Can your group adopt a permaculture centre in South America? The Centro de Investigacion de los Bosques Tropicales, (the Rainforest Information Centre in Ecuador) initiated and have coordinated the San Lorenzo Permaculture Centre since 1992 with the help of many dedicated volunteers.
Over the years much positive work and many successful trainings and events were held at the centre raising ecological awareness throughout the whole community. Unfortunately for the past year activities have been at a virtual standstill, mostly due to a lack of good volunteer input and funding to keep the programs continuing and the site maintained.
We, at CIBT, are now ready to get things back on track and to put the systems in place that will ensure that the San Lorenzo Permaculture Centre can function sustainably and independently. Time to generate energy and enthusiasm and to ask the world for help!
The centre, located at sea level on the north-west coast of Ecuador, is one of the first of its kind in Latin America. Set on 2.5 ha and only a ten minute walk from the dynamic afro/latino city of San Lorenzo, it is a permaculture trainers dream! There are some 40 plant species, including many well established tropical fruit trees (durian, boroho, rambutan, star fruit, the list goes on).
Facilities at the San Lorenzo Permaculture Centre
There is a large training centre, composting toilets, accommodation facilities for about 15 (including showers), electricity and a simple kitchen. Directly behind the centre is an area of mangrove forest that the local community would like to create into an educational/eco-tourism site.
Why is it so important to have a functioning centre in San Lorenzo? It is located in an area of tropical forest and mangrove wilderness that is under extreme threat largely due to unsustainable agriculture. I had the opportunity to fly over the area and was shocked to see the pillars of smoke rising from burning for cattle farming and production of cash crops all the way up to the protected area of the Cotacachi-Cayapas biosphere reserve. Shrimp farms along the coast have laid waste to vast areas of mangroves. The need to promote permaculture is desperate.
I also travelled up the nearby Cayapas River to stay with a community and found a ready willingness to try other forms of agriculture. The reality is that most people are not aware that there is any other survival option. My heart broke to see three toed sloths in the market selling for $5 each destined for someone's cooking pot. These beautiful creatures eat only leaves from rainforest trees and their habitat is disappearing there are few places to release them where there are enough trees left.
The San Lorenzo Permaculture Centre has the potential to welcome representatives from communities for permaculture training and environmental awareness. It can supply seeds and seedlings. Trainers from the centre can travel to communities to give workshops.
