Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador  Although economic thought is largely devoted to a seemingly unlimited array of activities and events surrounding production, distribution and consumption of goods, these are rarely seen as being nested in an ecological context. Most rational people concede that our well-being and ultimate survival as a species depends on sustaining interdependence and harmony with natural forces of life. Older environmental problems of pollution […]

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador  It is tempting to dwell on the difficulties of pioneering dry tropical forest revegetation because the obstacles and challenges are a kind of earth news. Reporting them is a way to spread the whys and hows of carrying out work that is urgently necessary but involves truly arduous effort. There is a high spirit of creativity that goes along with it that […]

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador  The chronological record for Greece that exists in Herodotus’ History beginning with the Trojan War is missing for coastal Ecuador. There was a similarly rich culture here in the same era but we don’t know its sagas. The archeological traces of ruins themselves are only partially explored here.  It was a complex world but in a different way from the Greeks judging […]

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador  Burro droppings and a partially gnawed algarrobo sapling. These powerful auguries must have been left just after we left the day before. They were in a planting site that although begun during the rainy season we had only now started to dig the first postholes for a protective fence. Renee and Bevan saw these signs of potential disaster when they luckily […]

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador Yellow squares of rice drying in front yards seen from the bus window on the six-hour ride out to Bahia from Guayaquil seemed a little early. It was the most sparse & peculiar rainy season since the Eco-city Declaration five years ago. Starting late in January, it gave up February and stayed truant another two months after that. Rain came again in May […]

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador  There are now six revegetation sites strung like beads on the river-facing eroded hillsides leading into Bahia de Caraquez. One within sight above the vivero(greenhouse) at Universidad Catolica is fully planted and has thus far survived the summer drought. It can serve as a walk-through demonstration of the generalprocess and a specific model of controlling land subsidence on the face of a downhill swale.  Nearby is […]

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador When I first heard “pique y pasa” (pronounced pee-kee pah-sah) it was used in a traditional way to describe how to go about buying something when there were different items of all kinds offered. Not a single-minded hunting trip for just one thing or at best a few things where the range of possibilities is finite and it’s a matter of how […]

Bahia de caraquez, Ecuador Of all the differences between living here and in San Francisco there is one that creates a paramount necessity. It is the millimeter close proximity of organisms that use the human body for their own purposes and other natural effects. This slim space eventually becomes a factor in most activities if not a near obsession. There is a hospital quality about […]