Acquiring native plants of the dry tropical forest has proved to be a challenge.

February 20, 2003

Yesterday, we selected places to plant at M.A. Park and cleared them with machetes. We have algarrobo to plant, but they need a little more maturity. Stakes can go in now, but we don’t have much flat space that needs planting. I am planning to go to a vivero (greenhouse) in Portoviejo on Saturday with Ivan Iguirre in one of the Municipio trucks. There is a greenhouse there where I think I can acquire plants for M. A.Park and Pedro Oterro’s land. The only thing slowing up the re-veg sites are a lack of plants ready to put into the ground. We have many young plants at the greenhouse (300 algarrob0, 50 achiote, 100 pechiche). The algarrobo plants only need 1 to 2 weeks to be mature enough to plant. The others need more time. Regardless of the long hours we are putting in at the greenhouse, we just need time for the plants to grow. Acquiring native plants of the dry tropical forest has proved to be a challenge. I just got word from Ivan that we could go to Portoviejo, so that is my next move.

 Re. reveg sites

Pedro and I met the day before yesterday to discuss the plans for reforesting. He seems to be interested only in fruit trees. I told him we could work with him only using native trees (some fruit trees such as Pechiche and Guava will work).