Common Commute

The purpose of our trip was simple: Demarcate the watershed found at the Quebrada Barro Colorado in southern Panama. The trip itself was much more complicated.

The Quebrada Barro Colorado is located in Punta Patiño Nature Reserve deep in the Darién, Panama. This reserve is remote, private, and administered by the National Association for the Conservation of Nature (ANCON), a private nonprofit organization founded in Panama. I was headed there with Eric Lorenzo and Humberto Tamayo of ANCON.

That's me on the left and my travelling companions Eric and Humberto.

Our journey started in Panama City, where we took a three hour car ride to the city of Metetí. There we changed routes and hopped over to Puerto Quimba along the coast, about 12 miles west. We boarded a boat and prepared for travel through the estuary that would eventually bring us to the community of Mogué. The entire trip was scheduled around high tide in order to get out of the mouth of the estuary. We timed it right and the entire boat ride took about an hour and a half. The sights from the boat were overwhelming in their beauty. You have mangroves on either side of you, seabirds flying overhead and, if you’re lucky, a group of dolphins might escort you for part of the way. The ride filled me with that sense of freedom that only nature can bring.

Picture time while traveling through the estuary.

Eventually we docked our boat and had a short 10-minute walk along a beautiful trail which cut through the comarca of the Embera and Wounaan peoples. It is a beautiful land dotted with Embera and Wounaan dairy farms, and traditional houses built on stilts. We passed several young women in brightly colored parumas, or traditional clothing.

Embera and Wounaan community members taking a rest during the day.

Upon arrival it was important to contact the traditional authority of the community. We explained to him the purpose of our visit, in this case ours was simply taking a shortcut through their lands to get to Quebrada Barro Colorado. The meeting was pleasant and quick and then we were on our way.

For generations, the Quebrada Barro Colorado has been the source of water for communities in Punta Alegre. It is important to demarcate the land to ensure the watershed is protected. The people hope to eventually build an aqueduct—running about 8 miles—that will continue to provide water to communities. 

We decided to take a quick break at "Rosita," a small store. It was there that we met up with a guide Lucio, who was to be our guide the rest of the way. He kindly offered to put us up at the worker’s house on his ranch where we could spend the night. ¡Que bueno!

Nothing like a sip of natural, cold water.

To get to the small ranch home it was a long, but pleasant two mile hike through lush rainforest full of large
trees and small streams. We arrived at Lucio’s ranch house at sunset. The small house was perfect – and so was the nearby lake where we caught our dinner. We cooked our fresh catch over a small campfire.

The late night sky gave us a breathtaking star show. We shared stories throughout the evening, enjoying the meal and each other’s company, and eventually went to sleep. Some of us slept in hammocks, some slept on the floor inside the ranch house.

We were all up bright and early, made some very strong coffee and ate a few yuccas. We walked an hour on narrower trails where at one point we saw titi monkeys playing in a high tree and at another we watched a beautiful, majestic eagle land on a Cuipo tree. The tree had been full of small birds that quickly scattered leaving the eagle alone as the mistress of her tree.

Let's recap: Panama City, to Metei, to Puerto Quimba, over to Mogue and finally down to
La Reserva Natural de Punta Patiño.

From the dense, thick jungle we finally arrived at the Quebrada Barado CoIorado water source. We had made it. Now, it was time to get to work demarcating the water source.

So, how did you get to work today?

- Yaira Allois Pino, Program Officer for Panama
Yaira is from Santiago de Veraguas, Panama and works on EcoLogic's projects with our partner organizations in that country.

Under the Weather in Upper Guatemala

¡Buenos días!

Every morning I wake up in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, to the blue mountains of the Cuchumatanes that rise more than 2 miles above sea level. This morning, the temperature in the city is around 5 ° C (40°F). Here, January is typically the coldest month of the year and yet I am travelling from Huehuetenango to the upper parts of the Cuchumatanes Mountains, where nighttime and early morning temperatures can dip even lower, often below freezing.

Passing through the towns of San Juan Ixcoy, Soloma, Santa Eulalia, and San Mateo Ixtatán along the way I pass through fog, heavy rain, and then a little drizzle. Eventually, I arrive at the city of Barillas where it is no drier. In fact, it rains here about 11 months out of the year.

A local villager is all smiles in the early morning fog.

The weather here in northern Guatemala is predictably unpredictable. Sometimes, on days without a cloud in the sky, I’ll  suddenly be in the middle of a heavy downpour. Other times, there will be sunshine day after day and only a light rain at night. It can make travel plans and deciding what to wear pretty difficult.

For example, one day I visited the Maxbal lagoon in Barillas and decided not to pack rubber boots. When it was time for us to hike – since we couldn’t go any further in our truck, I realized just how big a mistake that was. Trail conditions were a mess since it had rained heavily the night before, but I needed to continue on to the lagoon, and so I hiked. I fell more times than I care to admit, but I learned my lesson. Wherever, whenever, and no matter what, you should always bring rubber boots. 

Muddy conditions after a rainstorm.

Another time, last year, I was participating in a community training in the middle of the village of Xapper at a tin-roofed community meeting house. The day was beautiful and bright, and then, around noon, a shower came down so intensely we had to suspend the training since no one could hear anything over the relentless pounding of the rain on the roof! We had to wait nearly an hour until the rain had subsided enough to continue the training. 

A view from the village center, with a tin-roofed meeting house and expansive mountains in the distance.

The weather in this area is much more than just an unpredictable inconvenience, though. The land itself is very hilly and mountainous with large areas that have been completely deforested due to illegal logging and slash-and-burn agriculture. Without trees and vegetation the heavy rains wash away soil and frequent landslides occur that can destroy remaining trees, cause water contamination and harm people and buildings as well. Additionally, the landslides often spread across highways and streets, restricting reliable transportation access, emergency evacuation routes, and communication with rural communities.

From desert to jungle, from chilly to oppressive heat, Guatemala is a land of diverse climates, in part thanks to our expansive and majestic mountains. The climate is unpredictable, but the work EcoLogic does, and our commitments to communities and to conserving the land are consistent and unwavering. 

Daniel Herrera, Program Officer for Guatemala
Daniel first joined EcoLogic in 2010 as a field technician, and in 2012 became a Program Officer, overseeing all EcoLogic's projects in Guatemala and providing technical assistance to our local partners.

Rio, Bravo!

I'm back from Rio and have almost recovered from the whirlwind of activities going on there. A good whirlwind, don't get me wrong. I had an excellent time and learned a ton.

No, that's not airport security - that's the entrance to the conference.

I was in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the better part of six days attending the Rio+20 Earth Summit, a United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. Each day had at least 50 panels I could attend on topics including land rights, climate smart agriculture, community forestry, payment for ecosystems services, integrated water resource management, you name it. Let's just say I attended a lot. Panels and smaller side events were great places to learn about others' work and various issues, as well as to meet representatives from other NGOs. Thanks to friends at the Equator Initiative, I was able to stay at an apartment only a 3 minute walk from the conference center. Without getting into details, I'll just say that most conference-goers did not have this luxury and had long, traffic-laden trips to the conference center (well, I think the heads of state took helicopters so they probably avoided the traffic, too). Anyways, because of my close proximity I was able to take full advantage of everything that was going on.

Sure, it was all business, but there were also really cool exhibits from the United Nations like this one showing faces of children from all over the world.

I was in Rio for two reasons: the first is that just like 20 years ago during the first Earth Summit, the conference was addressing some of the founding principles of EcoLogic - that for long-term conservation strategies to be truly effective, rural peoples must be included and their contributions given priority. The other reason for my attendance was to support and honor our partner, AJAASSPIB, which was being recognized as one of the winners of the 2012 UNDP Equator Prize. It was amazing to spend time with the 25 winners who were from around the world, and it was quite valuable to learn about the various initiatives they represented. I encourage you to check out the work of the different winners here. On the last night of my trip, there was a sold-out award ceremony to recognize the winners. Special guests included, Mohammed Yunis, Helen Clark, Richard Branson, and Edward Norton. Also, because of her attendance at Rio+20, Zumilda Duarte, an AJAASSPIB leader who was representing her organization, was able to attend a side conference by the Avina Foundation, Skoll Foundation, Ashoka, and others. Zumilda was all over Rio talking about AJAASSPIB!

That's Zumilda on the left accepting the Equator Prize from a United Nations representative.

Another big part of the conference was what was called "Dialogue Days." These were long sessions where a panel of high-level experts discussed a major theme being covered at the conference. I attended the Dialogue Days on the themes of "Sustainable Development for Poverty Reduction," and "Water." The purpose of these dialogues was to choose language that would be presented to the country delegations at the conference. The panelists discussed the options and the audience - filled with civil society representatives - voted at the end.

That's Zumilda right in the middle. She's on stage accepting the AJAASSPIB's award with some of the other finalists.

Although there is a large sense of disappointment about the outcomes of the conference, I'm glad that EcoLogic had a voice in the process.

As hard as it is to do, that sums up my time in Rio in broad strokes. As you may have noticed, there's been a lot of talk in the media about the conference outcome. What people are referring to is the agreement that participating governments signed, which is supposed to hold governments accountable to the concepts of sustainable development. The problem is that the agreement that was signed is extremely weak and does not push hard enough to bring about change at the policy level. That said, for the smaller NGOs of the world, like EcoLogic, and for grassroots groups like AJAASSPIB, the conference was undeniably valuable. I was able to talk to many people about our work and establish and/or strengthen relationships with new and existing collaborators, allies, donors, and friends. And I learned so much that I will be able to use to help EcoLogic help our partners throughout Central America and Mexico!

- Chris Patterson, Program Officer for EcoLogic
Chris collaborates closely with the senior program officer by writing grant proposals and project reports, and following trends in philanthropy, conservation, and international development.  

Panama Latrine Team

Mangrove forests in the Gulf of San Miguel, Panama.

In December of 2008, I began working for EcoLogic in Panama’s Gulf of San Miguel where 16% of Panama’s mangroves can be found; the area is rich in biodiversity and has an impressive scenic beauty. In the coastal zone, there are many established fishing communities, which depend on these mangroves and their wildlife populations to exist. Right now, EcoLogic is working in five of these communities: Río Congo, Punta Alegre, Puento Lara, La Puntita, and Arretí.

Part of our work involves coordinating community consultations where we hear from the local people about their lives and circumstances. Based on these consultations, we help them prioritize their concerns and jointly devise solutions to address their primary challenges. In the Gulf of San Miguel main concerns include access to clean drinking water and the effects diminishing fish stock in the mangroves are having on their livelihoods.  This is why our focus in Panama is centered on water, environmental cleanup, and strengthening community-based organizations devoted to the sustainable management of natural resources.



Community members building a composting latrine.

In Puerto Lara and Punta Alegre, we are developing a plan for watershed management and outlining steps to strengthen local water councils. In Puerto Lara, we are also establishing a tree nursery which will have the capacity to produce 10,000 seedlings a year for enriching and repopulating the nearby microwatershed. In Río Congo, we are building composting latrines which will reduce runoff and contamination of the mangroves. In Punta Alegre, all of the community stakeholders are coming together to identify a location where they can build a water aqueduct to provide safe, reliable drinking water to the community. The community has existed for more than 100 years without reliable access to clean drinking water.

In these two and a half years I’ve worked in Darién, I’ve been a part of these communities and their daily lives, and witnessed their joys and their sorrows. Their commitment to our collaborative projects and their desire to succeed is quite obvious because of all the effort and energy they put into all of the projects we’ve undertaken. I was honored that recently, in a community meeting in Punta Alegre, when all the various project partners were present, the water council president, Isidoro Zúñiga, specifically mentioned EcoLogic while thanking everyone for their interest and support. EcoLogic is having a significant and positive impact on the quality of peoples' lives in this area, and I feel proud to be a part of this important work we are doing.



- Yaira Allois Pino, Program Officer for Panama
Yaira is from Santiago de Veraguas, Panama. She works on EcoLogic's projects with our partner organizations in that country. 

"The trees are absolutely essential"

This Wednesday, I visited the 5 greenhouses that EcoLogic has built and currently manages in Totonicapan, Guatemala. Within each greenhouse are 16,500 saplings of several varieties of native trees. Community members, led by two local full-time caretakers, do everything: collect the seeds from the forest, plant them, water them with water flowing from the forest above the greenhouses, apply organic compost and fertilizers, and then take them into the forest once they're big enough (about 10 months old). The greenhouses are managed by Don Augustin. This man LOVES TREES! Three more greenhouses are currently under construction and will be done this year! We have greenhouses in this region because of the altitude - it's pretty cool and at night it even frosts over. Also, the greenhouses protect the trees from animals and insects and offer the ability to set up irrigation systems.

All the trees will be planted around water sources and in recharge zones (land that absorbs water faster than most) in order to combat erosion and ensure that the water doesn't dry out. In order to get water in your home, you have to do two things: 1) pay a water user fee to your local village water committee (each village has one of these - totally volunteer run) and 2.) volunteer your time in some capacity. The water user fee covers expenses related to the maintenance of water tanks, pipes, etc. The volunteering can consist of helping out in the greenhouses, reforesting, or providing materials for the greenhouses, like soil or compost. Most people opt to reforest, and during the months of May and June - the beginning of the rainy season - groups of community members enter the forest with all the saplings from the greenhouses and plant the trees in strategic places around their water source.

Each village water board has an executive committee that manages the money, goes into the forest to check out and perform maintenance on the tanks and pipes, and ensure that each household is volunteering and paying their fee. Or the water gets cut! Village water board leadership are voted into their position and the leadership changes each year.

So what's a water source? It's basically the ground. That's it. Community members have identified spots in the forest where there's significant water underground, based on the type of plants that are growing and the moisture in the soil. Then, you dig it out, lay some concrete in a way that collects the water, and install a pipe that carries the water to a larger tank. This larger tank collects the water from several of these sources, called "nacimientos" or "births." From the larger collecting tank, the water travels via pipe all the way to a community distribution tank, which could be 10 or 15 kilometers away. From the distribution tank, the water travels to households.

Ain't gravity somethin?

So the water essentially comes from the ground, not a stream or river or well. It's not that deep. The reason you want to capture the water from the ground itself is because it's pure. If you get it out of the stream or river, it could be contaminated with animal waste, algae, tadpoles, trash, who knows? So you get the water before it's exposed to the elements. The trees sort of filter and slow down the water after it rains which enables the water to accumulate enough to be captured. The trees are absolutely essential.

I asked Fernando, EcoLogic's project technician in Totonicapan, how everyone knows that there is a close relationship between the trees and water; if some expert came in and told everyone or if the people have known for generations. I bet you can guess the answer: they knew. They knew based on experiences of villages who cut all the trees in their nearby forests and lost their water. And these stories have been passed down for generations. It was later that the experts came in and essentially confirmed what the locals already understood.


- Chris Patterson, Program Officer for EcoLogic

Chris collaborates closely with the senior program officer by writing grant proposals and project reports, investigating potential funders, and following trends in philanthropy, conservation, and international development. Chris was a fellow for the Ford Foundation's Difficult Dialogues Project and has documented his time working from EcoLogic's regional office in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala from March to June, 2011.