Image: Ecuador, Fundacion Cambugan.
Our Story
Cloud Forest Institute was originally founded to develop an educational exchange between Ecuador and the US. Research about online distance education learning communities began in 1996 when Patrick Burnstad aka Sumo, co- founder of CFI, became affiliated with the Globewide Network Academy (GNA). GNA originated in 1993 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Within the following year Sumo helped co-found the Internet Biologists. The first course that CFI presented was “Doing Biology on the Internet” and was held in a virtual reality MOO created by Diversity University.
In 2004 CFI began partnering with ALLPA and Fundacion Cambugan to protect the Cambugan Watershed. The Cambugán River is located in the western Andean mountain range, about 50 km north of Quito, just 15 km north of the equator. The area belongs to the parish of San José de Minas in the region of Quito, in the province of Pichincha. The Cambugán Watershed is approximately 5 km wide and 12 km long at an elevation of 1300m to 3200m.
Ecuador has the highest biodiversity per hectare of any South American Country. Yet researchers say that at the current rate of deforestation, 2.3% per year, it will be nearly denuded by 2025. This small country is the home of at least 10 distinct existing indigenous groups. These habitats and cultures are in danger of being lost to the encroachment of western civilization and the environmentally destructive practices of transnational corporations.
In 2006 CFI co-founded the Amazon Myco Renewal Project now known as Co-Renewal. Myco-remediation experiments to test how oyster mushroom mycelium work with the final phase of oil spill clean up began soon after in Lago Agrio.
Timeline
1997 - Cloud Forest Institute (CFI) files Articles of Incorporation with CA Secretary of State.
2000 - CA State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB) Real Life Learning: Ecuador Service-Learning Pilot Program.
2001 - CSUMB Real Life Learning Ecuador Program, Year 2.
2001 - Collaborate with SALEM (Ecuadorian NGO) in Mindo, Ecuador hosting volunteers, interns, and students.
2002 - CFI receives federal 501 c3 tax-exempt status.
2002 - Begin providing Model C Fiscal Sponsorship services to local, national, and international grassroots organizations.
2002 - Activist Support for Resistors of Mindo, Ecuador segment of OCP Oil Pipeline Project.
2003 - Office headquarters at River Oaks Compu-Farm in Potter Valley, CA.
2004 - All Ages Revolutionary Summer School 2004, environmental education workshops in Mendocino County.
2005 - All Ages Revolutionary Summer School 2005.
2006 - Summer course in Ecuador, Co-found Amazon Mycorenewal Project (AMP).
2007 - Mycoremediation experiments in Lago Agrio, Ecuador.
2008 - CFI/AMP interns Jess Work and Brian Pace initiate the Service Learning Mycoremediation course.
2009 - CFI/AMP Winter Service-Learning Course: Ecuadorian Political Ecology, Oil Pollution, and Mycoremediation.
2010 - Founding of MendoDragon Intentional Community, CFI office, environmental education workshops.
2011 - Summer Programs in Ecuador include:
1. Oriente Service Learning with AMP,
2. Costa Service Learning with Planet Drum, and
3. Sierra Service Learning with Cambugan.
2012 - Presented Yoga in Paradise tour to Ecuador in collaboration with Maggie Norton of Yoga Mendocino. - Shroomposium at MendoDragon.
2012 - In Ecuador: Summer Service-Learning Course with AMP, Oil Issues: Healing Pollution for People and Planet.
2013 - CFI/AMP Service-Learning Courses include in:
1. January, Oil and Health in the Amazon, and in
2. July, The Art and Science of Mycorenewal.
2016 - Earthquake Relief Effort with Groupo CAEMBA to build 5 bamboo shelters in Canoa, Ecuador.
2016 - First Small Diameter Pole Utilization Workshop, MendoDragon Intentional Community.
2018 - Forest Reciprocity Group (FRG) was established with a $20,000 seed Grant from the Rose Foundation & the Just and Resilient Future Fund.
2019 - FRG presents 2 Small Diameter Pole Construction Workshops in Laytonville and Ukiah. A video was recorded and made public. Presented at the Soil not Oil Conference in San Francisco.
2021- Created and published the FRG YouTube video.
2022 - In partnership with Polecraft Solutions, applied to CAL FIRE for a Workforce Development Grant Feasibility Study: Beneficial Use of Small Diameter Trees for Pole-Based Housing.
2022 - August, began monthly FRoG Hops to member homesteads to assist each other with gardening and forest restoration work (tree limbing and chipping mulch spreading). In October, a small diameter pole storage shed was built with 20 people participating. This workshop was video-recorded.
