Reports from Planet Drum Staff
Eco-Ecuador Project 2009
Index to 2009 Reports, Set 3 (March 6-31,2009)
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Field Report #4
Clay Plager-Unger
Field Projects Manager
Planet Drum Foundation
March 6-31, 2009
Note: Click on photos for larger picture
Summary: Another action-packed month passes
by. Volunteers disperse and continue with their travels; and as their
numbers dwindle, the rainy season seems to be petering out. The transition
out of the rainy season means that changing the workload to adapt to the
shift in weather.
In total this year, eleven revegetation sites have been successfully planted with over 2,200 native trees in the 8km corridor along the southern side of the Río Chone estuary. Several hundred more trees have been donated to friends and communities, including nearly one hundred to the Los Caras community at Kilometro 16, which we helped to plant during a Planet Drum field trip. Along with the Los Caras visit, several other field trips took place including Río Muchacho, a Planet Drum Institute land visit, and a San Clemente beach trip that followed a 10-hour marathon house- cleaning day.
The weather has been rather unusual. Several heavy drizzles and solid rains recently helped all of the trees planted take root, but other than that, there’s been minimal precipitation. Some indicators of the dry season have been making appearances already such as cooler ocean temperatures, which suggest the return of the Humbolt Current from Antarctica. But there have also been some mixed signs as well. This past weekend we spotted a few flowering Guayacans at Punta Gorda, which is typically a phenomenon that occurs just before the rainy season begins. Flowering Ceibos were seen as well, which usually happens a few months from now. Other oddities include irregular fruiting of Chirimoya and Hobo trees, typically gathered towards the beginning of the rainy season.
Also, after much talk of a heavy (good) rainy season this year, things have ended up being on the weak side (even weaker than last year). Conversely, there’s talk of the possibility of April making up for the scarcity of rains in March. As is typically the case with the weather, it’s wait and see. But there is certainly some confusion amongst the Dry Tropical Forest species this season.
As for the volunteer situation, we’ve currently hit a lull, which happens to work out well with the work load, since we’ve stopped making new sites and planting more trees for the year. Soon it will be overhauling the greenhouse seedbeds and planting seeds for trees for next year. And hopefully some additional precipitation will save having to water the revegetation sites in the near future. The volunteer situation will hit high gear again in June, with numerous new volunteers showing up. Currently the house is very close to being booked from June through October.
Note: Click on photos for larger picture
 Planet Drum volunteers get ready for a day of work. |
 The Planet Drum crew delivers a truckload of trees to the Los Caras community. |
 Los Caras community leader and Planet Drum friend, Sebastian shows off the flower of a Passion Fruit plant, one of the many crops growing in the area. |
 Planting the San Roque (urban barrio) revegetation site required watering the trees as we planted them. A few dedicated neighborhood kids and adults came out to help. |
 Nicole, Birgitta and Maggie loading up with water at the San Roque site. |
 Nicole, Eric and Aaron climb up into an enormous Matapalo (Strangler Fig) tree at the Río Muchacho farm. |
 Birgitta leads the volunteers in a stretching session before tackling a day of hole digging. |
 Aaron hole digging. |
 Eric planting trees. |
 Maggie demonstrates how to use a machete to dig a trench for water around a Pechiche tree she has just planted. |
 The volunteers load up a rented truck after a hard day’s work. |
 Gina paints signs at the Planet Drum land to deter trespassers. |
 Jaime and Clay posting the signs. In the background part of the 50 meter, 5 strand, barbwire fence with lockable gate is visible. |
 Jaime and Clay finished posting signs. Fence is more visible in the background of this photo. |
 J |
 Aaron turning compost at the greenhouse. |
 While cutting sticks at Bosque Encantado, a dry tropical forest boa constrictor slithers out from some dead leaves and twigs and makes it way up into the branches of a Moyuyo bush. |
Pásalo bien,
Clay
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Letter
Clay Plager-Unger
Field Projects Manager
Planet Drum Foundation
March 25, 2009
Hi,
Things
are going very well. Multiple really, really nice light but substantial
rains this past week. Volunteers have died down from 15+ to 4, which feels
like nothing in comparison. Things will remain relatively light on this
front for another month or two and then pick up again come May/June. I'm
looking forward to having a little breather. The summer months are going
to be brimming, which bodes well for watering. I've got some really
good-looking candidates lined up. It’s looking like June through October
there will be 5-6+ volunteers the entire time. I’m working miracles with
scheduling them all in.
I
think that we've finished up with planting for the year. Now comes site
maintenance and greenhouse work to get things ready for next year.
So,
things are going smoothly. We had several bug infestations going on in the
house at once and did more major cleanups last week, including another
truckload of garbage removed from the house (I think the third this year),
and dieseling the floors, which apparently is the local method of choice
for wood preservation and bug control. So the house is looking really
good. It looks even more like a house! Unfortunately the water
situation has been bleak, with very little arriving in the past month and
very little in the foreseeable future.
We're
going out to the Planet Drum Institute land tomorrow to build a fence.
Take
care,
Clay