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).
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.
[Top]
Current Planet Drum
Volunteers in Eco-Ecuador
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.
[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.
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
<<<<><><>>>>
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.
<<<<><><>>>>
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
<<<<><><>>>>
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.
<<<<><><>>>>
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
<<<<><><>>>>
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.
- What have you learned in
these ten weeks?
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)
<<<<><><>>>>
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
