Reports from Planet Drum Staff
Eco-Ecuador Project

2007

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

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 (19^th-23^rd). This will mark the 8^th 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 19^th, 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 19^th, 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 24^th, 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 26^th, 2007

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

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

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

'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 their plastic bottles where they will be planted in the open earth. This site sits on a clear-cut hill that already has erosion problems beginning. Hopefully our plantings will be able to prevent these problems. It is hard to not have high hopes for it.

In the evening I attended a community meeting to discuss the distribution of a large donation of fruit trees that have been given to the municipality for planting in the communities around Bahia. This particular meeting took place in a neighborhood called Astillero. Neighbors came by to listen to a presentation on the importance of protecting the environment. We then shifted gears to cover the logistics of preparing the sites that have been designated for planting. These sites are municipal lands that were recovered from displaced people who lost their houses to mudslides. They will now be used to grow fruit trees which can provide food and possibly income to the neighborhood residents. It was inspiring to see the turn-out of people who are interested in this project. A clean-up was organized for the upcoming weekend to prepare the sites; and planting will take place next week. Towards the end of the meeting I was given the chance to present myself and Planet Drum. I talked about the work that Planet Drum does and offered our help in this project.

Thursday night one of our volunteers ran into some visitors from California who were passing through Bahia. It didn't take long to convince them to join us in our tree planting the next day. We rounded up some of our local Ecuadorian friends to pitch in as well. With the surge of labor, we tackled one of our more treacherous sites, El Toro. For a few dollars, we rented a truck to move some trees (the others were awaiting us there) and our crew of nine out to the remote site. En force we dug over eighty holes and filled them all with our trees. Despite the tiring work it was an energizing day spent in great company, working hard to do our part in reversing the destruction of nature. Many thanks to Tashina, Ariel and Ben for the unexpected volunteering!

Between the rains, community work and the Eco-week preparations, things are getting pretty hectic around here. Hopefully we will get a chance to take our weekend at the end of next week. I'll include the work from this weekend in next week's report. We continue to press on. Our bodies tire, but spirits remain high.

Clay

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Field Report #6

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: February 10-16, 2007

Although the rains have ceased since the initial few days of rain we received, only teasing us with an occasional sprinkle, we continued to plant our sites. At a certain point you have to plant no matter what. Once it gets too late in the season it's not worth planting anyways since the trees don't have enough time in the ground before the dry season, and we were getting very close to that time. So we stuck to our plan and now our work is in the hands of the climate. Every day that passed it looked more and more like it would rain. The humidity built, the heat intensified and the air became thick, but nothing came of it. Now having made it through the week, we did finally receive some rain over the past weekend, but it was a long week of anticipation.

We also had a fair share of community action in the past week, some of it inviting local groups to participate with Planet Drum on our work, and some of it branching out to help others with their work. There is always a bit more positive energy in the air when we get to work directly with others to help improve their surroundings.

And finally, there's been nearly a full turn over of volunteers. We were down to just one, thanks John for making it seem like there were actually more of us around, especially when it came to finishing planting trees at our new sites. But in the coming week we will be filling our ranks again with some new arrivals and we're definitely looking to the increase in our workforce.

As you may remember from the last report, we worked straight through the weekend at the beginning of this week in order to reforest all of this year's new sites as quickly as possible. So on Saturday we continued with our mission by planting trees at Maria Dolores. This is a particularly important site because it is on a partially eroded hill above a small cluster of houses. The land has already been used for maize plantings and the topsoil is particularly poor. We planted fifty trees in rows that will hopefully stabilize erosion.

Sunday morning I visited the Astillero neighborhood to meet up with local residents for a cleanup and preparation for the planting of fruit trees. This work was planned during a community meeting the previous Thursday (see last week's report). I helped clear brush and pick up garbage at two different planting sites. The trees will be planted on the coming Wednesday. It was great getting a chance to meet some of the people from this neighborhood, particularly in such an encouraging situation. While I was chopping away with my machete all morning, Wyatt and John got invited to the local radio station for the weekly environmental segment. They were interviewed by the radio host and got to promote our Planet Drum work and message over the airwaves. Way to go!

In the afternoon we planted our new site in the Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas (Forest in Middle of the Ruins). See the previous week's report for a description of this park. We also made an impromptu site in a natural clearing at the top of hill there. We planted twenty-five extra trees from our greenhouse. They will be much happier out in the open and should provide a nice improvement to the summit of Ruinas. Thanks again to Ramon for giving your help to us for another day. You really helped us out with our plantings this year.

On Monday we began work at our most treacherous of the new sites, Bosque Encantado. It includes one hundred trees that are far up on an erosion prone hillside. The walk in is arduous enough without hauling trees, compost and shovels. Furthermore we were down to our last volunteer. So it was just Jaime (our local Ecuadorian field expert), John and I working. Wyatt finally moved on after holding out for weeks waiting for a chance to do some planting. (He was the only one from our Planet Drum crew back in December to make it all the way to the plantings in the middle of February.) Many thanks are due; your work is greatly appreciated. Trees were moved up to the site, along with tools, but this alone took an entire day of work. In the afternoon I rode along with a couple of people from the Municipality to visit a site where the city will be planting palm trees. The plan is to line the median of the road from outside of town all the way into Bahia with two-thousand palms. We also took a tour of the composting facility for Bahia. In an effort to increase our contact with the Municipality I told them that Planet Drum would be willing to help them, as much as we can, with their palm tree project. It's a shame they're not planting native trees, but it's still nice to see the effort they are putting into to make Bahia look more beautiful.

And since we just couldn't get enough of Bosque Encantado on Monday, we had to go back to get some more on Tuesday. More trees were moved up while we began digging holes and planting trees. It was a long day, but between the three of us, we planted all one hundred trees. Exhausted, we trudged down the hill to the bus home. In the afternoon I visited some of the residents of the La Cruz neighborhood, where we had one last site left to reforest. I invited anyone from the neighborhood who was interested, particularly the kids, to join us the following day to help us plant trees.

Wednesday morning I attended a meeting at the municipality building while our other workers, John and Jaime with the help of Ricardito and his truck, gathered the trees we would be planting at La Cruz from the greenhouse and took them to the site. At the meeting we discussed plans for the upcoming Formal Session (part of the Eco-week), where Bahia has a chance to present outside politicians with work that's been done and future plans and ideas for the Eco-city.

From the morning meeting, which spilled over into the afternoon, I went directly to La Cruz to meet up with John and Jaime and to get the site ready for the kids who would be helping us plant. Shortly thereafter we were joined by a local community group of children called 'Mangrove Baseball' along with a handful of kids from the neighborhood surrounding our reforestation site. In total about thirty children showed up. I began with a talk about the importance of protecting our environment and why Planet Drum is working here in Bahia and why we are planting trees. La Cruz is situated on a steep hill within the city. Numerous houses are located below the site. It was easy to explain the importance of protecting such a dangerous hillside. I then gave a demonstration of how we transplant the trees from bottles into the ground using compost. After the demonstration we went to work. The kids did excellent work and really enjoyed it. It was great to see them getting into the work so much. It was truly a wonderful time, and it helped us finish that much more planting.

On Thursday we finished the last of our planting which entailed replanting trees where old ones from the previous year had died. We did this at the Bosque Encantado site where unfortunately there was a somewhat high mortality rate, possibly due to the late planting of trees there last year. Of about one-hundred and eighty trees, forty had to be replaced. We also had to do a quick watering session at two of the sites that we planted the previous week. They are rather exposed to sun and went a full week without water because of the lack of rain.

On Friday there was another municipality meeting for Eco-week preparations in the morning. Preparations are looking good. In the afternoon we went to help begin the planting of the palm tree project for the city. Things are run a bit differently with their operations, but it was still good to show our support. That night we had a small party at Cerro Seco and painted banners in preparation for the Parade, part of the Eco-week and Carnaval celebrations, on Saturday.

It was a busy week planting our final sites and getting ready for the upcoming Eco-week, but the community aspect of our work provided us with an extra boost of energy. Now all of our trees are ready for the upcoming week and it seems as though we are getting a bit more rain these days. With every rain all of this year's trees are reaching out with their roots into their new homes, strengthening themselves and supporting the surrounding soil.

Until next week …. ¡Viva la Eco-Ciudad!

Clay

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Field Report #7

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: February 17-23, 2007

Now that all of our planned new sites for the year have been planted and the rains have been keeping up a semi-regular basis, we've been able to devote most of our energy to the Eco-week and local community activities. Unfortunately we had to make it through this time with only one volunteer; it would have been nice to have some more faces representing Planet Drum. On the bright side, we had two new volunteers show up at the end of the week and the house feels more like we're a real group again.

The beginning of the Eco-week festivities coincided with Bahia's Carnaval. For a long weekend the streets we're packed with lots of people. That Saturday the local eco-amigos joined up with the city parade to show off some of our 'Green Consciousness.' We marched with banners and painted faces in the parade from one side of town to other. There were lots of people lining the streets and our messages got out to a large audience. Due to some poor organization on the part of the local government there was less involvement in marching from the local neighborhoods than usual in the parade. But I would guess that this was related to a general increase in the responsibility of coordinating the Eco-week on part of the local government and decreased responsibility of local community leaders. While on one hand this shows a growing role of the local government in Eco-activities here in Bahia, it also shows a potential pitfall of relying on them for too much and in the process overlooking neighborhood groups. We were still able to mobilize our group with the help of the Manglar Baseball group of kids and in total we numbered about twenty-five people marching. Sunday night the festivities of Carnaval continued and our next Eco-week event was the “Noche de Verde,” an artist's festival. Lots of people turned up for a great night of music.

Since there was nothing planned for the Eco-week on Monday and Tuesday, the last two days of Carnaval, we decided to take our long overdue days off from two weekend's before when we were planting on a Saturday and Sunday. We went with our bioregional education teacher, Ramon Loor, to a family house of his a few kilometers down the coast from Bahia. It was a perfect way to relax after a stretch of hard work. Upon returning Tuesday afternoon we gathered some of our trees from the greenhouse to bring to the municipality building for the open house on Wednesday.

Wednesday morning we set up our trees, some posters and a demonstration area with compost and plastic bottles for showing how we transplant trees at the municipality building. We had a fair amount of visitors show up to ask about our work and we were able to show off some practices. A few people showed up who have some potential planting sites that we can use to get rid of some extra trees from the greenhouse. It would be much better to have the trees out in sites as opposed to sitting for another year in the greenhouse. We are in the process of investigating these options, and there are at least two solid leads for new sites nearby La Cruz and in the Astillero neighborhood. We will be getting to work on these as soon as possible since we want to plant them before it gets too late in the rainy season. Two newspapers, El Nuevo Globo and El Mercurio, showed up as well as a local radio station. I gave interviews describing our work around Bahia and participation in the Eco-week. The Nuevo Globo article should be available on their website at: www.elnuevoglobo.com. There could have been a better turnout of visitors in person to our exhibition, but between the newspapers, radio station and some new contacts, the open house was still a success.

On Thursday we returned trees to the greenhouse and began doing some trail maintenance and a clean-up of Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas in preparation for some eco-tours that we will be conducting there. We are hoping to be able to help local residents of the neighborhood there begin their own tours of the park and possibly even be able to make some money in the process. This is a long term goal that we are beginning by keeping the park clean, planting new sites, and renewing relationships with the residents there and helping to begin interactive tours of the park. Look for more information about this in the next report.

On Friday there were two government meetings, one in the morning at the municipality building, and one in the afternoon at the city theater. The morning meeting was of local citizens concerned with the ecological progress of Bahia. We saw two presentations about possible projects in the area. One is a potential Private Protected Area that could unite Bahia and surrounding landowners who are interested in preserving their lands. The other project was for a Bahia ecological attraction for eco-tourists. Due to a lack of time we had to forgo a presentation I had prepared on Planet Drum. Despite this, the presentation is ready, and I am now thinking about giving smaller presentations directly to local residents within the neighborhoods in which we work. The afternoon event was the Formal Session of the Eco-week. Various government representatives gave speeches about the importance of conserving the natural resources in and around Bahia, as well as continuing with the mission of being declared an 'Eco-city.' After the speeches, some of the local government representatives went to an inner city park to plant Tamarind trees.

So far the Eco-week has had its ups and downs, as should be expected here in Ecuador. We've been able to get our message out a lot and have met some interesting people as well as seen some real dedication to the Eco-city mission, but there have also been some organizational problems throughout. And now we've delayed our planned Eco-tours a week to allow ourselves more time to publicize the events better. It definitely is an accomplishment that we are here working with a variety of other ecological groups to preserve this bioregion, but it is a constant uphill battle and you can never be sure how anything is going to turn out. Such is the environmental movement in Ecuador.

Hasta luego,

Clay

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Field Report #8

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: February 26-March 2, 2007

We survived the Eco-week with only one volunteer and a lot of support from our local Ecuadorian constituency. Our Planet Drum family has grown anew and we are back to a full house; it's amazing how quickly things can change and how much more we can get done with six people instead of two. These days we are focusing on getting extra trees out of the greenhouse. A lot of trees are getting far too big, some of which are even growing through the roof. Since we already planted the planned sites for the year, we are adding some impromptu sites, as well as beefing up some of the former sites. But as we plant more trees, we commit ourselves to more and more watering throughout the dry season (since we hand water our trees for their first year in the field). We've already planted over five hundred trees, and I suspect we are very close to the limits of our labor force once we hit the dry season. As a result, we are going to have to investigate the possibility of donating the remaining couple hundred trees in our greenhouse to make room for a fresh batch of plantings this coming year.

Despite arriving nearly two months late, the rainy season has finally kicked in. Since the beginning of March the rains have been very cooperative. Several consecutive nights of steady rain thus far. These rains saturate the ground much better than heavy downpours. Our sites are looking great and so far only a few trees have died in the process of transplanting.

Apart from planting sites we have also been keeping up community connections. We've reinitiated Planet Drum's contact with the Maria Auxialadora community and are attempting to position Bosque in Medio de las Ruinas as an attraction of the Eco-city, complete with local tour guides from the neighborhood. This project is taking off quickly, and hopefully if planned carefully it will be able to sustain itself. A couple of the residents have been secured as potential guides, some local children have been involved with planting in the park, and provincial consultants were contacted about receiving outside funding to help buy new interpretation signs for the park.

On Tuesday, February 27^th we prepared a last minute site below the large cross (La Cruz) which overlooks Bahia. This is a spectacular site that has incredible views of the city being much higher than the streets below, but is also exceptionally close by. Additionally, the entire hillside is already in a badly eroded state with terribly poor soil. It's hard to say if our trees will make a difference here, as it may already be too late to prevent further erosion. But we had the extra trees and it's worth a shot, especially given the danger involved of this hillside that is directly above houses and the downtown of Bahia. On Wednesday we planted sixty trees, mostly Algarrobo and Aguia, fast growing, hardy trees that adapt easily to difficult terrain and require very little watering.

On Thursday we joined up with a nearby neighborhood in Leonidas Plaza that borders on the river Chone. We helped the residents come out and plant a couple hundred mangrove seeds on their waterfront. They hope to re-grow mangroves that were cut for shrimp farms to improve the estuary and create a future tourist attraction. Mangrove seeds were planted in circles around existing Mangrove clusters to increase their chances of survival. A large force of children and adults from the neighborhood showed up to help out. As with most of our community activities we began with a talk about the importance of protecting the environment, in this case the mangroves. Afterwards all trudged through the mud, sticking in Mangrove seeds, and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

That Friday we collected Tierramonte leaves to use for compost on newly planted trees. Tierramonte leaves are regarded locally as being high in nutrients and decompose easily to make rich new soil. There are several Tierramonte shrubs at the Bosque Encantado site and we loaded up sacks with the rich leaves from under them. We also watered the new Maria Dolores and Don Pepe sites a little bit since they are exposed to direct sun and the consistent rains still haven't quite begun.

On Saturday we went out to Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas to lead an eco-tour for the residents of the Maria Auxialadora neighborhood. This was the first event of resumed relations with this neighborhood. A group of about twenty children and ten adults were through the park. We showed off the recently renovated staircases and painted handrails, along with the new trees that have been reforested there. Along the way we discussed the history of the park, the importance of maintaining it and replanting trees and the intention of trying to assist this neighborhood to lead their own eco-tours as a way to have a bit of income. The kids all seemed to have a fun time walking around the park. There are several adults who could be available to help lead tours. We will try to involve the children in future activities such as planting, maintenance and watering so that they can actively participate in their park. And continue to make improvements to the park so that it can serve as an ecological attraction in Bahia.

The following Monday, Tierramonte leaves collected from the previous week were planted at Bosque Encantado, El Toro and La Cruz sites.

That Tuesday some of us went back to Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas to prepare a new site there that was planned to be planted with the children of the neighborhood. This involved a lot of machete work to clear trails to the sites for the trees. This site will help get rid of some of extra trees and provides an excellent excuse to do some work with the local kids. At the same time two other groups headed out to transplant baby trees dug up from the field to grow in the greenhouse. We collected Samango seedlings that had sprouted under a large Samango tree near our Bosque Encantado site. These seedlings can save us the trouble of germinating seeds and starting them in the greenhouse. We collected about fifty seedlings, transported them to the greenhouse and planted them in bottles to grow until next year's planting season.

Wednesday we joined up with the neighborhood children of Bellavista to help them plant some trees donated by a provincial group, and held an environmental education session with the children outside on their basketball court while we were waiting for the trees to arrive. The kids were very enthusiastic and clearly enjoyed the opportunity to be able to help out with the work. That afternoon I had the opportunity to meet with the Matabi provincial consultants and ask for help at Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas.

On Thursday some of the volunteers put more Tierramonte leaves at the base of trees at La Cruz, while others collected more Samango seedlings and transplanted them to the greenhouse. I went on a field trip with Planet Drum founder Peter Berg, who is down visiting our satellite operation for a month, to investigate the possibility of road access to recently acquired Planet Drum land.

On Friday we carried seventy trees over to Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas and met up with the children of barrio Maria Auxialadora. After singing some songs and talking about our trees they helped us plant a new revegetation site there. Hopefully their enthusiasm will remain as high into the dry season when we will be asking for their help in watering this site. It's been exciting to see this neighborhood come out and participate in the work we are doing there. They seem genuinely interested in making this project happen. It's been started several times before over the years, but if we can take it step by step without getting too far ahead of ourselves, I think we have a good chance of succeeding.

There's been a lot of interesting work going on these days. The rains are sparing us the task of watering our sites and we have been able to increase our maintenance efforts so that the sites can strengthen up for the dry season. The more the trees can grow in this short period of rain, the better off they will be during the dry summer. Tierramonte and catchments are our main strategies for this. Apart from our revegetation, our community ties are doing great and will hopefully continue to flourish, especially with the Maria Auxialadora neighborhood and Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas. This park has always been our model site and hopefully our current project of beginning eco-tours there will allow the residents of the neighborhood to get involved in what is a sustainable resource for them. As the rain nourishes the trees we've planted, our Planet Drum team pushes forward…

…Trabajando para nuestro futuro.

Hasta luego,

Clay

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Field Report #9

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: March 12-March 30, 2007

Greetings from Bahia de Caraquez. It's been awhile since there's been an update and a lot has happened. March was our one month of real rain this year, and even so it was still pretty sparse. We finished the planting we will be doing this season, all in all about eight hundred trees. That's a lot of trees that are going to need watering this dry season. We ended up planting more than initially planned, but with a good team of volunteers I think that we'll be able to handle the watering. Thus far in April there have been a few small showers, which bodes well for all the trees in the ground. The plants in this region are incredibly well adapted to maximize the little rain water they get during this season of the year; and the recent sprinkles should prepare them nicely for the upcoming dry season. Even the hand watering we do for our trees throughout the year can't compare to a natural downpour. Given the short rainy season this year, these light rains are critical for our revegetation projects.

There's been more volunteer turnover as well. We were down to two (Liz and Lise) but are now up to four, welcome Rox and Christine to the Planet Drum family. It was sad to see John (Juan) from England leave. He and I were the only two workers at one point during our marathon tree planting in February. He made it through our tough times and helped make the good times that much better. We wish him the best in the rest of his travels across South America. We're shaping up to have a great crew for the next few months leading into summer, when it's looking like we're going to burst at the seams with volunteers. There's no shortage of work here, so it will be fantastic to have so many volunteers around.

Peter Berg, Planet Drum founder, came and visited Bahia for the month. It was great having him around. He really helped to boost the energy here and we were able to accomplish more than usual. Of many, the final highlight of his trip was a bilingual presentation at the city museum about Planet Drum and the Eco-city. Preparations for the event included numerous trips to local media outlets which provided an excellent excuse to further publicize the work we've done here. Local awareness of the ecological work going on in Bahia could always use a boost, and this was a great way to do it. In fact one of the many reasons for giving the presentation was to begin a monthly series of presentations which will allow for local eco-groups to share their experiences with others. The next event in the series will take place at the end of this month and will be presented by Marcelo Luque of the Cerro Seco nature preserve. He will talk about the rich diversity of birds in the area and developing local private protected areas among other topics.

The other major event of March was a visit from the Children of Ecuador foundation of Canada (www.childrenofecuador.ca). Forty-seven of them came to Bahia to help out with a variety of volunteer projects, including Planet Drum. Fortunately they split up into groups of 15 for the work. They spent seven work days with us and although hectic at times, the amount of work they helped us accomplish was incredible. We were able to give them a nice slice of our projects, including work in remote revegetation sites and getting involved with local communities working to assist in the sustainable development of their neighborhoods. With the rain we have been receiving, and plants triggered to grow like crazy with a few drops, weeds have been overgrowing the trails through our revegetation sites to the point where they become completely unrecognizable. The first day of the Canadians' visit we took them to help hack out our most treacherous (and ironically named) site, Bosque Encantado. The fun continued with the creation of the last sites we will plant this year, supplements to the sites we already have. The groups helped us clear, plant trees and water them. One of these days took place in Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas in the Maria Auxialadora neighborhood and we got local kids to come help us out. Our relationship with this community is really growing, it's very exciting. Most recently we're in the process of making interpretive signs to put around the Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas park and they've invited us to take part in the painting of murals (financed by the city) along the main road through their barrio. We also got the Children of Ecuador group involved with the Bellavista community. We all pitched in to help prepare their lookout (mirador) for it's opening this past weekend. The lookout includes a gazebo and roofed picnic tables to attract tourists. The opening was a big success and incredible fun. The Bellavista community has worked incredibly hard for years to develop themselves from practically nothing. They have particular interest in environmental restoration and education, of which Planet Drum has done a large part in the past. It's great to continue this relationship and see them doing so well. The Canadian volunteers got really into all the work we did here and elsewhere. And it was great to be able to share some of the Ecuadorian experience with them.

One of our main side projects these days is the creation of educational booklets on a variety of topics for use in our bioregional education class resuming at the end of April. Topics include Bioregions, Soil, Flora and Fauna, Recycling, Compost, Nutrition, Alternative Energy, Natural disasters, and Indigenous culture. Liz and Lise have spearheaded this project. Once we have the booklets we will be able to distribute them beyond our own bioregional class and possibly help start other classes.

Some miscellaneous activities from the last month include writing a letter to contribute to the fight by the local government against the construction of cell phone towers in populated areas. The letter included the possible harm the towers could cause to humans and recommendations as to how to minimize the environmental impact of tower construction. The jury is still out on the outcome. Our volunteers also took a field trip one day to visit the provincial government greenhouses in Portoviejo for their revegetation projects. It was interesting to see other greenhouse techniques and to see that the government is taking interest in creating their own revegetation projects.

It's been another exciting month here at Planet Drum. Come volunteer or get involved by emailing planetdrumecuador@yahoo.com.

Hasta luego,

Clay

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Field Report #10

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: April 2-7, 2007

This week we had two new volunteers show up, Christine from California and Roxanne from Scotland. We said goodbye to our Canadian friends from the Children of Ecuador foundation. We celebrated Semana Santa (Holy Week), a national holiday, and we got a bit closer with the Bellavista community by celebrating the opening of their lookout tourist attraction.

On Monday I went out with a group of 15 from the Children of Ecuador volunteers. We helped the municipality with the planting of Algarobo trees along the road that goes by the trash dump and composting facility. The city is planning to plant roughly one thousand trees along this road. We started this process with about one hundred trees or so. Although the premise is somewhat superficial, planting trees to block the view from the road of the city dump, the project involves planting these native trees, which were donated from Provincial greenhouses. It was a good way to give the Canadian group a glimpse of some of the municipality's projects and the way they operate. It wasn't the most inspiring project but it involved using native trees, which we are always in favor of. Helping the city out with some of their projects now and again also aids when Planet Drum needs to ask a favor of them.

While I was out on the roadside with the Canadian volunteers, Liz and Lise remained back at the office to work on preparing materials for our Bioregional Education class which is going to start sometime within the next month. We're making progress, but there's still a lot that needs to get done and the beginning of the classes is rapidly approaching.

On Tuesday I led all the forty-something Canadians from Children of Ecuador up to Bellavista to give them a tourist's visit of the community after some of them had already gotten the chance to do some work there. We walked through the community, and had a tour of the school, its cafeteria, and their community greenhouse. We then all went on a hike through the Cerro Seco Nature Reserve which led us out onto the beach and then back into the community. We hiked up to the Bellavista mirador (lookout) and were served a typical lunch of delicious shrimp viche (soup). It was a whirlwind tour of the community, but a nice way to show off a lot of the hard work they've been doing in order to develop themselves. The lunch also provided a test run for cooking up large amounts of food to serve community visitors at the mirador. The Mayor came out at the end of the visit to thank the Canadian group for their work around Bahia which include: volunteering for Planet Drum, helping with construction at a local school, and cleaning up at the hospital. Afterwards we thanked them for all the hard work they did for us, said goodbye, and they then took off to Canoa Beach for some relaxing.

At the same time as I was leading the Bellavista tour, the rest of our volunteers went out to water the El Toro site. The trees are looking good given the marginal amount of rain that has been falling.

On Wednesday the Planet Drum crew headed over to our Ruinas site for some more watering. A brief lull in rains required us to resume some watering; fortunately it was disrupted by some light evening showers which saved us from getting into full watering mode for a bit longer. The resumed showers allowed us to take a break from field work to get some much needed house cleaning done on Thursday, and take a well deserved vacation with the rest of Ecuador on Friday to celebrate Semana Santa.

On Saturday the celebrations continued. In the afternoon all of Planet Drum and some of our eco-amigos returned to Bellavista for the opening of their mirador. We joined in with their festivities by participating in traditional dances. Liz sang some songs and played guitar and I gave a speech about Planet Drum's history with the Bellavista, which includes years of working together in ecological restoration. I congratulated Bellavista on the great strides they have made in developing their community, and stressed the need to continue the hard work of protecting and restoring their natural environment, and also that Planet Drum is proud to be able to work with such a dedicated community. It was a special occasion and quite amazing to be part of a real celebration of the accomplishments they've made. Long live Bellavista.

Until next week,

Clay

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Field Report #11

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: April 9-13, 2007

This week we focused efforts on reforestation projects and the greenhouse. We've planted most of the trees from the greenhouse for this year and are beginning to think about growing trees for next year's sites. With an initial goal of 2,500 trees for the coming year, we need to begin growing now (and collecting a lot of bottles to grow them in).

On Monday we collected bottles around town and then went to the greenhouse to dump our house compost. We turned decomposing compost to keep the process moving as well as cleaning out a lot of the weeds in the greenhouse.

On Tuesday we picked up some more bottles around town and prepared identification signs for our latest Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas (Forest in the Middle of the Ruins) site. Identification signs make finding our trees for watering easier and also serve to distinguish the site from the surroundings so that people passing by are aware that there is a project underway and are less likely to tamper with our trees. We put the signs up at the site that was planted with the Children of Ecuador group and at the same time improved the water catchments around the trees there. On Wednesday we did the same, but at the site we planted with the Canadian group at Bosque Encantado. These sites are now ready to brave the dry season, because they are loaded up with mulch and have circles to catch water.

On Thursday we went and watered the two sites, Maria Dolores and Don Pepe, which have the least shade and are the most exposed to the sun. A brief lull in the rain made us nervous for our trees there, but as luck would have it, that night it rained really hard.

In a light morning rain we went out and collected baby Samango and Algarobo trees from around Ricardito's farm. Tons of small Samango trees are growing under two large ones on his property. We transplanted them from the ground and took them to the greenhouse where we made soil with our compost in order to plant them into 3-liter bottles where they will be grown until next year's planting season. It was pleasant work in the cool morning and exciting to see the greenhouse filling up with trees again.

Hasta la proxima vez,

Clay

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Field Report #12

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: April 16-20, 2007

The rains continue and so does the reforestation work. We are underway with loading up the greenhouse with trees for next year and this will occupy much time in the coming weeks and months. The slower growing trees are being planted early so they will have the most time to grow before being transplanted in the sites. Faster growing trees will be planted closer to the next rainy season so that they don't get too big.

Our bioregion education preparations also continue. It is slow going preparing individual booklets on the topics we've chosen (such as Flora, Fuana, Marine Life, Esuaries, Nutrition, and Compost to name a few), but I think it will be worth it because once they are completed, we will be able to distribute the materials beyond our Bioregional Education class to communities and schools as well.

On Monday we collected more bottles. Aside from walking around town and picking up discarded bottles, we have developed what is now a steady source of 3-liter bottles, a local school of about eight-hundred students, who unfortunately drink a lot of soda. On the bright side, every bottle is going to be turned into the home of a native tree. We leave large sacks with shop owners who sell the soda, and every couple days we can collect the empty bottles. A new stash of baby Guayacan trees was discovered at our Maria Dolores site and we collected many of them to transplant into the greenhouse. The bottles don't stay empty for long as we are finding more and more trees to fill them.

Liz and Lise worked on Bioregional Education materials on Tuesday while the rest of the crew went to Bosque Encantado to do some trail maintenance on the new site there. We found a new trail that is less treacherous and will be less erosion prone. On a lower section where there is only one possible entrance up a steep ravine, we began construction of stairs to make the ascent less difficult.

We were invited Wednesday to help plant some trees on land recently acquired by the Bahia mayor, Dr. Carlos Mendoza. The land happens to be adjacent to the Interamerican school where we have an old reforestation site from a couple of years ago. The mayor received several hundred trees from the Provincial greenhouse and is excited to plant them. Despite being late in the season for planting (we would have recommended planting a couple of months ago) the mayor insists on pushing forward and has excellent water access and people to water his trees on a regular basis. We helped with the planting in order to further improve our relationship with him as well as scope out a potential new site for next year. There are a lot of barren hillsides on his land and he wants to plant trees everywhere so there are a lot of possibilities.

On Thursday and Friday we continued transplanting little Guayacan from the Maria Dolores site to the greenhouse, turned compost and then finished the staircase at Bosque Encantado, while Liz and Lise worked on Bioregional Education materials.

Hasta Luego,

Clay

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Field Report #13

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: April 23-27, 2007

After a slight lull in our community work, this week saw a strong resurgence. Through further developing relations with La Universidad Católica de Bahia I was able to connect two groups which now have a great opportunity to benefit from each other. The Maria Auxialadora neighborhood, where an eco-tourism development plan exists for the Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas (an inner-city park heavily revegetateded by Planet Drum over the past eight years), and the Universidad are now working together with our assistance. La Universidad Católica's eco-tourism education program does practical work on local projects. They have the technical expertise to assist with tour guide training and promotion, as well as species identification in the park. There is a lot of work to be done, and much at this early stage relies on the motivation of the neighborhood residents to sacrifice their time and energy for a project with benefits that will not be realized in the short-term. We are using our influence in the neighborhood to help show the importance of conserving the park and how it can be developed into an attraction and hopefully one day a sustainable source of revenue. Involving the kids of the neighborhood in our activities is one example of this, but ultimately the motivation will need to come from the residents themselves. It's their park and they are the ones who will be giving the tours, protecting the landscape, and sustainably gaining from a green resource.

At the same time we began planting seeds, which we collected from various sites around Bahia, in the greenhouse. The greenhouse continues to be transformed from containing larger trees that have been there for months or even over a year (three to six feet tall) to small trees that are only a few inches high. It's inspiring to see the little trees that with our care and water will be ready to plant at next year's sites.

On Monday we turned our compost, transplanted more Guayacan trees from the Maria Dolores site, and prepped seed beds for planting. That afternoon we prepared seeds for planting by scratching them to speed germination and left them overnight in water.

Tuesday we collected some more 3-liter bottles on the way to the greenhouse, where we planted beds of Guachepeli and Dormilon seeds. In the afternoon I secured a lecture hall site for the second part of our adult education series to be presented by Marcelo Luque of Cerro Seco. The presentation will be given at the brand new Eloy Alfaro University in Leonidas Plaza, a suburb of Bahia. Marcelo Luque will present on the biodiversity of local ecosystems: very dry tropical forests, dry tropical forests, wet tropical forests, Mangrove estuaries, and marine life. Look for coverage of the presentation in next week's report.

On Wednesday I gave a tour of Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas for the director of La Universidad Católica in Bahia as well as two students currently enrolled in the eco-tourism program. While out touring with them, we had volunteers working in our office preparing materials for our Bioregional Education class, as well as a team in the greenhouse who had picked up baby Algarobo trees from Ricardito's farm and were transplanting them in the greenhouse. That afternoon several of us (with Marcelo Luque) headed out to a neighborhood that borders on the Rio Chone river. It has a small patch of Mangrove trees which we have been helping them expand. We rounded up some neighborhood kids and gave a lecture on the sidewalk about the birds and animals that live in Mangroves. Then with their help we trudged through the low-tide mud, sticking in Mangrove seeds along the way. Walking barefoot through estuary mud with local Ecuadorian kids planting mangroves is a lot of fun.

On Thursday while the Planet Drum crew was back at the greenhouse transplanting more hardy little Guayacan trees, I took off to the El Toro site to meet with the landowner there. We discussed the options for water access during the dry season so that volunteers can fill up watering containers directly at the site. We also resolved a previous problem where another family member who is an inheritor of the land was considering letting pigs into the site where we have year old trees. Additionally we scoped out a promising area for a new site for next year. The land owner is also going to talk to his neighbors to help look for other ecologically minded landowners in the same watershed where we may be able to have more sites.

In the afternoon I attended the first meeting of the development of the Cordillera Balsamo which will be a conglomeration of private land owners in the Bahia area with the city municipality, the mayor, and local schools and universities, among other groups, to form a pact for environmental conservation, reforestation, eco-tourism, and sustainable development. The group is clearly very wide reaching in scope, but hopefully by uniting similarly minded groups we will be able to form a stronger force for ecological restoration and sustainability. Together, the group will have greater political clout, including the possibility for legal support and drafting of environmental laws, as well as the support of a network of private protected areas throughout Ecuador and Peru. More on this in coming reports as well.

On Friday we stayed in Bahia and did another top to bottom house cleaning to keep our abode in order.

Nos vemos, cuídense,

Clay

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Field Report #14

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: April 30-May 4, 2007

We started off the week with more Bioregional Education preparations and a trip to the greenhouse. At the greenhouse we turned compost and weeded trees. While volunteers took care of this work, I had a meeting inside the Universidad Catolica, to discuss possibilities for working more closely together, beyond using their land for our greenhouse. University students may be able to help us with site maintenance, including tree watering. There is also the possibility of making a new reforestation site on their land for next year's rainy season. The university has lots of available students, who we may be able to connect with volunteer projects, such as our eco-tourism work in Maria Auxiladora. It was a promising meeting and I look forward to working more closely with the people at the University.

On Tuesday we took a field trip over to the Bellavista neighborhood and met up with our good friend Orlando. He led us around his neighborhood and we collected seeds from a Laurel tree and a variety of Cascol and Uña de Gato trees there that are dropping their seed pods. We collected hundreds of seeds from all three species of trees.

On Wednesday we were back at the greenhouse. There is a stash of baby Guachepelli growing in a field nearby and we are going to try and transplant them into bottles to grow in the greenhouse. We also did a trip with Ricardito to the dump to throw out a barrel full of trash—the rest of the pickup truck was full of plastic bottle cuttings, which we took to a man we know in Leonidas Plaza who runs his own recycling business in his backyard. Plastic recycling collection is surprisingly non-existent in Bahia, which is one reason finding 3-liter soda bottles around town is so easy. Wednesday night three new volunteers showed up: Judith, originally from England, has been teaching English in Quito and is taking a month to volunteer on the coast; and Kirk and Crista from Canada, Kirk is fulfilling the field portion of his masters program and they will be here for the next three months.

Thursday we did more Bioregional Education preparations and transplanted another batch of Guachepeli trees. I had to stay in Bahia for a meeting at the municipality about a group of landowners who are joining together to make a network of private protected areas in the Bahia region. We also discussed preparations for a related international exhibition of ecological work in Bahia that will take place May 10^th and 11^th at the municipal theater. More details on this as progress unfolds. That evening Marcelo Luque and I presented the second part of our evening adult education program at the Eloy Alfaro University in Leonidas Plaza. I gave an introduction with a background of the work that Planet Drum has been doing over the years, including a detailed description of our reforestation project, with slides from the past four months. I then left the stage to Marcelo who gave an excellent presentation about the Flora and Fauna of Canton Sucre (this region of Ecuador), detailing the different ecosystems present here: Very dry tropical forests, Dry tropical forests, Wet tropical forests, Mangrove estuaries, and Marine life. With an audience of over seventy students, members of the community and the staff of Planet Drum, the presentation was a big success.

The next morning as we rode the bus to the greenhouse, we heard a detailed description over the radio of the previous night's presentation, which was repeated several times. Once there, we finished our transplanting of Guachepeli trees. Some of us stayed home and did even more Bioregional Education prep and that afternoon I went up to Bellavista to talk to some locals about helping make some bunk beds for one of the dorm rooms in the house. The bunk beds will allow us to have another volunteer stay in the house, which will bring the total space for volunteers in the house up to six.

More volunteers keep showing up and soon we will be able to accommodate one more in the house. As our numbers increase so does the amount of work we can take on. If you're interested in volunteering, send an email to: planetdrumecuador at yahoo dot com.

Hasta luego,

Clay

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Field Report #15

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: May 7-May 11, 2007

It's been an interesting week full of greenhouse visits and international outreach. On Monday we worked on the bioregional education materials. A nearly thirty page booklet, in Spanish, on the concept of bioregionalism, with a focus on the Bahia bioregion, is taking shape, complete with field trips and outdoor exercises for kids. We dumped off our house compost at the greenhouse, collected some 3-liter bottles and then took care of some weeding. During the day I attended another meeting on private protected areas and finalized plans for the international event slated for Thursday and Friday.

On Tuesday we split into groups, some stayed at the office continuing educational preparations, others went to our Bosque Encantado site and a few to our La Cruz site to clean weeds, do trail maintenance and check on trees. The trees are looking great, only a small percentage have died since being transplanted in mid-February. The semi-consistent rains so far this year have been good enough to maintain trees with only minimal manual watering. The same rains have also sustained a healthy number of 'weeds' competing with trees that need to be cleared periodically.

On Wednesday a group headed to planted sites in Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas to clear weeds there as well, while others went to Leonidas Plaza to help pick up 3-liter bottles from the streets. We found over 8 large sacks before going to the greenhouse to cut them so they will be ready for holding transplanted trees. On the way home a handful of trees were brought along for a display at the international event in the municipality.

Thursday was Day One of a two day event that brought environmentally minded groups from around Ecuador and northern Peru together in Bahia to share experiences and ideas about how to protect and restore the environment. Representatives of numerous communities and organizations gave presentations of their hard work throughout the day. Planet Drum had an interactive booth set up to show off some of our trees and greenhouse techniques for revegetationing. In the afternoon the group of private land owners convened to sign an accord to enter the network of private protected forests of Ecuador. It provides participants with resources and legal services to better protect, actively restore and sustainably develop land. The initial group of fifteen members included Planet Drum, the Mayor of Bahia, Sra. Flor Maria Dueñas, Jacob Santos, and Marcelo Luque among others. The Bahia-based participants agreed to work together to further ecological awareness, environmental protection and actively working to restore natural balances, such as revegetation.

On Friday the visitors to Bahia, many of them sponsored by DarwinNet, were given a tour of some of the natural resources and ecological projects in the area. The group of roughly fifty people was taken through Isla Corazon, an island of Mangroves protected by local residents who give eco-tours. From there they visited the Planet Drum greenhouse. I gave a tour of the greenhouse including an in-depth explanation of revegetation practices. Response to our project was very positive and there were a lot of great questions from the visitors. From the greenhouse, everyone took public buses back to the Bahia and went to the Bellavista neighborhood to see some of the community development that has been going on there as well as take a tour of the Cerro Seco nature preserve. It was an action packed day, but it really showed off the strengths of the ecological projects that are taking place in Bahia. It was great getting to share experiences with people from other regions, some of which were also dry tropical forest areas. Overall I think the event was a big success.

Until next week,

Saludos,

Clay

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Field Report #16

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: May 14-May 18, 2007

There are Ceibos and Guarango trees in our greenhouse that we seeded in November that are already two meters tall. Some of them are poking through the lower sections of the roof of the greenhouse. Although it is very late in the year to be planting, we are finding homes for them. We will plant a fresh batch of these species for next year's reforestation sites later in the season, roughly three to four months before scheduled planting so that they are the proper size. With some more rains like we've been having, these late planted trees should be fine, and the extra space in our greenhouse will allow us to grow even more trees for next year.

On Monday and Tuesday we made an impromptu site next to the Inter-Americana School (where Planet Drum has planted in the past). This site is on the Mayor of Bahia's land. We planted 65 trees (Ceibos, Guarango, and some leftover Guasmos) on an entirely deforested hill. The Mayor is very excited to be reforesting on his land and has even installed tanks for water and has caretakers there who will water the trees for us.

On Wednesday we split up into a variety of small groups taking care of Bioregional Education material preparations, a greenhouse trip to do some upkeep and bring home five big Ceibos that we are donating to the Bellavista community, bottle hunting, and sign painting for the Bosque en Medio de Las Ruinas. We are making signs to put up in the Ruinas park that will identify some of the native species that we have planted there. This will be part of the eco-tours that we are hoping to help start.

Thursday some volunteers went back to the greenhouse, picking up bottles from the Fanny de Baird school on the way, to meet with a friend of ours from the Los Caras barrio at kilometro 16. This is another very motivated community who are trying to develop eco-tourism and ecologically friendly growth. They have soy bean farms and make their own soybean products, including a soy meat substitute similar to tofu, soy yogurt, ice cream, milk, cakes and a variety of other creative foods. They are also a member of the Cordillera el Balsamo group (see previous report). They expressed interest in some of the extra trees we have in our greenhouse. They even brought their own truck to the greenhouse to pick the trees up. And we are invited to visit them in a few weeks to check up on the trees and get a tour of their community. Maxi, our friend from Los Caras, helped us load up a bunch of Ceibos, Guasmo, Cedro, and Seca. The greenhouse is looking pretty empty with so many of the big trees gone. This is good since we already have a bunch of small trees sprouting out of our seed beds.

While those volunteers were at the greenhouse, others stayed home to work on Bioregional education. I graciously thank Tomas and Mariana from Portugal who came by for a week of volunteering at just the right time. Tomas, your translation of bioregional education materials for the booklet we are making for the children of Bahia was an incredible gift, which we can now proudly use to teach them of the importance of finding balance with our natural surroundings. At the same time, Marianna and I made preparations for a presentation to the city consejales on the topic of cell phone antenna tower construction in downtown Bahia. Apparently a letter that we wrote in March about the potential dangers of cell phone antennas led to the halting of construction of a cell phone tower in the middle of Bahia. Because of this initial involvement, we were invited to give a presentation to city government representatives who will be deciding whether or not the tower construction will continue. Other presenters included representatives from the giant cell phone companies Porta, Alegro, and Movistar, the commissioner of health for Bahia, and an Ecuadorian telecommunications official who had rather overt connections to the cell phone companies. It should be rather obvious who was on which side of the debate. With the vital help of a surprise volunteer, Marianna, who has a degree in environmental law, we spent the day touring the municipality building gathering information and developing our argument.  Mariana, your determination and wit helped to put together an excellent presentation, which drew from the constitution of Ecuador and declaration of Bahia as an eco-city. Many of the other presenters used detailed scientific data and studies to support their arguments for why the towers and antennas are safe or why they are dangerous. In the end, the presentation I gave attempted to question what Bahia represents as an eco-city, what that entails, and how its citizens can relate to the technologies that have become an integral part of daily life. The overall response to my presentation was very positive. Additionally, there was clearly an overwhelmingly strong sentiment against the construction of antenna towers within the compact city center. Many local residents came out for the public event, some of them live in houses bordering or very nearby the potential construction site. The latest news is that construction has been halted, and it seems as though future tower and antenna construction will happen outside of downtown Bahia. A movement to remove the few (three?) antennas which already exist here seems unlikely to succeed. The entire event was quite intense and there was a lot of tension in the air between the opposing sides of the debate.

On Friday we took sanctuary in the greenhouse and decompressed a bit after the antenna presentation by planting a bunch of Guachepeli, Dormilon, Caoba and Seca seeds. Confronting multinational corporations makes working in the greenhouse that much more soothing.

Sunday morning I took a visit to the semi-weekly, ecological radio program and participated in their discussion of some of the environmental issues facing Bahia. Afterwards I talked to Don Pedro Otero who runs the radio program and owns lands in the El Toro water basin. He invited me to take a tour of his land and scope out potential sites for reforestation next year. That afternoon we went out and hiked around his farm and admired the forested hills he is dedicated to protecting. Though beautiful, unfortunately much of this land was pillaged of the most valuable wood as recently as fifteen years ago. There are two possible locations on his land that would make great sites for us with water available close by. Don Pedro also expresses interest in delivering a presentation as part of our monthly adult education series.

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Field Report #17

Clay Plager-Unger, Field Projects Manager 
Planet Drum Foundation
Report: May 21-May 25, 2007

We started the week with a greenhouse trip to drop off some fresh compost material from our house, water and clean weeds. While there we planted some more Guachepeli and Cascol seeds. We then filled up water jugs to take over to the Don Pepe and Maria Dolores revegetation sites. A slight dry spell forced us to resume watering a bit. The Don Pepe site looks great, while a handful of trees have died at Maria Dolores. Those that died suffered a lot since being transplanted and never had a chance to really take root. The trees that are alive look very healthy.

Also, a rather large undertaking of installing watering systems for each of the trees at this year's sites has begun. The most economical, natural and hopefully efficient method appears to be using Caña (bamboo) tubes. This is a method used in the past with some success. I have modified the technique a little this year to hopefully improve upon the previous design. The tubes are cut slightly longer and dug into the ground further to be able to deliver water more directly to the tree roots. Caña trees grow rapidly in the wetter climates nearby Bahia. A nine meter trunk costs two dollars and can be used to make roughly twenty-seven tubes suitable for watering trees. The plan for installing them is to dig as close to the tree as possible without disturbing the root system and bury the entire tube except the top couple of inches. The tubes will help get water to the soil around the roots. They should also minimize the effects of evaporation since they will allow the ground under the surface to get the water directly. The top couple inches of the tubes are painted to help identify trees. This is helpful for volunteers who are carrying water around in the woods who need to be able to tell quickly where planted trees are. It also helps to notify passerby's that there is a project underway on the land; this is more important at some of sites than others.

On Tuesday after going to Bosque Encantado to do some watering, I acquired the poles from the local Caña dealer. At the same time part of our ten person crew stayed at the house translating Bioregional Education materials and starting a mural on the wall outside the house.

On Wednesday, Caña poles were cut into pieces small enough to fit in Ricardito's pickup truck to take them to the greenhouse. At the greenhouse we filled up gallon jugs and took a trip to El Toro to do some more watering. Water sources at El Toro, Don Pepe, and Maria Dolores still need to be finalized, so for now water has to be taken to them. Back at the house resident volunteer artists finished up a beautiful new house entrance. Tomas continued translating the Bioregional Education booklet. That night it rained, perhaps because we had begun watering our sites by hand again.

On Thursday we cut and painted a load of Caña tubes, carried them to the Maria Dolores site and installed them at the trees.

Friday the same was done for the site at Bosque en Medio de las Ruinas. While there, we discovered that more of the hand rails had been stolen again. This is clearly an act by someone determined to prevent progress in the park. The handrails themselves are worthless; they only represent the work of volunteers who are trying to create an attraction to help the neighborhood. The local residents are clearly upset by the news, but they don't have much in the way of solutions. For now it seems as though there isn’t a lot that can be done to prevent someone from stealing Muyuyo poles (the handrails) from a park which can't be monitored. This represents an unfortunate hindrance to developing the park, particularly at a time when more people, such as the Universidad Catolica, are getting involved in the project. Since this has already happened three times while I've been here (since January), I'm quite reluctant to simply replace the stolen handrails again. We'll have to see what the University thinks about the situation and decide how to continue. My current plans are to begin development in a different direction, which is to build a community greenhouse. I've talked to some community members and it appears as though there is a possible location, and definitely high interest among the local kids. This will take some planning an organizing, but keep an eye out for developments down the line.

Despite the unfortunate set back at Ruinas, it's been another jam-packed week. I'm hopeful for the new watering system which I think will make a big difference in helping the little trees make it through their first dry season. Additionally, the rains have been picking up, suggesting that the real dry season may be a little ways off. This is great news for the trees that have been planted this year.

Hasta luego,

Clay

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