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On Earth Day, we did a beach cleanup and gave away trees (13 samango; 7 guachapeli) to passersby who had space at their houses to plant one. Caitlin Donnovan arrived on Wednesday afternoon (after a very long bus delay due to the political protests that ousted the nation’s president) and has taken the back room. She will stay for two to three months. Kristen and Andrea are now sharing the front room. The next volunteer, Carley, will arrive on May 4th. Hasta el proximo! [Top]<<<<><><>>>>Report #7 Kristen Lansdale, Field Bioregional Education Manager
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Transportation: $72 |
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Communication: $48 |
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Research: $120 |
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Materials: $180 |
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Excursions: $130 |
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Other $30 |
I have found a voluntary assistant who is a local
Bahian, went to the Univ. Catolica and studied Marine Biology. Blas
is very enthusiastic about helping out with the course.
I have spoken with Mike Morgan as well and I think
that Heather and I will be going to visit Cerro Blanco Reserva in Guyaquil
in the next couple of weeks to see what is happening there, talk about the
Dry Tropical Forest and obtain seeds.
Hasta pronto,
Kristen
The climate has been changing already – more breeze and
cooler nights, and no sunsets.
This week we planted and cleared at Inter-Americano and the
Cherry Tree site. The school children at the Inter-Americano should
soon begin to water twice weekly. We also began planting the new
site, which will be called Hidalgo, the owner’s last name. He says
he will water the trees himself. We transplanted more Colorados
and continued turning the compost pile.
The Civil Defense Force would like to cooperate with Planet
Drum to plant 150 trees along the road from km 8 going into Bahia. They want Guachapeli and Samango, which is good because we have a lot of
those and they are good fast growing shade trees.
Our new volunteer from Canada, Carley, arrived Wednesday night
and is settling in quite well, in spite of not knowing any Spanish upon
her arrival. She is learning fast and studying daily! Blas,
Jaime and Cheo each helped out a day. Riccardo came through and left
for England on Sunday. He is thinking of coming back for part of the
Bioregional Education Program.
We are still doing quite well with publicity, thanks to “Cronica”,
the week night talk show. We don’t even have to be there and they
talk about us! This week Blas went on talking about how it is to
volunteer with us, and also about the new education program. I
attended the BEP informational meeting on Wednesday but I’m sure
Kristen’s filling you in on that so I won’t go into details.
I got to organize the electronic seed bank information and will
soon determine the next steps to take with that project.
We got a lot done around the house this week – fixing
toilets, a new (old) oven, screens (thanks to Kristen’s dad) and working
on flowerbeds. It looks like the toilet in the front bedroom may
need to be completely replaced according to one of the plumber’s who
came to look at it.
More later!
Heather
The
This week was an introduction to the course and the
focus was on our direct relationship with nature. This was
highlighted by the El Niño phenomenon. On Tuesday we had several
guest speakers, Friends of the Eco-city and those participating in
teaching the course. Nicola Mears from Guacamayo Tours spoke about
what it means to be a citizen of the eco-city, Galileo spoke about our
placement in time and being aware of the historical and cultural elements
that affect our environment. Vladir of Genesis School spoke about
what it means to be an Ecuadorian ecologist and the significance of
bioregional education. Marcelo Luque spoke about the El Niño
phenomenon, its causes and effects and the human involvement in it. The we broke into groups of five and discussed personal experiences with
the El Niño phenomenon. We got back together in a large group after
this and had Jose Paraga from Civil Defense told us about his experiences
rescuing people and the sixteen deaths in Maria Auxiliadora. We then
watched video footage of the disaster which really brought the message
home.
On Thursday we put the theory into practice with an
excursion to the different areas affected by El Niño. We started
off in Jorge Lomas, discussed the presence of the new water diversion
canal, walked to the Planet Drum site, and then continued along the ridge
until we reached Maria Auxiliadora and walked through El Bosque en Medio
de las Ruinas where they could see first-hand the effects of the disaster
and the ruins left behind. This was the introduction to the course so that
they would take a personal interest in the subject and start thinking
about their own relationship with nature, that of the society, problems
and solutions.
Next week we will start the course material. We
will take the first several weeks to learn about the four different zones
of life: Dry Tropical Forest, Very Dry Tropical Forest, Humid Tropical
Forest and Mangroves. We will have different guest speakers to talk
about the different zones and take excursions to see native plants and
animals in the zones. We will start off with Marcelo Luque and Cerro Seco.
We will also gather seeds and plant in the greenhouse to start
the reforestation aspect of the project and introduce the participants to
what Planet Drum is doing.
So things are moving along very smoothly and again,
it is exciting to see the enthusiasm over the project. The main
concern I have now is limiting participants, but I guess it is better to
be in that situation, rather than searching for more. Let me know if
you have any suggestions or ideas.
Hasta pronto,
Kristen
This week we finished transplanting the Colorados,
Ebonos, and the Guachapelí and Samango stragglers that were big enough.
We also did a lot of work with the compost pile. That was Caitlin´s
special project. She completely turned the entire thing to aerate it, as
it was lacking air. It is now well on its way to forming good compost. The
finished side was also tended to – it was thoroughly weeded, and the
fruit trees which had come up were transplanted. The finished compost was
then transferred to the storage area under the tarp. In addition, repairs
began on the small planting beds outside the greenhouse.
We planted again at the new site in km 4 (Hidalgo),
and planted a few trees at the Eloy Alfaro High School down the street
from Bosque en Medio de la Ruinas, with the help of students and the
ecology teacher. The make their own compost there and had made
biodegradable paper bags for planting.
A lot of house maintenance also got done, including
the painting of a wall, and the sanding and varnishing of shelves in the
kitchen.
Andrea came back to volunteer with us for the latter
half of the week after a two week absence (which she had advised me of).
Blas volunteered one day.
More later!
Heather
This week we talked about the dry tropical forest and
had Marcelo take us to Cerro Seco to see first hand lichens, orchids, the
mighty Ceibos and spiders hanging from their webs. We were thirty
this time and it seems that slowly but surely there is a self-deciding
process of those truly interested in the material and projects. For
homework on Tuesday they took leaves home with them to identify and learn
characteristics and uses. Then when we walked through the forest
they identified and presented on the plants. They are a very
energetic and enthusiastic group!
Other exciting news is that there will be an
Environmental Week celebration the first week of June. We are part
of the planning process for this and it will include different education
projects, theatre, and more! I went to the meeting this week and
suggested that the high school kids join together with the community
members and not just walk around and see nature, but experience it and
work for it first hand. I suggested that we all join together on the
first Friday of June and have a community clean up of Bosque en Medio de
las Ruinas. It was met with welcome approval and on Tuesday I will
go with the leaders of PMRC and Civil Defense to see the safety factors
involved in bringing a big group of high school kids there and to plan it
out. So it will be a good step for the community taking charge of
the project.
We are heading to see Mike Morgan at Cerro Blanco
this weekend and I look forward to getting some education material from
him, gathering seeds and learning more about what he is doing there and
the dry tropical forest.
On a personal level, I am settling in nicely and
really like Bahia. The apartment and volunteers are all good and we are
learning to work as a team!
Hasta pronto,
Kristen
I let the Civil Defense Force know that we are
willing to work with them on the tree planting project, and am awaiting a
response.
It rained a few days this week. I spoke with Carlos
Franco about fencing on the Dairy Farm and he is placing the final gate
which will complete the proper fencing required (shoulder high barbed
wire). Carlos Endara, Cherry Tree, Inter-Americano and the Hidalgo sites
are also fenced with barbed wire. I will have to look into the Fernando
site as there is currently no fencing.
This week we worked in El Bosque – maintained
trails a bit, fixed handrails and placed a few new ones, fixed steps and
leveled trail where needed, replaced missing signs.
We worked in the vivero (greenhouse) transplanting
many Colorados, turning compost (as usual), continued fixing plant beds
and weeding. We also cleared the University site. We are actively
collecting plastic bottles, and our biggest source is the Depto. De
Higiene (Sanitation Department), which has started to separate them from
the trash they pick up.
We helped in the building of a vivero for mangroves
at the Universidad Tecnica, and went on a tour through their mangrove
forest. Dr. Acosta at the UC expressed interest in PDF doing mangrove
planting projects.
We continued with the house maintenance – painting,
organization and inventory of tool cupboard, making of a garden area
downstairs.
Seed bank – This weekend we went to see Mike
Morgan, his nursery and to visit Cerro Blanco. We received 3 types of
seeds from him, and collected a fourth on our own. I also picked out which
species we need more information on in order to continue research.
Hasta la proxima!
Heather
I couldn't be happier with the way things are turning
out with the Bioregional Education class. It seems the numbers of
students at different times in the class are resolving themselves and
those that I am left with are really interested and dedicated. The
majority are about seventeen which means they have lots of energy and
enthusiasm and it is just a question of directing them in the right
direction, the bioregional direction. But they truly seem interested
in the topics we are learning about, really like the practices and
excursions, and want to do community development projects as well!
This week we have been learning about the Humid
Tropical Forest with the assistance of Cheo who is a dynamic and
commanding teacher. On Tuesday we went over different vocabulary
words such as vines and biosphere in order to put the Humid Tropical
Forest into context, then talked about the forest and finished off with a
creativity/team-work game in which they had to stack cards into a pyramid
and get it as high as they could as quickly as they could. We broke
them into three groups and it was great to see them work together and
brainstorm. I think it is an education style that they are not used
to, but or course enjoy.
Thursday we went to the vivero (greenhouse) and I was
so happy to see the enthusiasm that the participants showed with what we
were doing there. We split up into two groups and I took one group up
into the reforested hills to talk about the different trees, our projects
and why we do them. The students all asked a lot of questions and
had a really good time. Heather was in charge of the other group
which she led through the greenhouse, preparing beds and planting seeds. We then switched groups so that they would all have a chance to do both
activities
On Sunday we are meeting to go to Cabo Pasado to see
an example of Humid Tropical Forest. Cheo will be our guide and the
owner of the property will accompany us. The students are really
excited to go and see all the plants and animals there, and I think we are
in good hands with our guides.
Next week Friends of the Eco-city are kicking off International
Environment Week. We will be participating in the Bosque en Medio de
las Ruins clean up on Friday. My students are enthusiastically
preparing a skit to perform before the town on Saturday night about the
importance of taking care of our natural resources. On Sunday we
will all be participating in a beach clean up followed by marine creature
sand sculptures.
I have also had the opportunity to participate in
some of the different meetings of the presidents and representatives of
the neighborhoods. I was a special guest at the last one and was
asked to talk about what I am doing for the Bioregional Education Project.
I asked the different representatives for support in the project and said
that my students are interested in taking what they are learning and
teaching others, doing education projects in the schools and community as
well as beach clean ups and other projects. There was a warm
reception on the part of the representatives and so now it is really a
question of coming up with something concrete and implementing it.
As far as the Bosque clean up next week, I am working
hard to involve the community of Maria Auxiliadora as well as the
high-school students in the project. I have been talking to both
Elba from the Eco Amigos as well as the president of the barrio in order
to gain more support and involvement in the clean up. One thing that
we have been thinking to do is clear an area to put in benches and
possibly tree swings with the help of the Civil Defense representative
Jose Parraga. We will also be weeding the trails and do some clearing of
debris as you suggested. One issue that has been raised is if there
is someone that can keep an eye on the park and take some responsibility
for it. I will be talking more to the community about this next week. I am wondering if it would also be possible to plant some
trees symbolically in the area that we have cleared for benches. It
would be great for the students to be able to be involved with this and
see the trees grow and also be good for community spirit.
Please keep me posted on the possibility of sending a
digital camera down with the mayor. I think that it would be
wonderful for the education project both for the students and community
here as well as to show you all the fun, interesting and educational
things that we are doing and post them on the web.
So with much enthusiasm I conclude this weeks report,
Kristen
This week we prepared and maintained seedbeds in the
greenhouse, and kept up the regular activities of watering, transplanting,
cutting bottles to make insect guards, and composting. The BEP
(Bioregional Education Project) class also helped us out one
afternoon, and sowed laurel, compoyo and guasmo seeds. We have an
arrangement with the Dept. de Hygiene now to collect the city’s plastic
bottles from them.
Also quite exciting was finding a coiled up matacaballo snake
under the tarp that covers the compost. Carley found it just after
telling us about a dream she had had a few nights before about a snake
attacking her, which looked exactly like the snake at the greenhouse!
It was injured and part of its tail was missing and bloody.
Here is the greenhouse inventory taken on May 23rd:
Guayacan
64
Cedro
178
Algarrobo
12
Colorado
243
Ceibo
97
Seca
1
Papaya
22
Ebono
71
Jaboncillo
8
Mamey
16
Samango
150
Guachapeli
144
The Civil Defense Captain said that they are not ready for the
trees yet to plant along the highway since they haven’t organized
anything. So it looks like it may not happen this rainy season.
I’ve talked to the property owners at the Jorge Lomas/Fernando
site about fencing and they are fine with it. I bought a hole digger
and am in the process of looking around for stakes. We can start off
using the barbed wire we already have in the bodega.
We maintained trails in the Bosque, mostly weeding, and I took
the mayor and his assistant, Teddy, there on Friday afternoon. He
said he had no idea it was up there and seemed pleased with the visit. We
walked all the way over to the bamboo house that is at the top of the park
and met the people that live there.
I’m trying to get some new sites for next year and have a
lead on one behind Interamericano School. It belongs to the
Mayor’s wife, Maria Piedad.
We maintained the three sites in Ciudadela Maria Dolores (km
8), i.e. Endara, Cherry Tree and Dairy Farm. The trees at the Endara
site look superb and have grown much more than at the other sites. I
think it’s because the water level is near the surface.
That’s all for now! Happy World Environment Week!
(We had a meeting at our house last week to plan the activities that will
take place in observance of Environment Week.)
Weekly update from Bahia. Sunday's outing to
Cabo Pasado was a smashing success. The walk was led by Cheo and was
a challenge to many of the participants who aren't used to physical
exertion, but they loved the challenge none the less. We got to the
beach and they were in heaven playing in the sea and in the sand. Then Cheo gave us a talk about the significance of Cabo Pasado for marine
migratory species, as an earthquake fault line and the meeting place of
the La Niña and Humboldt currents. We then walked down the beach
observing the tide pools. We found petrified wood and fossils and I
explained the process that makes them and the geological processes that
created the beach there. I loved to see their excitement as they
waded through the tide pools squealing with excitement and delight. We walked back through the forest and found monkeys hanging from the
trees. They couldn´t have been happier. Most of them had
never seen monkeys before! It was a treasure to discover the beauty
and joy of their bioregion alongside with them. They are hooked!
We have been learning about Mangroves this week and
had Thea from the Peace Corps come and give the class a presentation. We started off with a discussion for reasons to protect the forests in
general and then moved over into the importance of mangroves and their
function in other natural systems. We had a beautiful Power Point
presentation and then went out to the river and collected Mangrove seeds. I was amazed to find out that many of the students didn´t know what the
seeds looked like even though they are washed up all over the beach.
Today we went and planted the Mangrove seeds that we
found. We talked about the different kinds of Mangroves and they can
now tell the difference between a Red, White and Black Mangrove and know
how each excretes salt. It was such fun to sink our feet into thick
and oozing mud and they loved and hated it. It was at first hard to
coax all of them to get down and dirty, but they all did and were so
excited and happy to do so. It was like taking them back to
childhood where it didn´t matter how dirty they got.
Tomorrow we are doing the clean up of the Bosque en
Medio de las
On Sunday my class is putting together a skit to
perform before the town, police force, firestation, etc. to celebrate
World Environment Week and to teach about the importance of conservation. They are so eager to perform and I will let you know how it goes in the
next report.
Ciao from Bahia!
Kristen
Volunteer situation: Hannah and Montana arrived on
Wednesday night, and Jackie on Saturday night. They will be staying
through the summer, except Montana, who leaves mid-July. He is
staying at the Bahia B&B. (Hannah was actually one of students
in the group I led in a previous job to Costa Rica for the Experiment in
International Living.) We now have 6 people living in the house. Two brothers come for two weeks in July and will also stay at the B&B.
In August there will be new volunteers coming on the heels of those who
leave so I expect the house to remain full until October. I revised
and updated the contents of the Volunteer Manual.
Fencing: Afran Hidalgo, the property owner of our
km 4 site, also sells wood. He will get me as many moyuyo posts as I
need for $1 each. We may be able to get two posts from one as they
are quite tall. I am thinking of doing individual fences around the
trees in the ditch at the Cherry Tree site using scrap wood that we have
in the bodega. The barbed wire I would use for a ditch at the Dairy
Farm, and also the entrances to the Fernando site.
Watering: Trip Martin says we can have whatever
bamboo is left over from the dock complex construction within the next
month in order to make more watering pipes. It turns out we were
using the wrong technique with that. I discovered after a trip to
the Bella Vista revegetation area (I’ve been up there a few times,
including with the mayor), that you’re only supposed to make a small
hole with a nail to perforate the membrane inside the bamboo stalk so that
water slowly trickles down and the soil stays moist. We had been
removing the entire membrane so the water shoots straight down. The
plants are not showing any signs of lacking water yet and look quite
healthy.
New sites: Maria Piedad is having her site cleared
before we come to visit, which should be this week. Plan to plant
the Leonidas Plaza site on Thursday.
Week’s Activities: Caitlin was intensely sick
last weekend and so was not able to work a few days this week. She
did some research for the Seed Bank though. I took her around to the
doctor, hospital, etc. It turns out she had a mystery virus which
hit hard and then left.
Carley made a no littering sign in Spanish using scrap wood and
paint, which was put up by the greenhouse as the Universidad Catolica
footballers always leave their trash behind. The University had a
minga (community workday) for Environment Week, which we also helped out
with – clearing the underbrush and putting it in a large hole, which
happens to make it easy to collect for our composting purposes. We
watered, continued fixing the seed beds, removing dead plants and
prepared plastic bottles for transplanting later on. The compoyo
seeds planted by the Bioregional Education Program have started to come up
already!
The minga (community workday) in El Bosque was successful. We had participation from 2 schools, the Defensa Civil, Maria Auxiliadora, and Bella Vista communities, and the BEP students. After an introductory talk, we cleared trails, picked up the garbage at the bottom entrance (which still has open dumps on either side), planted trees and made benches from wood donated from a lumberyard. They are located on the summit and under the big Poinciana / flamboyant tree (by the “ceibo inmaduro” sign). We did not remove dead wood from the forest because we thought efforts would be better spent otherwise.
Hasta luego!
Heather
Aside from the usual greenhouse activities (watering,
composting, clearing out dead plants, organizing), we did a lot of
structural maintenance as dogs had broken in. We reinforced certain
sections with wooden posts and/or chicken wire. Also continued
fixing the seed beds. We put up plant label signs for the seeds that
the Bioregional Education Program had sowed, and remounted the Planet Drum
sign. We got more bottles for transplanting from somebody who had
been storing them at his house and was glad to be rid of them.
We further maintained the trails in El Bosque by fixing more
steps and handrails. (Clearing dead wood is being done this coming
week.) We made a rope fence at the bottom of the first entrance
between the houses, in order to make the path more obvious from the street.
We also added compost and water to the trees planted during
the minga (community workday) during World Environment Week. I saw a
beautiful big mot-mot bird there! Jackie, our newest volunteer, and
I went on Radio FB to talk about recent improvements to El Bosque and to
invite the public to visit.
We watered and maintained the Cherry Tree site, Dairy Farm and
Inter-Americano Colegio sites. Talked to Carlos Franco about keeping
animals out of the Dairy Farm planted area and he plans to reinforce the
fencing (in addition to the fencing that Planet Drum will do). We
started putting individual fencing around the trees at the Cherry Tree
site using scrap wood, with chicken wire to be added later. So far,
no signs of animals there though.
The kids at Inter-Americano will soon begin helping us water. I gave Dr. Sanchez a map of the planted area so they could find all the
trees, which are also well marked. He offered us sandwiches and
drinks from the school cafeteria...awww.....We planted a new site near the
football field in Cristo Consuelo, Leonidas Plaza, and constructed
individual fences around each tree. Marta, who lives in front of the
field, helped us and plans to water weekly.
More later!
Heather
This week we finished up our topic of the different
zones of life in this bioregion (dry tropical, very dry tropical, humid
tropical and mangrove) with seed art. We went and collected seeds from
various trees around Bahia. We then learned from a local artisan how to
perforate holes into the seeds with an ancient method of heating up a
needle in a candle flame and pressing it through the seed. The
participants will be making the holes at home and when we get back
together again we will make the art, necklaces, bracelets or whatever
their creativity leads them to.
It was very interesting to see the method for making
the holes and fun to gather the seeds. Soon we will be learning about
animals and birds of the area.
I am leaving for this week and classes will resume on
the 21st of
Take
Kristen
Angel and Pablo from Maria Auxilidora stopped by to
discuss their idea of fixing up
We painted and punched holes in the bamboo watering
pipes, and installed them at the three km 8 sites.
We did not water at Endara as there was no water in
the cistern and the
We kept up the greenhouse chores. The compost is
working really well now that
We went to Rio Muchacho as Nicola invited us, and
learned a lot about permaculture, utilizing waste, and the area history in
general. They are starting to provide weekly organic
Well, that's all for now. Sorry my report wasn't that
long but most of our work this
Hasta luego,
Heather
June 25, 2005
The seeds that we collected for the seed art mainly
were jaboncillo and maracuyá. They also collected some seeds that I
unfortunately didn´t write down so I will try to keep better track of
This week
The group is very enthusiastic and wants to get more involved doing projects in the community. I hope to have them go to some schools soon and do education projects with younger kids as well as in the greater community of Canton Sucre.
June 30, 2005
Marcelo and I led a presentation on birds and how they can be a good indicator of contamination as they are migratory animals. We will be going to Isla de Corazon to see many birds, mangroves, as well as a successful effort at conservation. The students will be giving presentations on the different birds we will see there such as pelicans, cormorants, frigate birds, etc.
Today we had a fun day of building sand castles on the beach. Heather and some of the other volunteers were the judges and gave different awards such as, "the most ecological", the most architecturally sound", etc. It was a beautiful day of fun in the sun and great to see their enthusiasm as they got down and dirty.
Ciao,
Kristen
The solar hot water course has come to the end of the
first part with successful results. Around 15-17 students participated,
and about 7 students followed the entire course with enthusiasm and
involvement.
On Wednesday we visited Genesis School and did
a real survey of the site. We went through the details of the project.:
where to position the collector, how to install the system, what type of
materials we are going to use, and how much it is going to cost.
The design of the system has been drawn with some
final details to be discussed next week. We are trying to create an
original design which can be extremely cheap, easy to construct and
custom-made for Ecuadorian weather. After relentless research I finally
arrived at a conclusion. We can use the hot water tank as a collector
itself thereby avoiding the construction of a complicated and expensive
system. The water tank will be placed in an insulated wooden box, a glass
will be put on top of the collector, and the tank will be painted black.
We will use mirrors to maximize the solar gain entering the collector. We
also will build a platform 4 meters high using bamboo and wooden boards to
place the collector on top and to increase the solar gain. 
The quote for the project is around 420 dollars
including the platform. It will be good to build the platform because we
are using a traditional building technique for bamboo which is slowly
disappearing. I know Planet Drum has no funding for this project but it is
extremely important to acquire those foundations. The system has a cost of
200 dollars without the platform and is affordable for many people here.
We would like to conclude the project by the February 23 when we will have
an open house and people from Bahia will have the opportunity to see this
installation as part of the celebration of the Sixth Ecociudad
Anniversary. I really hope you will be able to support this project with
the necessary funds....we are working towards reducing the budget by
searching for materials through friends, looking for unused or leftover
stuff....