Projects
Lisa 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 in the brush along the river bank to mark where […]
Lisa 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 the beginning of the week, were caught as the storm […]
Lisa 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. One night after being so ill, sitting on the crowded […]
Bahia 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 from other life forms. Once there was a small cloud […]
Bahia 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 restoration efforts and led or sent student volunteers. Cheo visited […]
Bahia 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 man walking alone in the middle of the street with […]
Why 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 farmer contacted me for assistance in informing the local residents […]
Bahia 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 six hour bus ride from there to Bahia we encountered […]
OLYMPICS; Greenest Games Ever? Not! Los Angeles TimesFebruary 3, 2002 Opinion; Part M; Page 1; Editorial Pages Desk It will cost nearly $2 billion to stage the Salt Lake City Olympics–almost $800,000 per athlete–with U.S. taxpayers picking up about a quarter of the tab. Partly due to increased security, the Utah Games, which start on Feb. 8 and continue for 17 days, will be the most […]
Bioregional Olympics: Roots of Action In 1998, the Director of Planet Drum Foundation and another member of the Bioregional Association of the Northern Americas trekked to Nagano, Japan and spent several exciting weeks working with Guard Fox Watch, a bioregional action group whose aim was to raise consciousness around the issue of the Olympics’ effect on the watersheds and environment where the Games took place. In […]