Projects
July 23, 2004 We finished another site with the bamboo pipes and the last two are near completion. We also transplanted another forty plants. We have been collecting our plastic bottles (which we use as containers for plants) from the beach. We went on the ridge walk from La Cruz to Leonidas Plaza yesterday. Astounding! We all enjoyed it immensely. With Marcelo as our guide, I was […]
July 22, 2004 The week has been extremely full and lively thus far. In regard to finding new sites: I will connect Miguel this weekend. He seems like a good lead and I’m excited at the prospect of planting in the El Torro basin. Perhaps our presence there will encourage Pedro and his brothers to commit as well. We have the ridge walk from La […]
July 17, 2004 We have progressed tremendously with the implementation of the bamboo watering system, which involves several steps: collecting bamboo, getting it cut, de-corking the pipes, painting them and finally placing them in the ground. The entire project has cost us nearly nothing to implement ($6). We collect the scrap bamboo from local construction sites and them transport it to the lumber yard. There […]
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 […]
Learning to Partner With a Life-Place is the outline of a first year bioregional curriculum. It was first published June 12, 2004 as Dispatch #1 from Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador. On a fog-wet spring morning in San Francisco, our unusual urban group climbed to the top of a rock promontory midway along a canyon trail to get a clear view of the standout feature in […]
Letter May 29, 2004 Hey Peter,I’m feeling much better! Here is the week in review for May 24th thru the 29th. Monday we started the barbed wire fencing at Jorge Lomas Canal. We accomplished an amazing amount in one day, thanks to the help of two very enthusiastic sojourners from the USA. Wes and Zan had been staying in Bahía since the previous Thursday. (I had met them […]