Clay Plager-Unger is the former director of Planet Drum Foundation's Eco-Ecuador project.
After more than 12 years of working as the Projects Manager for Planet Drum Foundation’s ecological projects in Bahía de Caráquez, Ecuador, I am moving on to a new phase of my life. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with Planet Drum during all of these years and it has been an incredible experience, but it’s time for me to find something new. I especially would like […]
Since late September the Eco-Ecuador Project has been collaborating with the Catholic University on a new course at their campus at Kilometro Ocho, where the Planet Drum greenhouse is located. The course introduces university students to bioregional concepts and principles and includes a hands-on component at the greenhouse with dry tropical revegetation practices. There are about twenty students in the class and it meets Wednesdays […]
Amidst recent project activities including community outreach, bioregional education workshops, youth volunteer group workdays, and developing alliances with the Sucre County Municipality, Planet Drum’s volunteers and interns have been diligently keeping the greenhouse operations running smoothly by maintaining watering, weeding, organizing trees, clearing brush, preparing soil, planting seedbeds, and transplanting seedlings. Volunteer support from visiting international volunteers and interns is crucial to the success of […]
Bioregional education workshops at the Planet Drum greenhouse teach the importance of forest conservation and practical information about how to restore this threatened ecosystem. Participants engage in hands on activities related to tree production and revegetation. In recent months, Planet Drum hosted workshops at the greenhouse for school groups from Los Algarrobos School (Canoa) and the Eloy Alfaro School (Bahía). Planet Drum has worked with […]
In July and August various seed collection expeditions have yielded seed bounties of native Dry Tropical Forest species. Pechiche seeds were collected off the ground in the El Toro watershed. Fresh Algarrobo seed pods were harvested in the Astillero neighborhood. And Ceibo seed pods were collected straight from a tree along the main road into town near the Fanca neighborhood in Leonidas Plaza.
Planet Drum maintains a satellite greenhouse operation and revegetation site in the Astillero neighbor just outside of downtown Bahía de Caráquez with cooperation from our longtime friend José María. The extremely steep and eroding revegetation site was planted with 75 trees in December, 2018 – January, 2019. Today we visited the site to monitor and water the trees that were planted. The site has maintained a […]