Community Fund – Fauna de la Amazonia – June Update

Hello, again, from Amazonas, Ecuador! (It is so-named because the waters from this region flow towards, and into, the River Amazon.)

Some raised beds have been created on the sloping areas between where future and current buildings are located. These beds will be used for growing plants for food as well nurturing the soil. As such, they will be low-growing as we do not want to encourage anything which may grow to threaten future structural damage to buildings – something which is easily done here, where trees can grow remarkable quickly.

We are very pleased to have the return of Mollie who was volunteering with the Fundación last year. She is helping out on the land and splitting her time between ourselves and the Sacha Warmi Centre (located not too far from Puyo) whose aim is to preserve traditional medicinal practices through the revitalization of ancestral medicine among indigenous communities and to conserve medicinal plant species and their natural habitat.   https://www.facebook.com/SachaWarmiCenter   http://centrosachawarmi.org/Blog-105

 So Pete, Glen and Mollie have been doing a lot of hard work on the ground – as well as creating the growing beds, they have done some amazing work on creating the next stage of the permanent path system, and also some maintenance of some of the other areas.

 Also, well under way, is the work on the window and door frames for the quarantine/clinic. The window frames are ready to be welded together, and work has started on the doors and frames. We have more-or-less all the materials we need – it is down now to timing for the hire of welder and power plant.

 Regrettably, a fair amount of time and energy has gone into dealing with issues arising from the previously mentioned theft of trees from the land. The Fundación’s Equipo Directivo (Management Team) suggested appointing a lawyer to work on our behalf, so hopefully this will help.

We would like to thank Pete (Peter Archer) for providing the photographs this month – some really interesting shots! Thanks Pete.

Also, Pete is planning to develop his own permaculture- and conservation- based project close to the Fundación’s land and is hoping to perhaps purchase around fifty hectares, or more, land for this purpose. This would be amazing news for the development of current projects as this would increase protected land nearby and thereby help to protect and conserve this threatened wild area. Watch this space!

A couple of ‘small’ rescues this month:

A Banded Amphisbaena (a legless lizard) was found by some youngsters in town and was liberated in an area of land close by the edge of town. It was likely escaping from recent heavy rains.

A Pygmy Marmoset was found loose in town and was handed in to us to help. (It is likely that it was an escaped ‘pet’.) It was given over to Ministry of the Environment staff who relocated it, as we are not yet able to receive animals, and, in any case, responsibility for where rescued animals are placed rests with the Ministry. The pygmy marmoset of Ecuador is sometimes referred to as leoncita (little lion), or mono de bolsillo (pocket monkey), being a reference to its diminutive size – it is between 14 to 16 centimeters in length, excluding its black-ringed tail which measures between 15 and 20 centimetres. They live on a diet of tree gum, insects, arachnids and even small lizards, and pygmy marmosets (Cebuella pygmaea) are found in the rainforests of eastern Ecuador, ie around where we are based. Some have been seen on land not too far from where we are.

Finally, a reminder of our Flickr page link: where our photographs are located (https://www.flickr.com/photos/fdla-group/ ). I have been asked (more than once!) to reduce the size of the attachments to these updates, so…..ehrmm, maybe next time!