Eco-Ecuador
Collaboration for a Long-Term Sustainable City
BIRTH OF A PROJECT When I set off for Bahia de Caraquez exactly six months ago I had no idea where I was going or what I was really being sent to do. My boss, Peter berg, told me that he was throwing me into the deep end of the pool on this one, but I felt confident in my ability to swim, As the idea […]
Kristen Lansdale, Field Bioregional Education ManagerPlanet Drum Foundation April 29, 2005 This week has been packed with activity as the bioregional education project takes flight. It seems that the program has an energy of its own as the community of Bahia welcomes the prospect of bioregional education. This week I have been to talk to the Universidad Catolica, Universidad La Laica, Colegios Eloy Alfaro, and Fanny Baird. […]
September 19 to 25, 2005 We went to the greenhouse 3 times again this week, and sowed more algarrobo seeds. Ramon’s dad, from whose land we got the seca seeds, said that those seeds may take months to sprout. I trimmed up the muyuyo tree where it was getting in the way around the outside seeds beds in front of the greenhouse. We emptied the […]
September 12-18, 2005 We’ve begun watering the greenhouse three times a week, and have already seen improvements, especially with the samangos, perhaps because they are not native to the dry tropical forest, and do better in transition zones (according to Dario of Rio Muchacho). We prepared more seed beds and sowed seca (soaked for different lengths of time as an experiment), barbasco and guachapeli seeds. […]
September 5 – 11, 2005 We have been going into rainy season prep mode by preparing seeds (hulling, soaking) and sowing in the greenhouse. This week we hulled some more of our barbaso-algarrobo-seca store, and sowed zapote de perro and algarrobo. We mixed some more sand and compost into the seed beds before sowing, as it seemed that the soil was getting too compacted with […]
Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador When I met a journalist on the street who told me she was now working at a pharmacy I didn’t immediately register what a contrast that was. It wasn’t surprising then because people in Bahia change jobs fairly frequently. I walked on thinking that her upbeat personality was suited to either position. Later I thought more deeply about how often they […]
Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador Yesterday (Sun.) was a breakthrough for our revegetation project. Pedro Otero, who although an agro-forestry professor previously seemed reluctant to permit non-commercial planting on his land, finally agreed to let us explore El Toro Basin for any sites where we wish to plant native trees. The problem with Otero had been that the land wasn’t formally divided between five brothers who […]
August 29 to September 4, 2005 This week two new volunteers arrived – Briana and Stephanie, which puts us to 4 people living in the house. Both speak Spanish. We were able to retire one of the compost piles at the greenhouse and move it over into the storage area. We also repaired the fence around the compost area, and put up a new section. […]
Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador Planet Drum Foundation’s efforts to assist in transforming Bahia into an ecological city have taken a progressively more educational bent. We have had a full-time staff member as Bioregional Educational Program Manager, Kristen Lansdale, for nearly half a year. Her reports on the progress of the first twenty-five high school age students have been a continuous revelation of expanding possibilities for […]
August 22 to 28, 2005 This week we repaired and reinforced the greenhouse (the dogs had broken in through a weak spot), did the usual greenhouse chores, and sowed seeds – aguia and cedro amargo. We also continued hulling seeds (seca and algarrobo), and even collected more algarrobo seeds from the Cherry Tree site. I discovered that seca seeds can also be collected there, but […]