Projects

Adventures and Transplanting Sessions with Jokes

By Christina Knott | August 10, 2004

August 10, 2004 Hola Chicos, Let me start off by saying that I don’t know how Planet Drum managed for so long without the bamboo watering system that is now in place.  The work that used to take all morning can be done in about twenty minutes.  The pipes are placed in the ground beside young and newly transplanted trees.  The goal is to deliver […]

Volunteer Opportunities in Ecuador with Planet Drum Foundation

By Peter Berg | July 24, 2004

Volunteer in the Eco-City Fundación Planet Drum P.O. Box 13-02-13 Bahía de Caráquez, Manabí, Ecuador Website:  planetdrum.org    Information on Planet Drum Foundation and volunteer opportunities inBahía de Caráquez, Ecuador Planet Drum was founded in 1973 by Peter Berg, to provide an effective grassroots approach to ecology that emphasizes sustainability, community self-determination and regional self-reliance.  In association with community activists and ecologists, Planet Drum developed the concept of […]

Project Seed Bank

By Renée Portanova | July 23, 2004

Objectives for Project Research For each Dry Tropical Forest species know the following: Dry Tropical Species

We identified twenty-five species to begin researching.

By Renée Portanova | July 23, 2004

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 […]

Ridge walk from La Cruz to Leonidas Plaza.

By Renée Portanova | July 22, 2004

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 […]

The bamboo watering system.

By Renée Portanova | July 17, 2004

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 […]

A Re-birth of Ecologics

By Peter Berg | June 30, 2004

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 […]

How a Day Passes Here

By Peter Berg | June 28, 2004

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 […]

Seeing the Future in the Past, Again

By Peter Berg | June 26, 2004

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 […]

Close Call, Solemn Solstice

By Peter Berg | June 23, 2004

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 […]