Reports from Planet Drum Staff
Eco-Ecuador Project 2010
Clay Plager-Unger
Field Projects Manager
Planet Drum Foundation
August 5-24, 2010
Note: Click on photos for larger picture
We began breaking ground on the first revegetation site for the upcoming rainy season, 2011. The site is located on the hillside above the greenhouse and University Catolica. It is a large site that connects the space between a 2008 revegetation site with a site planted by Heather Crawford in 2005, which borders on a site from 2009 and 2010. Once planted, it will create a multiple hectare corridor along a continuous hillside revegetated with native plant species.
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Orlando and Arian clearing a trail at the new revegetation
site. |
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Cai doing what he enjoys most in Ecuador, swinging
machete! |
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Orlando begins a trail up the steep
hillside. |
The new site spans two drainages and includes a large, fairy steep hillside. It fills an area that appears to have been slash-and-burned for agricultural purposes; the charred stumps of previous vegetation are scattered about. Given the terrain, it was almost certainly used for planting corn. Farther up the drainage, a distinct line is visible where a more intact forest remained undisturbed. This will be the upper boundary of the site.
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Cai clearing trail. |
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View of the main hillside of the new revegetation site (highlighted). Orlando weaves his way up, opening trails along the way. To the right, and farther up the drainage, the large trees of the more intact forest are
visible. |
Along one of the drainages, Orlando suggests planting a cluster of Pechiche trees, which will do well with a tad bit more water. Once up on the ridge, he points to an area where he says he would like to plant a patch of Ceibos, which are heartier and will thrive in the dry soil. I can tell he is already imagining the landscape with hundreds of new trees poking out of the soil.
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While macheteing a trail, I came across and interesting sight. A young deer appears to have been scratching its budding antlers on this Palo Santo
trunk. |
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Recent drizzles caused this Palo Santo tree to begin to grow a new set of
leaves. |
So far, we have successfully opened the major trails which lead to the different areas of the site. Branching off each of these arteries will be a series of smaller, horizontal, trails which will weave through the brush, allowing us access to plant trees. These smaller trails will be placed at intervals of approximately four meters in order to fill as much of the hillside as possible. Like lines on a topographical map, they follow the terrain, each one slightly higher up the hillside. Thus far it is difficult to judge how many trees will fit in the site, but I would estimate around 500. Once the trails are completed, holes will be dug and marked with painted bamboo stakes.
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A fallen flower from a Carraca tree stands out against the dull background of dead leaves. |
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Up on the hillside the vegetation reveals the history of a changing landscape. A large Moyuyo shrub fell over due to shifting (eroding?) soil, but remained alive and has grown new trunks out of its old trunk. |
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Bahia, the new bridge, slated for completion this year, and Bird Island (mangroves) are barely visible through the morning fog. |
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Along the ridge, we stumble upon the revegetation site from 2008. Orlando and an
Algarrobo. |
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Clay with a Guachepeli planted in 2008. |
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The bright red flowers of the Carraca tree and yellow flowers of Bototillo are visible from far away. |
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The ridge provides an almost aerial view of the University Catolica and the Planet Drum greenhouse. The barren hillside in the distance begs to be
revegetated. |
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Unstoppable with a machete, Cai chops new trails. |
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Orlando shows how he dented his machete when he accidentally chopped into an old Guayacan root. Then he proceeds to use the backside of my machete to hammer straight the edge. |
A friend of mine who works for a construction company at the San Vicente-Bahia de Caraquez bridge called me Saturday the 14th. His crew was in the process of throwing out hundreds of bamboo tubes, 1.5 to 2 meters long. He told me to hire a truck immediately and he would be able to donate the scrap materials to Planet Drum. I quickly rented the biggest truck I could find and headed for the bridge.
With the help of the Army Corp of Engineer workers, we loaded the truck to the brim with practically brand new bamboo pieces, which will be perfect for the tree markers. Since we may be planting upwards of three or four thousand trees this coming year, we are going to need a lot of bamboo. In one afternoon, and for only twenty bucks to rent a truck, I secured enough bamboo for our needs and then some.
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Orlando walks through the seedlings outside the greenhouse. Almond trees leaves scatter the ground. |
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Andres and Cai peel Algarrobo seeds from their pods, which have been soaking for over three days, in order to plant them in the seedbeds. |
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An unusual caterpillar with what appear to be eggs on its back crawls amongst Chirimoya seedlings in three-liter bottles. |
At the greenhouse, the seedbeds of Ceibo and Jaboncillo have been germinating. Also, we collected a couple sacks of Algarrobo seeds, left them soaking for 3-5 days and then planted them in seedbeds. They have started germinating already as well. The trees in bottles are growing well, and we keep them well watered and free of weeds.
Pásalo bien,
Clay
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Clay Plager-Unger
Field Projects Manager
Planet Drum Foundation
August 25-September 20, 2010
Note: Click on photos for larger picture
Work on the new site behind the greenhouse continues. It is a rather large site with many trails to clear with machetes. The trails weave through existing foliage and around the contours of the land, making as much of the terrain as possible accessible for planting.
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Volunteer Milena and Orlando transplant Jaboncillo seedlings from the seed beds to three-liter
bottles. |
At the greenhouse, the seedbeds of Ceibo and Jaboncillo have germinated and the seedlings were transplanted to three-liter bottles. Unfortunately we don’t have as many Ceibo trees as would be ideal, but at least we have some (approximately 50-100). Routine maintenance of the greenhouse involves watering thousands of trees, weeding, and tending to the compost. At least two days a week are dedicated to greenhouse work to make sure that the plants don’t dry out too much.
More seeds have been collected. One morning we stopped by an over-sized
Tierrademonte tree (shrub) and collected some seeds. Another day, we knocked down Bototillo seed pods from trees in the Maria Dolores neighborhood. That same morning we also collected more Algarrobo seed pods (near the Casa Ceibo hotel) whose seeds were soaked in water over the weekend and planted in a seedbed on Monday.
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Orlando picks seed pods off of a gigantic Tierrademonte
plant. |
On another occasion, our friend Afranio drove Orlando and me to San Clemente to look for Ceibo seeds. The Ceibos around Bahia appear to have been very unproductive this year in terms of seeds. Based on my observations, it appears as though Ceibo trees don’t produce seed pods in consecutive years. And unfortunately, upon arrival to San Clemente, we were only able to locate a couple of Ceibos (of dozens) and they had sparse production of seedpods. And the few seedpods that we came across were still too unripe to be collected. We will have to return within a few weeks, otherwise we will be left without any Ceibo seeds in reserve.
Other work in the field has involved cutting bamboo tubes to make markers for the trees. Approximately one day a week is spent on this so that we slowly accumulate markers for the upcoming rainy season.
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Orlando grabs an armload of bamboo tubes from the enormous pile. The tubes are cut apart into stakes that will be used to marking the trees we plant during the upcoming rainy
season. |
Additionally, we have started selectively watering some of the sites that appear to most need a bit of water. Overall the sites are doing very well. Many of the trees have lost their leaves, but this is normal. There are lots of Dry Tropical Forest species which lose their leaves during the dry season to conserve water. Nonetheless, some of the trees could use a drink of water now and again. Ideally, if planted early enough in the rainy season, the saplings should be able to survive the dry season without any additional watering. This is rarely the case since it takes time to plant the different sites and not all of the sites can be planted immediately at the beginning of the rainy season. Consequently, we are required to dedicate a bit of time to watering the trees planted this past year.
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Clay explains Planet Drum’s revegetation project to a group of students from the Interamericano high
school. |
Last Wednesday, a class of students from the Interamericano school, taught by Nadine (one of Planet Drum’s three Bioregionalismo teachers) came to visit the greenhouse. I gave them a tour of the trees and the kids even climbed to the top of the hill behind the greenhouse to see the revegetation site that we are currently working on.
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Clay shows the students how Planet Drum makes its own compost. The students will use what they learned to setup compost production at their
school. |
Looking into the short-term future, new sites need to be acquired within a few weeks so that they can be and prepared for the trees that we are producing at the greenhouse. Unfortunately, the volunteer situation has been a bit slow as of late, but our spirits remain high and we continue to press onward.
Pásalo bien,
Clay
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