Toro and Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas sites without losing too much sweat. Thanks to Blas and Gabriel for taking time out of their day to help with the cause.
We
were back at the greenhouse that afternoon, this time with Bioregional Ed
class.
The class was shown how to turn compost, plant seeds (the Caoba collected in Los Caras), water, and transplant a few of the seedlings that have sprouted so far.
The
students had a great time helping out in the greenhouse
and it was the perfect way to wrap up an action packed week.
Hasta luego,
Clay
Wednesday we met as usual at the city park to begin another class. This week's theme was Compost. Planet Drum volunteer Melissa led the first part of the class and taught about the decomposition of organic materials. There were nine different steps in process of how organic material decomposes that she covered. She passed out materials detailing the process and read over them with the students. They discussed garbage separation, how to make a compost heap, and how the bacteria and decomposers work to break down the materials to form nutrient rich soil. They also talked about how the materials at large garbage dumps are often covered with dirt and don't receive enough oxygen for the bacteria to break down the organic matter, which can lead to methane gas production. Finally, they discussed the uses of compost and how it can be a benefit in agriculture as a fertilizer for nutrient poor soil.
On Friday we met with Planet Drum volunteers and took a trip to their greenhouse at the Catholic University. While there they explained how they turn organic waste into compost for the trees.
The
students helped mix some of the compost they have there and prepared a new
compost heap. We saw the worms and maggots that live in the compost
and help with decomposition. The students got to water the plants
and also helped plant Caoba seeds with the direction of the Planet Drum
volunteers.
And finally they transplanted Cascol seedlings that had sprouted in some of the seed beds. It was a long afternoon with lots of work at the greenhouse, but all the students had a great time, and as the sun was beginning to drop in the sky, we caught the bus back to Bahia.
This week we were down to one volunteer. Fortunately, Brian is a hard worker because as usual there's a lot to get done.
On Monday we went to the greenhouse, watered, dumped off compost, weeded and checked on the plants. From there we walked over to Maria Dolores and Don Pepe to do some watering. With only two people it took two trips to carry all the water in to the sites. While at the Don Pepe site, I met with the landowner to discuss the possibility of expanding our revegetation on his land and in the surrounding area, he is very favorable to the idea.
On Tuesday we continued watering, this time at Bosque Encantado, normally a difficult site for even a large group of volunteers. Again, we had to do two trips to get all the water up the hill.
On Wednesday we did some transplanting at the greenhouse.
A
few of the three-liter bottles had more than one tree growing in them and
the trees had to be separated. We also turned all of the compost and
prepared more seed beds.
Thursday morning while waiting for a ride to the El Toro site to take care of watering there we did some house cleaning, bought some more supplies for the greenhouse and fixed some of the house furniture that was falling apart. Then late in the afternoon we got a lift with Ricardito to El Toro. Thanks to Jaime for coming out to volunteer, otherwise we wouldn't have finished until way after sunset.
On
Friday we took the students from Bioregionalism Ed class out to water with
us, partially on their request. With all the helpers we knocked off
watering La Cruz and Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas practically with ease.
In the afternoon we headed to the greenhouse to do some watering before
the weekend.
It
was a long week of watering with only me and Brian, but we were able to
take care of it all with some extra help from Jaime and the Bioregional
students. We also were able to get a lot done in the greenhouse. There are
now seed beds of Caoba, Tierramonte, Algarobo and Guachepelli in the
process of germinating and more beds that will be ready to seed soon.
We nourish the trees and we nourish ourselves.
Clay
The theme for Wednesday’s class was Mangroves. First I asked them how much they knew about Mangrove trees and how many types they could name. Everyone had a basic understanding of Mangrove trees at the beginning of class. During the class, I explained to them the importance of these trees in the estuary and watershed of Bahia. I talked about how Mangroves filter water and the large variety of birds, bats, snakes and aquatic animals that live in them. I also explained the differences between the different types of Mangroves: Red, White, Black, and Concha.
On
Friday we took a fieldtrip to Isla Corazon, where we saw lots of Frigata
birds, which were showing off their red pouches since it is mating season.
We hiked through the Mangroves to try to identify all of the different
types that we talked about in Wednesday's class.
We
didn't get to find all of the types because it was so muddy that in parts
we had to crawl through the mud just to move around.
All
the students had a great time and returned home really tired after such a
long day. In the morning they had helped Planet Drum water some sites in
Bahia and then they spent all afternoon in the mud of the Mangroves.
Translated by Clay.
This week we lucked out by finding some extra hands
around town to pitch in with the work, since our numbers have dwindled to
one volunteer. Simply keeping up with watering the planted sites proves to
be a challenge. Fortunately some travelers came out to help the cause for
a couple days.
On
Monday, Brian and I went to the greenhouse to water and prepare more seed
beds. The greenhouse is beginning to transform dramatically as
increasingly more floor space is dedicated to the seedbeds. We are also
experimenting with soil composition. Previous mixtures contained too much
clay and would not filter water well. This hurt the germination process of
some seeds and a few of our initial batches of seeds were lost. Sand has
now been added to the soil to improve filtration and it seems to help
dramatically. I am hopeful for future seeding.
From the greenhouse we walked over to Maria Dolores and Don Pepe to do some watering. With only two people we've had to get creative to be able to carry all of the water and have started using backpacks to carry double the usual amount. To cover both sites there had to be two trips to give enough water to all of the trees.
Monday night we made friends with a group of German travelers staying at a nearby hostel and were able to convince them to come out for a day of work. On Tuesday, our local friend Gabrielle also showed up and another passerby was recruited, Will from North Carolina. With our numbers temporarily bolstered we took advantage of the occasion and headed to Bosque Encantado to do some serious watering. With all the extra hands it was possible to take care of the normal site there, as well as an extra site from this year and even did some watering and a check up on the trees from last year, which are holding up.
Will liked the Planet Drum life and decided to stay for the rest of the week. So on Wednesday the three of us, Will, Brian and I, watered the sites at La Cruz and Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas.
On Thursday, while I took care of some office work, Will and Brian went back to the greenhouse. While there they turned the compost and planted Guachepeli and Algarobo seeds in the new beds made earlier in the week.
On Friday we got a ride with Ricardito into the El Toro site. In addition to watering, some of the water catchments around the trees that had degraded were improved, and some trail maintenance was done to make getting around easier while watering. More rice hulls were added as mulch around the trees. Will and Brian took off in the afternoon for a weekend excursion to Puerto Lopez, and I headed to the greenhouse to do some end-of-the-week watering. The trees look good, and hopefully more will be sprouting soon.
Hasta luego,
Clay
Summary: This week was exclusively about the core Planet Drum group, me, Brian and Lindsey. We watered all of the reforestation sites as usual and continued planting seeds and upkeep in the greenhouse.
Monday
we watered and weeded at the greenhouse, and also dug up a new seed bed
and mixed soil for it. Then one of the other new seed beds was planted
with Cascol seeds. After that a walk to Maria Dolores and watered the
trees there.
On Tuesday back to the greenhouse. While there we broke open Guarango seed pods to collect the seeds for planting, and also did an overhaul of the compost, turning the heaps and sifting some that is almost fully decomposed. Before leaving, two more seed beds were dug up. On the way home we watered the Don Pepe site.
Wednesday and Thursday some serious watering was done, covering the La Cruz, Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas and Bosque Encantado sites.
Friday
started by heading to El Toro for some more watering. On the way, we
stopped at a local woodshop and picked up some free bags of saw dust which
we will use for soil mixtures in the greenhouse. After watering we talked
to the brick making crew that works near the site, and they allowed us to
haul away some of the broken and poorly fired bricks, also for free. We
will use the bricks in the greenhouse to make platforms to raise trees off
the dirt floor.
Some
of the trees have grown to over a meter (3 feet) and the roots are growing
through holes in the bottom of the three-liter bottles and then into the
floor. This makes transplanting more difficult later on; hopefully the
bricks will prevent this. After watering at El Toro, we took the bricks
and sawdust to the greenhouse, and built the first platform for a group of
rather large Ceibo trees.
Friday afternoon Brian left to continue his travels in Peru. Thanks for
all the hard work and long hours you gave us, Brian.
Hasta luego,
Clay
Bioregionalism resumed classes after vacations from
regular school were ended. The theme for the week was aquatic ecosystems.
We began by differentiating between continental and marine ecosystems. The
students divided into two groups to go over the materials I passed out.
They discussed these materials and then made presentations to each other
on what they had learned. The first group presented on marine waters. They
explained how a third of the Earth is covered in water and the large
diversity of species that live in the oceans. One of the students, Raisa,
also talked about how one of the current problems in Ecuador is a new
Presidential decree that allows for the hunting of sharks. The other group
presented on the continental waters: rivers streams, lakes and lagoons.
They distinguished between moving waters like rivers and bodies of water
such as lakes, and how water in motion has a higher quantity of oxygen.
After both groups presented on what they had studied, they selected photos
from all of the classes to use for a display in an upcoming open house.
Friday afternoon we were only able to meet for a
shortened class because the students were preparing for a school
performance that evening. But we talked briefly about the relation between
humans and the ecosystems studied in Wednesday’s class. We are
completely dependent on the world’s aquatic ecosystems and they might be
destroyed if there aren’t stronger environment protection laws.
Translated by Clay Plager-Unger
Summary: This was another week with only one volunteer, and thankfully plenty of help from our Ecuadorian friends, and even a little rain to make the watering possible. Since Brian left last Friday, there was only me and Lindsey left.
On Monday we went to the greenhouse to check in on things, watered the plants and seed beds, turned compost and did some weeding. From the greenhouse it was a walk to a nearby Ceibo tree that I had spotted dropping seed pods, and collected fallen seeds and with some long sticks were able to knock down a few more intact seed pods.
Tuesday morning we bought some Bamboo which will be
used for the construction of a storage container at the greenhouse.
Ricardito drove the Bamboo poles to the greenhouse, picking up our friend
Marcelo on the way.
At
the greenhouse the building supplies were dropped off and three new seed
beds were prepared by mixing soil. I met with a coordinator at the
Catholic University to talk about the possibility of a biology class
helping to do species identification in Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas.
Then we drove over to the Maria Dolores and Don Pepe sites and watered the
trees there.
Overnight it rained a decent amount in Bahia, and I
decided that it was unnecessary to water the La Cruz and Bosque en Medio
de las Ruinas sites this week. On a tip from our friend Cheo, we found out
about a large Pechiche tree in the Astillero barrio that is dropping
fruit, where seeds can be collected. So on Wednesday we walked over there
to check it out, and collected a bag of Pechiche seeds and while there
noticed a number of small Pechiche saplings growing out of the rubble of
the abandoned lot. We will return later this week to transplant the small
trees to the greenhouse. Then took the
bus to the greenhouse where seeds we had collected were planted in the
freshly made seed beds.
Construction
began on the storage bin.
On Thursday Cheo, Marcelo and Ricardito all pitched in to help out.
We first drove into the El Toro site and watered there. While there another load of free, unwanted bricks from the brick-makers was picked up and transported to the greenhouse. Then we headed to Ricardito's farm and watered the Bosque Encantado site. In the afternoon there was a reunion of the Eco-amigos representing various groups, where among other topics the possibility of a field trip to our friend Baron's farm in Rambuche to pick up a number of native saplings that they have growing there was discussed, and a possible reforestation site in the Jorge Lomas area, just outside of Bahia. That evening, our good friend Andy, a volunteer from over two months ago, also happened to show up. He had been traveling in Colombia and made his way back to Bahia to help out again for another couple weeks. Welcome back!
Friday
it was back to the lot in El Astillero with the Pechiche tree to dig up
baby trees that were growing out of the sand, broken concrete, bricks and
dirt. A few more seeds that had fallen since we were there on Wednesday
were also collected. We took the trees to the greenhouse where they were
placed in three-liter bottles that had been prepared with soil to
transplant the seeds.
In total we collected and transplanted one-hundred and twenty Pechiche
trees. Before leaving, the extra Pechiche seeds we found as well as a
batch of Guarango seeds were also planted.
Hasta luego,
Summary: This week was still somewhat low on staff and it was a bit of a struggle to cover the watering of the sites, but we were able to take care of them, and even had some time to work in the greenhouse.
On Monday compost was picked up from our friend Don Luis Dueñas and taken to the greenhouse, where we watered the plants. From there we went to Maria Dolores and Don Pepe to water those sites.
On Tuesday there were some extra hands from a couple
of friends who were passing through Bahia. We went to the greenhouse and
collected Algarobo seeds, and will try feeding them to Ricardito's pigs to
see if they will germinate in the fertilizer. Ceibo seeds that I collected
last week were planted in a new seedbed.
We also moved some of the Lucaena trees onto bricks to avoid having their roots continue to grow into the ground.
Some
weeding was accomplished, and Andy finished work on the storage bin.
Watering El Toro, took the whole morning Wednesday because there were only three people.
Thursday
we watered La Cruz and Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas.
Bosque Encantado was watered Friday with the help of our friends Cheo, Marcelito, and Blas. From there we went to the greenhouse to water the plants for the weekend.
September is looking slow for volunteers as well, so hopefully help will continue to come from our Ecuadorian friends.
On Monday we watered Maria Dolores and Don Pepe. Some
neighborhood kids came out to help us carry the water at Maria Dolores.
From there to the greenhouse where we watered and turned the compost.
In the morning on Tuesday we watered La Cruz and then
caught the bus to the greenhouse to do some general cleaning up.
Some benches were built so that there is now a
comfortable hangout next to the greenhouse.
Wednesday we worked around the house in the morning, changing some old screens and fixing up the bathrooms. In the afternoon Cheo helped to water Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas.
Thursday we picked up some more Pechiche seeds in
barrio Astillero on the way to Bosque Encantado, Ricardito's farm.
The site was watered and some baby Algarobos were
transplanted while there.
Then
we went to the greenhouse to plant the Algarobos into three-liter bottles.
That evening staff members from the Planet Drum base in San Francisco
arrived. They will be here in Bahia for almost a month, and we look
forward to sharing adventures with them.
Friday we started the day off by watering at El Toro, then went to the greenhouse to put Guayacans onto bricks, do some weeding and turn more compost. [INSERT 09-07h20.jpg]
The week started off with going bottle hunting in
Leonidas Plaza. Judy joined Patrick and me as we scoured the suburb of
Bahia picking up empty three-liter plasticsoda bottles. We talked to some
fishermen about the possibility of using old nets to cover young trees to
protect them from insects and animals during the dry season. As it turns
out, the fishermen spend most of their free time repairing their old nets,
so coming across someone throwing away a used net is very unlikely. From
Leonidas Plaza we caught the bus to the greenhouse to water the plants and
transplanted Caoba trees from a seedbed to three-liter bottles.
Judy jumped right into the work.
On Tuesday we watered the La Cruz site and did site
maintenance for the trees. Upkeep of the basins around the trees,
particularly uphill of the
trees
on steep slopes, is proving to be critical to their survival, even more so
than the bamboo tubes installed earlier in the dry season.
A nice 'bowl' to pour water into uphill of the trees
allows the water to slowly filter through the ground and reach the roots.
Without this depression, the water is not concentrated directly around the
tree, and often runs wastefully down the hillside. Leaves, twigs and rice
shells placed in the 'bowls' help to maintain humidity of the soil and
minimize evaporation. The positive effects of this kind of maintenance are
visible after a single week of watering.
Tuesday afternoon Patrick and I headed to the beach
in Bahia to pick up more bottles that had washed up there. In the evening
all of Bahia went to see President Correa give a speech at the
inauguration of the Bahia-San Vi
cente
bridge. Although environmental effects of this bridge are highly suspect,
Correa's speech was very interesting and illustrated his plan to unify and
develop his country, the commencement of the construction of this bridge
being one example. Economically speaking, the bridge will represent a
rebirth for this shell-shocked city.
On
Wednesday we dropped off the organic waste from the Planet Drum house at
the greenhouse, watered and then headed to Maria Dolores and Don Pepe to
water the revegetation sites. Maintenance
continues at both of those sites. The trees have since responded very well
to upkeep.
Thursday
we watered and did maintenance at the Ruinas site. In the afternoon I led
a tour of the wild park we call 'El Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas'. I
pointed out many of the hundred and twenty trees that were planted last
rainy season and checked in on other trees that Planet Drum has planted
there over the past eight years, some of which are now over ten meters
tall.
See the Algarobos that were planted along the path
in this picture.
Friday morning we watered the trees at Bosque Encantado and paid a visit to the greenhouse to water the trees before the weekend. In the afternoon the 'clausura' (closure) to the summer session of the Bioregional Education class was held at the Cerro Seco nature reserve. There was a barbeque and the students surprised us with a collage of pictures from all the field trips that the students had been on during the previous twelve weeks. After eating, we had a chat with the students to get some feedback about the class and to see how we can further develop the Planet Drum bioregional education program. All of the students were thrilled with the class and want to continue to learn about their bioregion. We will see what we can do to satisfy their interest.
Pasa lo bien,
Clay
[Top]
On Monday we got a ride into El Toro and watered the
revegetation site, then walked back out to the main road and caught the
bus to the greenhouse. At the
greenhouse the plants were watered and some weeding was done.
More Guachapeli seeds were collected from
full-sized trees nearby that are dropping seed pods.
Tuesday
we were back at the El Toro site, this time gathering discarded bricks
from the brickmakers. The bricks were taken to the greenhouse to lie under more trees
that have grown rather large. The
bricks help keep the trees' roots from growing into the ground
underneath.
Seca
trees were moved around. At the
same time as placing the trees onto the bricks, we topped the bottles the
trees were in with a fresh soil mixture.
On Wednesday the Maria Dolores and Don Pepe sites were watered. While at Maria Dolores, site maintanence was finished by fixing up the 'basins' around the trees for collecting water. From there we walked to the greenhouse and used up the rest of the soil mixed the day before to refill Algarobo tree bottles.
Thursday
morning Peter and I gave a presentation to the Bioregionalism Education
class in the Municipality Theater on the concept of bioregionalism, with a
focus on the bioregion of Bahia de Caraquez.
At the end of the presentation, all of the students, who had recently
completed the 12 week course, were given certificates to congratulate them
for all of the work that they did.
Afterwards, the Planet Drum crew along with Cheo went up the the La Cruz site, overlooking the city, to do some watering of the trees.
Friday morning we stopped by the Astillero barrio to pick up more Pechiche seeds on our way to Ricardito's farm to water the Bosque Encantado revegetation site. At 11, visiting PD staffers and I attended a meeting in the Municipio about the Cordillera el Balsamo group of private land owners who are working to develop conservation, reforestation and eco-tourism in and around Bahia and, through the National Corporation of Private Forests of Ecuador, all of Ecuador. In the early afternoon a final visit was paid to the greenhouse for the week to take care of watering before the weekend. In the afternoon a meeting was held with a couple of the land owners to discuss two new revegetation sites for the upcoming year. We met with Don Pepe and newpaper Nuevo Globo director Eduardo Rodriguez Coll to plan sites on their lands in the Maria Dolores watershed.
While
in the area, I gave visiting PD staffers, Peter and Judy, a tour of Cherry
Tree, a Planet Drum revegetation site from a few years ago that is a
little farther up the same watershed. We
saw trees that are two and three years old, some of which are over 10 feet
tall!
Hasta luego,
Clay
Summary: The last week with only a couple
volunteers; soon more will be arriving and the house will fill up again
for the first time in over two months. The routine of watering continued
and other projects are mixed in to keep things interesting. It's almost
October and the trees planted in February and March are doing very well.
There's been a less than 10% fatality rate and the majority of the trees
are showing sustained growth through the dry season.
 |
On
Monday el Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas was watered and the greenhouse was
as well. We also made new soil to top off more Algarobo
bottles. In the afternoon and evening there was a despedida
(farewell) party for visiting Planet Drum staffers, Peter and Judy, at our
friend Afranio's house in Leonidas Plaza. The
local core of eco-amigos showed up for the festivities. On Tuesday morning we watered El Toro. In the
afternoon over one-thousand copies of the first green-city newsletter in
Bahia, Econoticias (Econews) was printed, complete with articles
about the Bioregionalism classes, water quality in the estuary, a local,
community-based garbage separation project, and more. The newsletter will
hopefully come out on a monthly basis to keep the people informed of the
ecological happenings in Bahia. |
 |
|
 |
Wednesday we spent the morning touring Bahia
distributing Econoticias like crazy. Small stacks were left at
internet cafes, hotels and restaurants. It was also posted on the
Municipality bulletin board and personally handed them out to people on
the streets. Afterwards we got a ride with Ricardito to the currently
abandoned city garbage separation site to pick up old sacks of compost
that were never sold or passed out. At least the compost will be put to
good use in the greenhouse instead of sitting at the facility until the
city resumes the separation program.
In the evening we all attended the 'Festival of the
Birds,' which was a series of lectures by biologists, naturalists and
tourism experts on the future possibilities of avi-tourism in and around
Bahia. There is an obvious buzz about the idea of eco-tourism and avi-tourism,
but the tools for implementing a sustainably run tourism industry appear
to be very rudimentary or entirely lacking. A lot of progress needs to be
made in this area if Ecuador is going to successfully and ecologically
take advantage of the overwhelming natural resources it possesses.
On Thursday we watered Don Pepe and Maria Dolores and
then were back in the greenhouse refilling more Algarobo bottles. There
are a lot of them that need attention.
All in all another action packed week. There is growing excitement to meet the new volunteers who will be arriving next week.
Hasta luego,
Clay
This week marked a turning point in volunteer presence. For the past two months we've been getting by with one, two or at most three steady volunteers, but that's all changing as of now. For some reason August and September have been the slowest so far. But this week, four new volunteers showed up, and we're scheduled to be more or less full (the house holds six volunteers) for the foreseeable future.
Over the weekend, the first of the new batch of volunteers, Cori, arrived. On Monday I had to take a trip to Manta to renew my visa. While away, the remaining crew headed to the greenhouse, where they finished transplanting a seed bed of baby Ceibo trees. They also did more work on the Algarobo trees, refilling the three-liter bottles with fresh soil.
Tuesday we hitched a ride with Ricardito to his farm. On the way, more Pechiche saplings were transplanted from a construction lot in El Astillero. The Bosque Encantado revegetation site was watered while at Ricardito's farm and Samango seeds were collected from a large tree. The seeds pods were ready, brown with rattling seeds inside, and they were pulled directly from the lowest branches of the tree to minimize insect damage. From there we moved on to the greenhouse with the transplanted Pechiche's to plant them into three-liter bottles.
On Wednesday the Maria Dolores and Don Pepe sites were watered. In the afternoon, Darline, from Belgium, arrived. Darline will be spending the next three or four months with us. That evening it drizzled a bit.
Thursday we headed to the Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas and La Cruz sites to water there. In the afternoon, cleanup around the house was done. That night Barbie and Lauren showed up for a one month volunteering stint.
Friday morning the El Toro revegetation site was
watered. In the afternoon, the Planet Drum family went to the greenhouse
where we met up with the Bioregionalistas for an interactive class. With
their help all the compost was turned, the Samango seeds were removed from
their pods, and some Guachepeli saplings were transplanted from seedbeds.
Also a seed bed with a couple hundred Algarobo seeds got planted and all
the plants were watered. It was a great afternoon with the students and
everyone had a lot of fun.
Hasta luego,
Clay
Wednesday the class met up in the park to begin the new advanced Bioregionalism classes. All of the students were excited about the gifts that visiting Planet Drum staffers had left for them (notepads and colored pencils). The theme of the day was the relationship between living beings and the environment. The students split into two work groups, one led by a new student, Alan and the other by Raisa, the bioregionalistas group leader. Each group completed their own analysis of the materials. The two leaders presented the conclusions of their groups, saying that life is a cycle and that everything is interrelated: soil for planting, water, temperature, and light for photosynthesis.
On
Friday we went to the greenhouse with the Planet Drum volunteers, where
another discussion was held before getting to work.
We
talked about the importance of temperature, soil, water, and sunlight for
life: without sunlight there is no photosynthesis, without water there is
no life, and without healthy soil we can't make plantings.
After
the discussion the students helped the Planet Drum volunteers plant seeds,
water the trees and make compost
.
Translated by Clay.
The theme for the week was Sustainable Development.
Wednesday
afternoon we made groups in circles to discuss the material at hand. After
each group finished their work, the whole class formed one large circle
and began to analyze the different studies that the groups did.
The
students understand that sustainable development is a very large and
encompassing concept, and to be able to understand it well requires
studying the environment of Bahia and the effect of a large population of
people living here and in the surrounding area.
On
Friday there was a hike through the Jorge Lomas neighborhood in the hills
behind Leonidas Plaza, a suburb of Bahia.
We hiked all the way up over a pass and down to the beach on the other side. The point of the hike was to observe the amounts of garbage that are produced and discarded in this area. In addition to seeing a lot of trash, we also found empty shotgun shells, from hunters killing birds. We hiked through a lot of side trails to see beyond where the road goes.
The students say they want to organize a trash clean up in the area.
Next week the theme of Sustainable Development
continues.
Translated by Clay.
The first day of classes this week we analyzed the different criteria of sustainability in Ecuador. We held a discussion about the importance of sustainability. Among the factors discussed were the following:
· Economic benefits because of improved quality of life through the rational use of flora and fauna.
· Sustainability gives us a vision for the future because it will conserve and increase the population of plants and animals in the forests and allow future generations to benefit from this.
· All different types of habitants and portions of the population, with the help of public and private institutions can be involved, without geographic limitations.
· With a working plan of action for sustainability for the conservation of ecosystems, including nation and international cooperation, we can improve the lifestyles of the residents and have a healthy environment free of pollution.
·
Improved consciousness of the benefits that natural
resources can bring.
On Friday, we headed to the Cerro Seco nature reserve
to observe a variety of examples of local sustainability. 
We
visited a chicken coop of naturally raised chickens. This is an example of
a micro-business since it supplies employment to members of the Bellavista
community.
We
saw several reforestation sites around the nature reserve and the
greenhouse with native tree species waiting to be planted. We saw the
process of making trails through the Dry Tropical Forest, which will allow
visitors to see the variety of flora and fauna there. We also did a
cleanup of the area, collecting lots of disposed plastic materials.
After all this, the group came to the general conclusion that for everything to be sustainable, everyone must become conscious of the importance of natural resources which can be economically viable and at the same time improve our lives. Without conservation there won't be any sustainable development.
Translated by Clay.
This class had a new theme: Pollution. Before
starting, I asked the class what they knew about the idea of pollution.
They described pollution as the presence of a foreign substance that
damages the soil, air or water. We then split into three groups to discuss
air pollution in more detail. We were joined by some of the Planet Drum
volunteers who helped out in the groups.
After meeting together each group had to read their respective topics and then make conclusions to present to the other groups. We reformed in one large group to discuss what everyone had read.
Lissette said that the air is full of vapors and CO2
which is harmful to everyone's health. Klever talked about two different
types of pollution: natural and artificial or man-made pollution. Natural
forms being volcanos, storms, and forest fires. And manmade pollution
which is a result of vehicles and factories, for example. The students
also talked about the problem of the ozone layer in the atmosphere being
damaged by refrigerants and how it is now recovering. Mathew presented on
the problem of acid rain. 
At the end of class, all the students commented on how developed countries are the ones that are doing the most damage to the world's environment, and how the United States didn't even sign the Kyoto agreement. But then I mentioned that there are foundations from those countries that are working to improve the environment in developing nations like Planet Drum and that that is why we have this bioregional education class. At the end of class, Raisa said she would try and ride in her car less and ride her bike and walk more.
On Friday we did field work around the city of Bahia. We decided to call ourselves 'environmental detectives' because the work we were doing consisted of counting the buses driving around the city and finding other large sources of pollution.
Within the span of twenty minutes, four buses left to
go on their bus routes. Each one was emitting a large amount of smoke.
According to this calculation, twelve buses leave every hour and in a
normal twelve-hour day of bus service that would be 144 round trips from
Bahia to Kilometro 8 and Fanca. 
We also found other forms of pollution. At construction sites there was an excessive amount of noise and lots of dust being produced, which is damaging to people's respiratory systems.
There was also an open house at the Javier Rodriguez
School and four of the bioregionalistas presented on the
bioregional classes. 
They received congratulations from the school authorities as well as the other visitors to the open house.
Translated by Clay.
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