History

From CFI

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Important Steps

  • 1995 - The idea is formed
  • 1996 - The organization is formed
  • 1998 - Majority of BOD members enrolled with CSU Monterey Bay
  • 1999 - Real Life Learning: Ecuador Program is Developed with CSUMB
  • 2000 - CFI becomes 501(c)(3) umbrella for Mendocino Environmental Center
  • 2000 - CSUMB Real Life Learning: Ecuador Pilot Program is accomplished
  • 2000 - CFI receives determination as a 501 (c)(3)
  • 2001 - Second Real Life Learning Ecuador Program
  • 2001 - CFI/IBN goes under the umbrella of CIBT to be recognized as an Ecuadorian NGO
  • 2001 - CFI works at Salem in Mindo for five months hosting volunteers, interns, and students.
  • 2002 - CFI works in Mindo and internationally educating about the OCP pipeline project
  • 2003 - CFI sets up office at River Oaks Compu-Farm in Potter Valley
  • 2004 - CFI begins community think tank to initiate Multiversity in Northern California
  • 2004 - CFI Presents the 2004 All Ages Revolutionary Summer School
  • 2005 - MEAC Week and Earth Day Grand Opening Events 4/16 - 4/22
  • 2005 - 2005 All Ages Revolutionary Summer School Schedule

Ecuador was chosen as the first site of Cloud Forest Institute for a number of reasons. We have over the years developed many contacts in the country and appreciate its environmental and cultural abundance as well as sympathize with its precarious state; in debt to the first world and run by corrupt politicians. Ready to be ravaged by transnational investors and developers, the country is trying to “make it” in the competitive global economy. Ecuador’s determination to have “the highest biodiversity per hectare of any South American Country” and “at the current rate of deforestation, 2.3% per year, will be nearly denuded by 2025” makes the location not only feasible but vital. The small country also boasts at least 10 (this figure is arguable, many say more and some say less) distinct existing indigenous groups, all in danger of loosing their habitats and cultures to the encroachment of western civilization and transnational corporations.

Cloud Forest Institute has been conducting research and development in Ecuador since 1995 and in California since 1998. When CFI was founded in 1996 the organization negotiated with an Ecuadorian tourism agency that had built a facility adjoining the Mindo – Nambillo private ecological reserve. The opportunity to establish the site on this property was lost in 1997 when CFI was unable to organize sufficient funds to purchase before financial lenders repossessed the land. Since 1999 CFI has been campaigning to purchase land for a permanent research site. Please donate!

Cloud Forest Institute is active in the community of Mendocino County, California as a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor for qualifying projects and groups. In 2003 Cloud Forest Institute began its campaign to establish a Self Reliant Educational Community in Mendocino County. Progress on this campaign can be found under current Projects.

Research on distance online learning communities began in 1995 when CFI became affiliated with the Globewide Network Academy, an organization that originated in 1993 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Within the following year CFI became one of the founding organizations in the creation of the Internet Biologists. The first course that CFI presented was in 1996, in conjunction with I.B.’s “Doing Biology on the Internet” program and was held in a virtual reality MOO created by Diversity University.

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