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Bioregional Olympics: Environmental Recommendations Go Unheeded by Olympics Organizers The Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC) is “greenwashing” the 2002 Winter Olympics. Even though assigned the task of providing the first environmentally sound Winter Games by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), SLOC makes claims that it refuses to substantiate and fails to take the necessary steps […]
Read MoreJeff Goddin, Eco-Bahia Projects Manager I sit at a table in a half-finished house as the street sounds, neighbor’s voices, and the smell of fresh baked bread waft in to distract me from writing this introduction to my Ecuador experience for the Planet Drum community. So, you’re probably wondering who I am. I’m a 27 […]
Read MoreLisa Kundrat, Field Assistant Last Wednesday morning accompanied Marcelo Luque and Linsey, his volunteer, to Kilometro 8, one site where he has been working with Laura Commike on Planet Drum’s reforestation project in Leonidas Plaza. Pedro met us there and gave Linsey and I tips on our machete wielding techniques as we slashed small circles […]
Read MoreLisa Kundrat, Field Assistant A week of storms and heat, of transition, of visiting, walking, listening. Been raining nearly every night, every morning, sweat dripping hot in between. There were nights when no one slept, thunder that made us crouch in our beds, lightning we could see with our eyes closed. Tried to plant in […]
Read MoreLisa Kundrat, Field Assistant Received a letter from home. Spoke of cold hail running through apple wood ash. Makes me miss Montana these days when I have been questioning my role here, in this place that is not my own, where I am only just learning the feel of the hot ocean, learning to speak. […]
Read MoreBahia de Caraquez, Ecuador Since it became unoccupied due to mud slides three and a half years ago, Bosque en Medio de Las Ruinas revegetation park in Maria Auxiliadpra barrio has been slowly evolving as a habitat. Our eyes have been trained on the progress of planted grass, brush and trees with only momentary interruptions […]
Read MoreBahia de Caraquez, Ecuador Eduardo “Cheo” took on the role of locating owners of land on the eroded hillsides above Leonidas Plaza to enroll them in revegetation activities out of his dedication to ecological betterment of the Rio Chone Bioregion. A high school English teacher by profession, he has often aided other dry tropical forest […]
Read MoreBahia de Caraquez, Ecuador The shredded comic strip atmosphere of Carnaval has infiltrated the city and holds us in a friendly but insistent grip like a grinning drunk. We aren’t always sure what to say because we aren’t sure of what we’ve really seen. The invasion began almost imperceptibly on Monday when I saw a […]
Read MoreWhy Take on the Winter Olympics, and What Came of the Effort? Planet Drum Foundation has opposed the environmental impacts of the Winter Olympics since 1996. It was then that wildlife biologist Kimiharu To who was studying ptarmigan birds in the Hakuba Mountains of Nagano, Japan and working as a part-time ski guide and rice […]
Read MoreBahia de Caraquez, Ecuador A month late, the annual rainy season has begun with a drenching vengeance. It began lightly, just sparkling the night pavement shortly before I arrived in Guayaquil, and continued intermittently a few days later while waiting to pick up new volunteers Darcie Luce and Lisa Kundrat at the airport. On the […]
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