Luciano Anapas is setting a conservation example in his community. All photos by Kimberly Conger © CARE 2001.

Day 4: Improved Land
Use Bears Fruit
The next morning, we pull on our field clothes, still damp and caked with mud, and go down to the dock overlooking the Cayapas River. Packing up the canoe, we shove off for a 40-minute trip through light rapids to the community of Calle Mansa.

For us, it is a unique honor to be the first Americans to visit the 40 Chachi families living here. Much of the community stands on the riverbank to welcome us. And after a lot of hand shaking and formal introductions, we walk a short distance through the village and across a log bridge to find Luciano Anapas, 42, hard at work on his land.

Anapas is part of an effort to find alternative sources of income for people living in and around the reserve.

"The land is like people," Anapas says, while taking a huge swipe at some weeds with a long, razor-sharp machete. "If it's clean, it's healthy."

Just last year, Anapas' two-acre parcel was overgrown with weeds and other vegetation. As a first-time experiment, he and a handful of other farmers in the community agreed to work with CARE and Jatun Sacha to plant thousands of softwood and fruit trees, including oranges, papayas, pineapple, cocoa, sugar cane, plantains, anona, guava, flamidia and an exotic sweet fruit called borojo.

Sweat beads out from the gaping hole in the back of Anapas' t-shirt as he stands on his tiptoes to pick the first harvest from a cocoa tree.

"I've waited a long time for this," he says as a group of other farmers look on, standing under ample shade to diffuse the sun's 100-degree punch.

"It takes a lot of patience and commitment for farmers to break the norm to start this type of project," says Fanny Ramirez of CARE, as she stands beside Anapas in the middle of his farm. "You can't just plant a tree and expect to pick fruit the next day. It could take a year before the hard work starts to pay off. But it's good for the future of the community and it's good for the environment."

Anapas can now rely on income from the sale of the harvests of his new trees and plants. This is an income that will be stable as long as Anapas continues to manage his farm sustainably and it means that Anapas is less dependent on harvesting the natural resources of the forest for his livelihood.

River communities manage tree nurseries to supplement and at the same time protect the bounty of nature.

Raising Trees, A Family Affair
Going back downriver to the community of San Miguel Chachi, we climb out of the canoe and up a 30-foot-high wooden ladder leaning against the steep riverbank. This is one of 21 communities throughout the Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve buffer zone that manages an agroforestry nursery that provides many of the seedlings for farmers like Anapas.

Walking us through a sea of foot-high laurel and cocoa trees growing in long rows of compost beds, Herlinda Tapuyo, a 39-year-old mother of eight, explains that they started this nursery in August 2000 and today, they are raising more than 7,000 trees.

 
Tapuyo is one of 20 village women who work to cultivate the trees.

"Every week we spray soapy water on them so the ants don't eat the leaves. And when the trees reach a certain height we deliver them to other communities so they can plant them," Tapuyo says.

"Laurel trees grow fast and can be used to build homes," she says. "Cocoa is currently sold in Borbón for 20 cents a pound, but we are negotiating with local markets to get a better price."

She introduces us to her 12-year-old son Orlen, who is gently placing seedlings into a wheelbarrow.

"I'm going to put them in the canoe and take them across the river," he says, as he lifts the handles and leads us back to the river. "Then I'm going to help plant them tomorrow."

"The children like to help," says Ramirez. "It's important that they learn when they are young about planting trees and the environment."

Environmental Education: Orlen Tapuyo, 12, is learning to conserve and protect the rainforest.

We watch Orlen paddle away as we get in our own canoe and head back to San Miguel.

Laughter in the Rain
Back at the field house, the sky starts to cloud over as we take showers and put on our cleanest clothes. The rest of the afternoon we hang out with the San Miguel community, learning how to make bed mats from tree bark and how wooden shrimp traps are designed to lure in the catch of the day.

After eating soup and fresh shrimp and washing it down with a glass of Tang, we can't resist lying in the porch hammocks, listening to the rain come down and children laughing in the distance, and enjoying a warm but refreshing night breeze.