Solution to the Pollution

From CFI

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Amazon Myco-Renewal Project

MYCO-RENEWAL: A SOLUTION TO POLLUTION AND POVERTY IN THE ECUADOREAN AMAZON

This project, the first-ever of its kind, will research, teach, and apply new cutting edge mycotech soil renewal techniques to restore land in Ecuadorian Amazon communities poisoned by widespread surface-level oil pollution.

How Widespread?

Between 1964 and 1992 Texaco spilled over 18.5 billion gallons of highly toxic waste into 600 opened unlined pits covering an area of over 2,000 square miles and devastating the town of Lago Agrio and surrounding communities. Texaco profited by extracting 1.5 billion barrels of oil out of Ecuador while cancer rates in the region increased by 40% in men and 60% in women.1 Still multi-billion dollar oil cartels like Chevron Texaco, or Chevron Toxico as it is known by locals, refuse to take responsibility for the devastation caused by their extraction of oil from these once pristine primal forests.

Indigenous natives and mestiso colonists are faced with few options. Their subsistence agriculture-based livelihoods have been destroyed by oil pollution; their personal and communal health is under attack by terminal diseases caused by toxic petro-pollution; and they are unable to afford reallocation to cleaner environments.

Though this situation is bleak, there is a solution to the pollution and the poverty. Through the miracle of all-natural myco-technology these oil spills can be effectively and inexpensively cleaned up at a grassroots level. This project will create a three fold benefit:

1.ongoing oil pollution remediation,

2.sustainable economic development, and

3.natural low cost and extremely effective health support for people suffering from illnesses caused by oil pollution.

Recent university-level scientific studies have proven the capacity of fungi, or specifically their underground mycelial network, to completely break down heavy oil and return it to safe soil. Mycelium produces extracellular enzymes and acids that break down recalcitrant molecules such as lignin and cellulose, the two primary components of woody plants. Lignin peroxidases dismantle the long chains of hydrogen and carbon, converting wood into simpler forms, on the path to decomposition. By circumstance, these same enzymes are superb at breaking apart the hydrocarbon bond, the base structure common to oils, petroleum products, pesticides, PCBs, and many other pollutants. It is one of the only known life forms that safely can. Myco-renewal is the use of fungi to help repair or restore ecologically harmed habitats. It encompasses the use of fungi for filtration of water, the breakdown of toxic wastes, and use of fungi for empowering eco-forestry strategies.

Team member Ecuadorian Mycologist Paul Gamboa has already completed the first phase of the project, collecting and sampling local Pleurotus ostreatus oyster mushrooms, raising them and testing them in a laboratory to actually acclimate the fungi to better metabolize the petroleum in a liquid medium. This mycelium must next be cultivated in quantity to inoculate and remediate 9 total test sites, three plots at three different locations, to prove their effectiveness.

Remediation will be accomplished during a second phase through a training project in collaboration with local NGOs, tribal governments and city councils. An initial group of locals will be trained so that they can then travel to neighboring communities to train others to renew their soil. Costs of remediation are extremely low as mycelium is inoculated into burlap bags stuffed with sterilized hard wood chips, straw or other organic substrate and then strategically placed based on the specific characteristics of each site. The materials used are inexpensive making Myco-renewal a natural technology that is affordable and accessible to the people that need it the most. But we must reach out to them now to teach them how.

During this pilot project educational materials including a hands-on “how to” video will be developed and distributed through local partners. Each “how to” training package will come with live mycelium that can be used to inoculate and rewew other lands cheaply, indefinitely and exponentially. The project will become financially sustainable through student fees from the Cloud Forest Institute Service Learning and volunteer program. Many of the methods of fungi propagation used for myco-renewal are the same methods used for commercial mushroom production. The training participants receive can be applied to cultivation of marketable edible and medicinal mushrooms, making this knowledge a resource for local subsistence and economic development.

This projects is being spearheaded by four women, a documentary filmmaker, a mycologist, an anthropologist and an educator. The idea was conceived by Nicola Peel who was at a loss for a positive way to finish her feature length documentary “Blood of the Amazon”. After living with and filming individuals and communities decimated by oil pollution, she longed to find a solution that might offer a glimmer of practical hope for these people, many of whom are indigenous “nations” grasping to maintain rights to their ancestral land and their cultural identity.

Nicola met amatuer mycologist Mia Rose, co-founder of the nonprofit organization, Return Intention Towards Ecological Sustainability (RITES) in September 2006 during a 4-day Orientation to Permaculture Principles where Mia was a presenter. Mia took two workshops with Paul Stamets, the internationally recognized researcher and innovator of the field of mycotechnology. Nicola and Mia solidified their intention to bring Myco-renewal to the people of the Ecuadorian Amazon and empower them to make their lands, polluted by oil companies, once again safe to live on.

A call out for further support brought in the help of Anthropologist Janette Bramlette. Janette did her Masters thesis in Ecuador in the early 90s. Janette works with the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) in Garberville California. Freeda Alida Burnstad is Co-founder and Program Director of Cloud Forest Institute an educational and scientific 501 (c)3 active in California and Ecuador. This project is sponsored by the Cloud Forest Institute non-profit umbrella.

Since 1996 Cloud Forest Institute has supported conservation and educational projects in Ecuador. Initially in the Mindo Nambillo region and most recently helping to create a wildlife corridor between the Mindo Nambillo Forest and the Cotocachi Cayapas Reserve protecting the last largest unprotected area of Choco Darien Cloud Forest in Ecuador. Cloud Forest Institute leads Service Learning “Educational Adventures” in many of Ecuador's protected areas. Cloud Forest Institute's long term goal in Ecuador is to develop a Sustainable Educational Community and Farm. This campus will model regenerative systems, teaching a core curriculum of Alternative Technology, Permaculture, and Global Equity while receiving students of all disciplines learning topics ranging from Spanish Language to Ornothology.

Cloud Forest Institute is seeking seed funding for the Myco-renewal: A Solution to Pollution and Poverty in the Ecuadorian Amazon Project. These funds will be used to:

• legally incorporate the Ecuadorian Mycological Association,
• bring Mia Rose to Ecuador to teach Paul Gamboa and his team specific methods of Mycotechnology,
• bring Nicola Peel, Jan Bramlette, and Freeda Burnstad to document the first Myco-renewal test site.
• gather footage and create the educational video and print materials,
• create partnerships with local entities to support ongoing remediation and the volunteer and student programs.

For more information and to help with this project contact alida(at)cloudforest.org