REVOLUTIONary aMUSEment Archive

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rEVOLUTIONary aMUSEment #4

Hello everybody, saludos desde Ecuador. I haven't written in quite a while a there is a lot to update you on. Some big changes in Ecuador happened early this week when the National Government chose to not sign a new contract with Occidental Oil thus taking over the installations and production under the national company Petro-Ecuador. In retaliation the U.S. ceased negotiations with the country in regards to the TLC or Trato de Libre Comercio / Free Trade Agreement. These are two major steps to get Ecuador out of under the USA economic thumb.

I notice that I already am losing my eloquence in English as my brain has switched back to Spanish syntax.

Now is a critical era for Ecuador and major changes are happening now that will effect the direction in which Ecuador develops in this century!

I have been doing a lot of foot work re-establishing partnerships for CFI with other organizations and institutions. On June first CFI is signing an MOU with Amazonas Spanish School, the most esteemed spanish school in the country. We will be working with them to provide quality language instruction the all Cloud Forest Institute students.

This past Tuesday I met with Jeff Mecham and his family as well as a Major Cambugan Collaborator named Ana who is with the National Herbarium, and a representative of a Swedish organization that has also been collaborating with the Cambugan Corridor. It was a very fruitful meeting! Ana was excited to tell me about a group of people that are interested in creating an Indigenous University and she feels that there is a great possibility of collaborating with the CFI Sustainable Campus, we will be meeting with these people soon to talk about how we can work together. A major way in which CFI will be able to help the cambugan initiative is by developing a comprehensive web page about the initiative. In the beginning of June I will be meeting with Valentina Mecham to set up the page on the CFI site and teach her how to use wiki. The group ALLPA is very very neat and right along our philosophical lines, Jeff is a permaculturist and one of the projects that ALLPA supports is a seed bank in Ecuador.

The same day I was able to communicate with a Sr. Gudino who has 200 hectares of land for sale in the Cloud Forest of Imbabura via Intag. He is a forester and his wife is a botanist and they have had this land as a private reserve for 10 years during which time then have done a number of studies on the properties flora even publishing a book about the trees. The property is 160 hectares virgin forest and 40 hectares reforested with native trees. there are two houses and it is located 22 kilometers from lago Quicochocha outside of Otavalo. The price for the land is $70,000, $350 per hectare, about $140 an acre. Now get this, he has already been talking to an organization Rainforest Concern out of the UK about purchasing the land. They have also collaborated with the cambugan corridor. They are however only interested in the virgin 160 hectares. So my hope is that we can collaborate with them and they buy he 160 and we buy the 40 ($14,000) and that's where the institute site would be. I will be visiting the land on June 4th! And will keep you informed of the developments.

Other things to keep your eyes open for, I will be making some fundamental design changes to the website that will make it easier to navigate between the english and spanish and the new pages that we will be creating about these and other projects. I am focusing on signing MOUs with the collaborating orgs and be writing up project descriptions and proposals.

Please feel free to communicate with me more about what I'm up to!

Hasta el Proximo! Freeda Alida Burnstad

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rEVOLUTIONary aMUSEment #3

This past week CFI ended it's exclusive negotiations with the owners of the Sanhedrin Ranch in Potter Valley. The negotiations reached an impasse when the owners were unwilling to lower their price to reflect market standards. CFI is no longer in exclusive negotiations and the property will be posted on the open market. We plan on keeping an eye on the progress and perhaps making an offer later if the price lowers to reflect an accurate value. In the meantime the group that formed around the interest of co-creating a Sustainable Educational Community and Farm continues to look at alternative properties in the area as internal development of the groups philosophy and structure is developed. In a different strategy CFI will begin to put the word out through various networks and publications that our non-profit group is seeking land to receive in trust, lease to own, or purchase through owner financing. We hope that this way land holders that are predisposed to appreciating our complicated goals of developing an educational eco-community will respond with more willingness to collaborate and assure its' success.

Freeda (myself) is preparing to return to Ecuador this coming weekend on April 24th. I will spend a month in Ecuador and will visit the area protected last year in the Cambugan Wildlife Corridor as well as put another down payment on an adjoining parcel to connect the corridor. I will also be looking at land to purchase where the future CFI campus will be built. I am researching Masters Programs and preparing for the July course. I plan on moving back to Ecuador later this year to once again focus on CFI's work in the cloud forest of Ecuador.

Though I am very disappointed that all of the effort to begin a Sustainable Educational Community in Farm at the Sanhedrin ranch did not come to fruition. It has helped me to recognize that my true passion and the mission I hold dear for Cloud Forest Institute is in Ecuador and that I must return there. Still I continue to be sad that the most progressive area that I know of in the United States, Northern California, is not yet progressive enough to prioritize ecological sustainability as a way of life by supporting CFI's intention to create a Sustainable Multiversity where student can earn degrees in sustainable living and leave with the ability to teach others. Perhaps its' day is yet to come. In the meantime I'll be in Latin America where things are moving and shaking!

Hope to see you at the Ukiah Brewing company this Saturday for the Earth Day Benefit Concert featuring the Frey Band.

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rEVOLUTIONary aMUSEment #2

Ecuador has been in the news a lot this past week. There has been political "upheaval". What's been happening is that Palacio, the vice president who became president after the people took out Gutierrez last year, is vowing to sign the TLC despite the wishes of the citizenry. TLC is not Tender Loving Care, quite the opposite, it is the Tratado de Libre Commercio, or Free Trade Agreement. When the FTAA, Free Trade Agreement of the Americas stalled the US Corporate Government decided to go country by country with the TLC. Peru and Colombia have already signed and Ecuador is next on the block. These three countries are the US's strong holds in an increasing "popular" rather than corporate controlled Latin America. The people of Ecuador led by politically organized indigenous factions are manifesting all around the country and in the capital city of Quito to protest the signing of the TLC. I would not be surprised or upset if they took out another president this month. That would make three presidents in Five years removed from their position. That is democratic participation of the citizenry!

I am hopeful that the people of Ecuador will succeed in preventing the wholesale of their natural resources, including human labor, through corporate influence sanctioned via the TLC. I am constantly awed by the people who, though oppressed for over 500 years, continue to struggle for their autonomy and control of their natural resources. I am not "afraid" of what is happening in Ecuador right now, I am inspired.

I have spent this last week helping collogues translate footage for the feature length documentary that they are making called "Blood of the Amazon". This documentary is about the effect of Amazonian oil exploitation on the native groups that live in the region from Ecuador to Brazil. Frequently I would be looking at the screen through a film of tears as over and over I translated the stories of humble and proud people faced with cancer rates of up to 80% of their community. Who tell of being paid 20 machetes and a few shovels by oil companies whose activities chase off the game, pollute the water and air, and literally make living impossible. Over and over the same story that the companies promise potable water, electricity and jobs that they never deliver. These beautiful people speak of the earth as their mother not poetically by truly and who swear their lives in her defense saying they would rather die then be forced to live outside the jungle. And still Texaco refuses to pay the legal settlement. And still Occidental Oil is refusing to pay taxes. And still, here in the US the progressives go only so far as to lament that soon we won't be able to drive our SUVs.

There are a few things that you can do, besides watching the film when it comes out.

  • Boycott Texaco and Occidental Oil, get a bio-diesel vehicle for that matter.
  • Donate, online via the CFI webpage, to help support the completion of this film. Please make a note for what purpose the funds are intended.
  • Join our class this summer to meet some of the indigenous groups resisting the takeover and destruction of their native lands. You will be supporting their economic alternative by participating in their eco-travel projects.
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rEVOLUTIONary aMUSEment #1

This list serve has been created with the intention of stimulating information exchange, dialog, and sharing creativity and inspiration. Many of us struggle to not drown in the onslaught of “bad news”, but would never stop paying attention to it. I hope that in this forum we can keep each other informed and INSPIRED. To continue ÃÂÂÃÃÂ