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Reports from Planet Drum Staff
Eco-Ecuador Project

2007

Please see our Announcement Seeking Volunteers
Also we have brief bios of Current (10/24/07) and Previous (5/28/07) Volunteers in Eco-Ecuador

In January, 2007 Clay Plager-Unger took over as Field Project Manager. His enthusiasm and dedication to community development will add a significant dimension to our work in Bahia over the next year.

Index to 2007 Reports

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Ramon's Weekly Advanced Session/Winter Report #4 (Oct. 24, 26, 2007)

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Ramon's Weekly Advanced Session/Winter Report #3 (Oct. 17, 19, 2007)

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Ramon's Weekly Advanced Session/Winter Report #2 (Oct. 10, 12, 2007)

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Ramon's Weekly Advanced Session/Winter Report #1 (October 3, 5, 2007)

bulletField Report #34, Clay Plager-Unger (October 1-5, 2007)
bulletField Report #33, Clay Plager-Unger (September 24-28, 2007)
bulletField Report #32, Clay Plager-Unger (September 17-21, 2007)
bulletField Report #31, Clay Plager-Unger (September 10-14, 2007)
bulletField Report #30, Clay Plager-Unger (September 3-7, 2007)
bulletField Report #29, Clay Plager-Unger (August 27-31, 2007)
bulletField Report #28, Clay Plager-Unger (August 20-24, 2007)
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Ramon's Weekly Summer Session Report #10 (August 15, 17, 2007)

bulletField Report #27, Clay Plager-Unger (August 13-17, 2007)
bulletField Report #26, Clay Plager-Unger (July 30-August 3, 2007)
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Ramon's Weekly Summer Session Report #9 (July 25, 27, 2007)

bulletField Report #25, Clay Plager-Unger (July 23-27, 2007)
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Ramon's Weekly Summer Session Report #8 (July 18, 20, 2007)

bulletField Report #24, Clay Plager-Unger (July 16-20, 2007)
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Ramon's Weekly Summer Session Report #7 (July 11, 13, 2007)

bulletField Report #23, Clay Plager-Unger (July 9-13, 2007)
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Ramon's Weekly Summer Session Report #6 (July 4, 6, 2007)

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Ramon's Weekly Summer Session Report #5 (June 27, 29, 2007)

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Ramon's Weekly Summer Session Report #4 (June 20, 22, 2007)

bulletField Report #22, Clay Plager-Unger (June 25-29, 2007)
bulletField Report #21, Clay Plager-Unger (June 18-22, 2007)
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Ramon's Weekly Summer Session Report #3 (June 13, 15, 2007)

bulletField Report #20, Lise Tjorring (June 11-15, 2007)
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Ramon's Weekly Summer Session Report #2 (June 6, 8, 2007)

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Ramon's Weekly Summer Session Report #1 (May 30, June 1, 2007)

bulletField Report #19, Lise Tjorring (June 4-8, 2007)
bulletField Report #18, Clay Plager-Unger (May 28-June 1, 2007)
bulletField Report #17, Clay Plager-Unger (May 21-25, 2007)
bulletField Report #16, Clay Plager-Unger (May 14-18, 2007)
bulletField Report #15, Clay Plager-Unger (May 7-11, 2007)
bulletField Report #14, Clay Plager-Unger (April 30-May 4, 2007)
bulletField Report #13, Clay Plager-Unger (April 23-27, 2007)
bulletField Report #12, Clay Plager-Unger (April 16-20, 2007)
bulletField Report #11, Clay Plager-Unger (April 9-13, 2007)
bulletField Report #10, Clay Plager-Unger (April 2-7, 2007)
bulletField Report #9, Clay Plager-Unger (March 12-30, 2007)
bulletField Report #8, Clay Plager-Unger (February 26-March 2, 2007)
bulletField Report #7, Clay Plager-Unger (February 17-23, 2007)
bulletField Report #6, Clay Plager-Unger (February 10-16, 2007)
bulletField Report #5, Clay Plager-Unger (February 5-9, 2007)
bulletField Report #4, Clay Plager-Unger (Jan 29-Feb 2, 2007)
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Ramon's Weekly Bioregional Education Report #10 (January 24, 26, 2007)

bulletField Report #3, Clay Plager-Unger (January 22-26, 2007)
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Ramon's Weekly Bioregional Education Report #9 (January 17, 19, 2007)

bulletField Report #2, Clay Plager-Unger (January 15-21, 2007)
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Ramon's Weekly Bioregional Education Report #8 (January 10, 12, 2007)

bulletField Report #1, Clay Plager-Unger (January 8-14, 2007)

Note: Click to see the 2006 Reports (Dan Robbins, Patrick Wylie, Valentina Carminati, Sarah Couture, Heather Crawford) 2005 Reports (Heather Crawford, Renée Portanova, Kristen Lansdale, Riccardo Clemente, et al.) 2004 Reports (Renée Portanova, Brian Teinert) or 2003 Reports (Brian Teinert).

Announcement: Seeking Volunteers

Planet Drum Foundation is seeking volunteers for its Ecological City projects in Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador during periods from a month to six months. 

Work with our unique revegetation planting and maintaining native plants to reduce erosion and create habitats for birds and other animals. Join neighborhood efforts to learn and use ecological practices. Help in renewable energy development. Assist bioregional environmental education groups for children and adults.

A background in environmental education and activities, Spanish language speaking ability, and cooperative living experience are desirable. However, willing hands and a desire to help restore our damaged biosphere are most important.

(Click Projects tab at the top of this page and then choose Eco-Ecuador for  background information, or read the up-to-date Reports listed above.)

Benefits include free accommodation in a large shared apartment, extraordinary beach and wilderness recreational activities, and opportunities to improve Spanish skills as well as experience tropical Ecuadorian culture.

Please send a description of your qualifications and interests to Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager, planetdrumecuador@yahoo.com.

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Current Planet Drum Volunteers in Eco-Ecuador

As of October 24, 2007

The Planet Drum family relaxing while on an excursion in San Clemente to the Piñon del Sol nature preserve, a piece of protected dry tropical forest, with examples of ten year old reforestation efforts and areas of primary forest. 

[Click on photo for larger version]

From front to back:
Clay – El Jefe. Los Estados Unidos, ten months in Bahia and counting…

Darline – Belgium, four month stay. Darline studied forestry and nature management and is interested in dry tropical ecosystems, native tree species and reforestation techniques. She is very happy to be working out in the field instead of an office.

Lauren – Philadelphia, one month stay. Lauren has a degree in Environmental Science and wanted to do some volunteering during her travels around Ecuador. She likes spending time with the saplings in the greenhouse and getting friendly with the compost heaps.

Michaela – Team Germany, two month stay. Michaela has a Masters degree in Politics and was the editor of an internet news site focused on the energy mixes of the future. She has since become very interested in ecological practices and decided to come get her hands dirty in South America.

Barbie – Philadelphia, one month stay. Barbie is studying Sociology and Global Justice. She is volunteering her way around Ecuador until the end of the year and chose Planet Drum because it's economical and she is drawn to the vision of urban ecological restoration. She also likes the communal living aspect. In her free time Barbie is teaching English at one of the local schools.

Dan – Boston, two week visit. Dan is Clay's college friend and needed to get away from a 9 to 5 computer programming routine. He thoroughly enjoyed getting away from his office desk and out into the campo of Ecuador.

Cori – The United States, five week stay. Cori has a background in biology and has been traveling around Central and South America for the past few months. She was thinking about doing some volunteering when she found out about Planet Drum from a previous volunteer while in Colombia and decided to come to Ecuador.

Aaron – Not pictured. The U.S., two month stay. Aaron recently arrived to Bahia and is interested in doing some ecological volunteering. He plans on helping out with the Bioregional Education classes and is eager to dive into the other work as well. He's looking forward to getting into good shape with all of the physical labor we're doing these days and by surfing in his free time.

As of May 28, 2007

[Click on photo for larger version]

Rox From Scotland, staying 3 months. Studied countryside management in Scotland and has a year worth of prior experience volunteering for the National Trust and National Park, where she helped with practical conservation and environmental education.

Lise From Denmark, staying 3 months. Has a degree in cultural anthropology and studied environmental anthropology, including a thesis on the Huaorani people and oil companies and differing perceptions of the environment. She particularly enjoys our communal living space and working on her Spanish.

Andrew From Ireland, staying 7 weeks. An electrician, traveling Ecuador, stopped by to do some environmental volunteering.

Jim From England, staying 6 weeks. Studied social anthropology and is helpful preparing learning materials for kids, as well as strong for carrying heavy loads in the field. He has volunteer experience with the National Trust, worked for a tree surgeon, and was a professional cook.

Judith From Scotland, staying 5 weeks. An English teacher from Quito for over a year, is taking a vacation from the books to get her hands dirty in the greenhouse.

Kirk and Crista A couple from Canada, staying 3 months. Kirk is volunteering to fulfill the practice portion of his masters program for a degree in Environmental Planning. He has an education background in Urban planning. Crista has lots of prior traveling experience to Italy, New York and Paris.

Tomaz and Mariana A couple from Portugal, staying 1 week. Tomaz has been crucial for translating bioregional educational information into Spanish for our Bioregional classes. Mariana studied law and was integral in helping prepare a presentation to take on the cell phone giants of Ecuador (Alegro, Porta and Movistar) to prevent further construction of cell phone towers within the urban center of Bahia.

Field Report #1

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: January 8-14, 2007

It is an honor for me to be representing Planet Drum Foundation as the new Field Projects Manager here in Bahia De Caraquez, Ecuador. This is an incredibly interesting time to begin work here as the dry season is coming to a close and we are on the verge of the wet season, when we begin moving trees from our greenhouse out into the field. We are also rapidly approaching the eco-week festivities, which will take place during the third week of February (19th-23rd). This will mark the 8th year of Bahia being an eco-city and there are lots of festivities planned. This year we are trying to increase the exposure of our ecological movement by beginning preparations early and holding activities each week leading up to the Eco-week and then beyond. So, in addition to the maintenance of our current revegetation sites and greenhouse, there is a lot going on. Proposed activities for the Eco-week coming up in February are a beach clean-up, restoration of a park along the road into town (at Fanca), planting of Manglares, publicizing the event, work at Bella Vista, education about local birds, cleaning up the cemeterio, making tee-shirts for the volunteers that say 'consciencia verde' (our slogan) and doing a town clean-up. Additionally we began to discuss the possibility of proposing (and enforcement) of environmentally friendly laws such as anti-littering. This last topic has less to do with the Eco-week and there is clearly a lot of discussion/action to be had. Possibly involving the involvement of CEDA (Centro Ecuatoriano Derecha Ambiente) here in Bahia. These bi-weekly meetings seem to be incredibly productive, especially since we are just beginning with them. They provide an excellent forum for many of the ideas that Marcello, Ramon, Orlando and the Municipio have. And there seems to be no shortage of their ideas.

The Planet Drum house has now become the meeting place for bi-weekly gatherings of local eco-amigos. Our meetings are open to anyone in the area with an ecological interest. We are working together to promote community awareness of local environmental issues and protect this beautiful bioregion.

Our volunteer who became temporary Field Projects Manager, Tom, has left for the next stage of his travels, working on the Galapagos Islands. But not before he kindly showed me the workings of Planet Drum and our sites around Bahia. And although we are in the process of saying goodbye to a few more volunteers who have spent the past 3-4 months furthering the Planet Drum mission, our house has been filled to the brim this past week. We had a work force of 9 volunteers in total and were able to accomplish a lot. But now as volunteers move out, we will gradually be becoming shorthanded. If you are in the area, or looking for something exciting to do in South America, come join us! Email planetdrumecuador at yahoo dot com to inquire about volunteering.

This past week had a healthy mix of both community involvement and revegetation. On Monday we watered two sites, El Toro and La Cruz. Along with the farmers and everyone else around Bahia, we are still waiting for the rains to begin. We also collected 3-liter plastic bottles from around the city and on the beach. We use the bottles for transplanting trees in the greenhouse. Each bottle acts as an intermediary stage for the young trees, which begin as seedlings in seedbeds at the greenhouse. Once in the bottles they can easily be transported to their specific sites after they have reached the proper size. Collecting bottles from the neighborhoods around town has the added benefit of reducing trash in the streets and on the beach.

Monday's collected bottles were used on Tuesday to transplant trees that are only a few weeks old. These trees will have to wait until next year's rainy season to be planted. We continued transplanting trees on Wednesday. Additionally a number of us split off to a couple of our new sites to prepare catchments around future tree planting sites. They involve digging a circular ditch around where each tree will be planted. The ditch will help collect water when it's raining, will make watering easier and hold leaves which will be used to maintain humidity around the tree as well as provide additional nutrients for the trees through composting. Recent consensus suggests that these catchments will be crucial in improving our survival rates. We made sure to dig large catchments at two of our new sites this day. Thursday we continued our work of bottle collection, as we are always in need of more these days.

On Friday, after four days of making great progress on our own projects, we decided to help out with a local community project in preparation for the upcoming eco-week. We all spent the entire afternoon at a local park that was originally dedicated many years ago when Bahia first declared itself an Eco-city. The park hasn't seen much attention over the years and we are in the process of upkeep, cleaning, and more revegetation. Along with a number of other environmental groups and local schoolchildren we repainted the sidewalks, and fencing, and planted a number of trees donated from our greenhouse, including my first, a Ceibo. The Bioregional Education class joined us to pitch in with the work and the mayor of the town showed up as well. It was a great way to show our solidarity with the community and gain some exposure for Planet Drum and the environmental movement in Bahia.

All in all my first week here has involved a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. I am looking forward to what the future holds for Bahia and its eco-amigos.

Ciao,

Clay

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Ramon's Weekly Bioregional Education Report #8

January 10, 2007

On this day we were invited to work in the greenhouse at the Cerro Seco Reserve. We planted many different types of trees (Pechiche, Hobo, Suche). It was a very special day for the young bioregionalists since what they've wanted most is to be able to be a direct part of reforesting.

We were well received at the site and divided into two groups to get our work done. Afterwards we relaxed by taking a break and eating the fruit of full-grown Hobo trees. This day was so much fun, the time went by so quickly.

January 12th, 2007

Since we are approaching the 8th anniversary of Bahia declaring itself an Eco-city, we met today with all of the volunteers from Planet Drum to do some reforestation work in the park of Leonidas Plaza. This park is important because it is at the entrance of the city and it must have a lot of trees and look nice. We cleaned and painted the park and watered the trees there. It was a fun afternoon for the children. The mayor of the city and two council members came to help. One of them planted a tree for the first time and they all participated enthusiastically.

Translated by Clay.

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Field Report #2

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: January 15-19, 2007

It's been another exciting and work-filled week here in Bahia de Caraquez. The dry season continues even though a few showers teased us, which suggests that the rainy season is close. With the real rain holding out on us, we continue to water our old revegetation sites. We are also making the final preparations in the greenhouse to get new trees for this season's planting ready to move out into the field.

On Monday we had a long day of watering two of our larger sites, Bosque Encantado and El Toro. Upon arriving at the El Toro site we had the unfortunate discovery that fires to clear brush in an area that includes part of the site may have damaged a half dozen of our plantings. It appears as though the trees survived the fire, but there was clearly some damage done. I hold ourselves as responsible for this act of negligence. In retrospect we should have known that it was likely that fire would be used to remove the brush that had already been cut in this area. Additionally we poorly demarcated our trees in this instance. But the bottom line is that there must be better communication with landowners and the communities in which we reforest. Planting trees is only part of our mission.

On Tuesday a couple of us continued watering at the Cherry Tree site in the morning while the rest of us took the morning off and then spent the afternoon finishing our park project from the previous week. We finished painting a fence in the park and watered all the trees there including more than a dozen new trees that were planted last week. The park now looks great, right alongside the road on the way into the city. We've already gotten a number of compliments on it from local communities.

Wednesday we were back in the greenhouse, watering and transplanting trees into large plastic bottles for planting once the rainy season commences. We also collected more of these plastic bottles around town, as there are still numerous trees that we need to transplant before the rains. In the afternoon we invited Ramon's bioregionalism class to help with some of our transplanting and the kids got to do some hands-on work, which they very much enjoyed.

On Thursday we revisited the Bosque Encantado site and did some maintenance work to prepare some of our 'older' (one year) trees there to make the most of the upcoming wet season. Catchments were created around a number of trees and fresh compost from our greenhouse was added to the soil around the trees to give them a boost of nutrients. Once again more bottles were collected.

With the fresh influx of bottles we completed more transplanting on Friday. I visited the El Toro site and added compost to trees we have stored there which are waiting to be put in the ground. In the afternoon I accompanied Ramon and his bioregional class and some other eco-amigos on an excursion to collect Mangrove seeds that washed up on the opposite side of the river from Bahia. This was our weekly activity in anticipation of the Eco-week in February. The seeds we collected are in a tub of salt water now and will begin to germinate over the coming month so that they will be ready for planting during a daylong activity that will be part of the Eco-week.

Step by step we are working to change our future…

Until next time,

Clay

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Ramon's Weekly Bioregional Education Report #9

January 17, 2007

We went to the Planet Drum greenhouse at the Catholic University to transplant trees. Some of the Planet Drum volunteers were waiting for us on our arrival. They carefully explained to the kids how to transplant and make compost. Then we split into groups to tackle the two tasks. The girls decided to transplant while the boys worked on the compost. Afterwards everyone helped with watering in the greenhouse.

January 19th, 2007

I met early with the students because we had to catch the ferry (gabarra) across the Rio Chone to collect Mangrove seeds on the beach at the other side. We met up with another group from a local community called 'Manglar Beisbol' (Mangrove Baseball), a baseball team for youths who gather seeds. We talked about the importance of protecting mangroves and the roles of estuaries in our bioregion. Then we all collected a number of bags full of the seeds that we will plant during the Eco-week.

Translated by Clay.

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Field Report #3

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: January 22-26, 2007

We are still waiting for rain. Locals say that when it doesn't rain until February, the rains hit all the harder. We'll see. An occasional shower has allowed us to avoid having to water some days, and the delay in the real rains has afforded us more time to further prepare for the planting in the wet season. But at this point we'd definitely trade a bit of being unprepared for a lot of rain. Unfortunately, this week's planned activity in preparation of the Eco-week, painting a mural at the city's entrance, had to be postponed because of a shortage of funding to buy paint. But our bi-weekly meetings continue and we now have a jam-packed program of events leading up to and throughout the week of February 19th, more on this in upcoming reports.

On Monday a couple of us accompanied Marcelo Luque and a class of twenty students from the local eco-escuela on a nature hike through Marcelo's nature preserve, Cerro Seco. We began in the classroom by discussing different species of birds from this bioregion and distributing a booklet on the subject to the children. From there we walked over to the entrance of Cerro Seco and the students helped organize some bags with soil that will be used to plant trees in. Before setting off on the hike through the preserve, we had an open discussion with the children about the importance of the environment, and in particular, their bioregion. We talked about what it means to eat healthily, and how our dietary and material consumption affects the environment. At this point John and I, representing Planet Drum, were given a chance to introduce ourselves and our organization.

I pointed out that while the surroundings may seem commonplace to the children, this bioregion holds immense biodiversity that is unique from all other places on the planet. And John explained to them why he traveled all the way from England to visit Bahia and help with ecological preservation. Along the hike, we planted Hobo stakes which will grow into trees, and made frequent stops to enjoy our surroundings, listen to the birds, take in a Ceibo tree, and continue our environmental conversations. Although it may have been difficult for the children to appreciate the significance of our discourse and the opportunity to take a walk like this through a nature preserve here in their backyard, they all had an excellent time, and I'm sure it will have a lasting, positive impression on them.

At the same time, our other volunteers were diligently collecting bottles and transplanting more trees in our greenhouse, growing saplings of a more tangible variety than stakes. Tuesday we had to water El Toro. In addition to last years plantings, there are smaller saplings waiting to be put in the ground at our new site there that have been suffering in the intense sun. Regular watering for them is critical. But they appear to be maintaining, and a recent addition of compost to their containers should provide a boost of nutrients and help retain moisture. Other volunteers continued transplanting until they ran out of bottles again, and then headed back to the beach to find more.

On Wednesday I was in Guayaquil obtaining my Ecuadorian ID card from the immigration police – not the most pleasant of places to spend a day. The others got to enjoy a lengthy day in the greenhouse, cutting the bottles collected from the beach and then transplanting over a hundred seedlings into them.

We did more watering of sites on Thursday, this time at La Cruz, over-looking the city, and Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas. While at Ruinas, we also collected a couple of sacks of Terremonte leaves. This tree produces leaves which are particularly good for natural compost and we will use them on our plantings this season. Additionally, some catchments were improved. These catchments around plantings will help the trees further take advantage of the rainy season by helping to contain water around the tree – which is particularly important on hillsides. We are also adding fresh compost to the catchments, thereby providing nutrients which will decompose into the soil directly above the roots.

Finally, a night with some decent rain allowed us to skip watering one of our larger sites, Bosque Encantado, on Friday. Instead of watering there, we collected more Terremonte and continued catchment improvements. Also, we were able to nearly finish transplanting saplings in the greenhouse. There are now only a few dozen trees left which need to be moved into bottles. Our goal is to have all of our trees in bottles to grow until they are ready to be planted in the field. Transferring trees into bottles allows them to be easily transported out to our sites. The earlier this is done, within reason, the less impact the trees sustain. With our current seedling beds emptied, we will then have lots of room to plant many more seeds for next year's planting, especially with the recent addition to the greenhouse – thanks to the previous Field Projects Manager, Patrick and the previous volunteers and locals who helped make that happen!

Patiently waiting for rain…

Que venga la lluvia!

Clay

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Ramon's Weekly Bioregional Education Report #10

January 24th, 2007

We met in the Manuel Nevares park and sat under a tree. We began to have dialogue about everything we've learned in this class and the importance of being able to create a bioregion education class. I told the students they need to take advantage of all the information I have taught them. I also explained that they are now a unique group of individuals who can improve the environments in their communities. As young people they have their own, new ideas of how this can be done. At the end of the day we all planned the closing meeting of this bioregional education project.

January 26th, 2007

Before our ending festivities, I gave all the students a questionnaire with five questions about the class to answer.

  1. What have you learned in these ten weeks?
    bullet“Everything about nature”
    bullet“I learned about all the beauty that exists in nature”
    bullet“I learned about planting in the greenhouse and met some foreigners”
    bullet“I learned a lot about planting and what constitutes a bioregion”
    bullet“I learned how to appreciate an ecosystem”
    bullet“I learned how to share with my friends, and many things about plants, animals and all about nature”
    bullet“The importance of taking care of the environment”
  2. What did you like best in all this time?
    bullet“Everything”
    bullet“What I liked most was going to the dry tropical forest and all the games we played”
    bullet“I liked going to the forest and to Planet Drum's greenhouse the most”
    bullet“I liked when we went to Cerro Seco, Planet Drum's greenhouse and transplanting
    bullet“I liked going to La Cruz, Cerro Seco, when we took photos of us working and getting to know Tom (of Planet Drum)”
    bullet“The times when we were all together, painting in the park at Fanca, and celebrating the birthday of Raisa and the teacher”
  3. What did you like the least?
    bullet“I can't say”
    bullet“When there was a lot of sun and we had to hike over hills”
    bullet“When Tom left without getting to say goodbye, and that we didn't get a chance to plant trees in the sites because it didn't rain”
    bullet“That it's over”
    bullet“That some students didn't attend the last three weeks of class”
  4. What would you recommend for the next class?
    bullet“Nothing, because I liked it all”
    bullet“That we have a specific site where we can meet to have class”
    bullet“That the foreign volunteers don't change as often”
    bullet“That you only take diverse students who are mature”
  5. Would you return to be a part of this class?
    bullet“Yes!” (Everyone)

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)

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Field Report #4

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: January 29-February 2, 2007

Did I say that we were waiting for rain? In fact it is the rain that is waiting for us. We prepare our seedlings, tend to the greenhouse, turn compost, and water trees, and yet somehow we are not ready because the drought continues. What we are lacking in preparation is a mystery to me, but we are not waiting. In other news, the Eco-week is rapidly approaching, and our preparations continue on pace.

We started off the week with an uneventful morning of more bottle-collecting and transplanting in the greenhouse. In the afternoon I attended a meeting of community members concerned with the environmental status of Bahia. The meeting consisted of our local eco-amigos group, some municipal representatives, local neighborhood leaders, and other vocal members of the communities around Bahia. The intended purpose of the assembly was to introduce the calendar of events for the Eco-week that we have been preparing during our smaller bi-weekly meetings and ask for support from the others in attendance. While we managed to get through a presentation of all the events, and received promises for help where it's needed, there was a large amount of sidetracking.

There is clearly some negativity about the progress being made with Bahia's self-proclaimed status of 'Eco-city.' The fact remains that even after eight years of being an 'Eco-city,' there is still a lot of work to be done to be able to truly deserve that name. While I found some of the frustration expressed during the meeting to be understandable, the real importance is to continue looking forward. What can be done tomorrow, next week and next year? Our plans for the Eco-week include numerous activities that invoke the participation of neighborhoods, also activities that promote local ecology and active preservation and restoration of the environment, as well as significant publicity about the green-consciousness we are trying to spread. Below is the schedule of events.

On Tuesday, Thursday and Friday we were relegated by the lack of rains to continue watering our old sites: El Toro, Bosque Encantado, Cherry Tree, La Cruz and Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas. Of the half dozen trees that were affected by fire at our El Toro site, about half are recovering rather nicely, while the other half unfortunately appear to have been killed.

On Wednesday some of us tended to the greenhouse, transplanting and doing a general clean up of garbage that has accumulated there. All of our seedlings have now been transplanted into 3-liter bottles and we even have a small reserve of extra bottles. Our seedling beds are now empty and we will be replanting them after we take care of reforestation in the field. The rest of us returned to Bosque Encantado to finish improving catchments at our old sites there. Catchments were increased in size and mulch leaves were added to help maintain humidity and provide compost to the soil around the trees. All of our trees there now have improved catchments, including the future sites of trees in our new area of reforestation.

Our community activity of the week had to be postponed until next week when we will be participating in the planting of several hundred fruit trees in the Bella Vista neighborhood. I'll keep you all posted.

On a closing note, we said goodbye to Dave and Lauren, two volunteers who blessed us with their presence for the month of January. It's been great to work with them, and I think it's safe to say they had a great time with us too. They've been instrumental in our operations for the past month, and we're sorry to have to say farewell. Safe travels and enjoy the rest of your time in South America!

¡Conciencia Verde! Green Consciousness!

Clay

8th Anniversary of Eco-City Bahia: Schedule of Activities

Date

Activity

Place

Participants

01/12/07

Fixing up the park in the Fanca Neighborhood

Entrance to Fanca

Friends of the Eco-city, Sucre Municipality

01/16/07

Painting, watering, planting

Entrance to Fanca

Friends of the Eco-city, Sucre Municipality, local students

01/19/07

Collecting Mangrove seeds

Beach in San Vicente

Friends of the Eco-city, local students and volunteers

01/23-26/07

Painting a mural

Fanca

Friends of the Eco-city, Sucre Municipality, local students, muralists

01/27-31/07

Community work (education talks, reforestation, clean-ups)

Bellavista

Bellavista muralists, Friends of the Eco-city, Sucre Municipality, local students

02/02-07/07

Trash Clean-ups and painting

Various Bahia neighborhoods

Local residents

02/09-11/07

Painting a mural

Equitativa neighborhood

Muralists, Friends of the Eco-city, Sucre Municipality, students, local volunteers

02/17/07

Festival Parade

In the city streets

Ecocity residents, Municipality, private companies, local authorities

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

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

02/23/07

Formal Session

Municipal Theatre

Friends of the Eco-city, Sucre Municipality

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

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

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

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Field Report #5

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: February 5-9, 2007

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