By Welcome Dundas, Fundación Runa Volunteer and Global Citizen Year Fellow
I have lived in the community of Santa Rita for more than five months now as a Global Citizen Year Fellow working with Runa. Runa put me to the task of working with the community to develop a GIS-based map that delineates areas of conservation and production to help Santa Rita in its planning for agricultural growth. Santa Rita lies at the base of the Andes mountains where they meet the Amazon Basin, and is a biodiversity hotspot resting in the Sumaco Biosphere region. Next to Santa Rita is the Colonso Protected Forest, a reserve of approximately 10,000 hectares "managed" by the Ministry of Environment, although every person I spoke with in Santa Rita while working on the project had no idea it was government-owned, because they had never seen any sort of “forest management” there.
Community events in Kichwa communities are highlighted by extensive citizen participation. Living in Santa Rita and watching my host father, Patricio Andy, interact with the community has been a rewarding foray into the Kichwa democratic process of massive village-wide assemblies. Throngs of people eager to be heard and discuss problems facing the community take turns speaking over the course of day-long asembleas, and ever so often guest speakers are in attendance. Runa attended the February 3rd assembly in Santa Rita to present our recently-completed GIS map of Bosque Colonso, a large rainforest preserve stretching between the towns of Tena, Archidona, and a number of Kichwa communities.
That morning after preparing our presentation at the office, I returned to my community with Eliot, Cass, Alexandra, fellow volunteers Grace and Catherine, and fellow Global Citizen Year compatriots Kirin and Andy to present the fruits of Runa's recent work. I started my presentation with a bit of Kichwa, my linguistic limit being the equivalent of “Good afternoon friends, my name is Chacho. Thank you all!”
Alexandra and I discussed the project, our goals in regards to its application, and how we believe it will be useful for the community members. Francisco Andy, the principal of the Santa Rita elementary school and a dynamic public speaker commanding much respect in the village, translated everything into Kichwa for the community members who have limited Spanish vocabularies. In addition, we gave a special thanks to Wilson Andy, the Santa Rita representative on the farmer's association and an invaluable partner in the project. Wilson took the majority of the map's dozens of GPS points on a number of expeditions deep into the forest, and without his help and immense knowledge of the landscape, the project would have taken much longer to complete.
I joined Wilson on one of his expeditions into Colonso to take GPS points, and it was one of the scariest and yet most transformative experiences of my time in Ecuador thus far. We planned a twelve-hour trip: six hours up the mountains and into the forest, a night spent on a small ranchito, and six hours back. However, it turned into a three-day whirlwind. We walked (by Wilson's and the GPS's calculations) over 35 kilometers through puro bosque, or pure forest, getting lost at several instances, running out of food halfway through, and making it back at 2 a.m. on the third day. Although I was terrified, the biodiversity of Amazonian Ecuador was finally made obvious to me. Monkeys, birds, insects, and plants of every shape, size, and color filled my senses and I truly realized why this incredible resource needed to be protected.
I personally think this map will be useful for a number of reasons. Firstly, this map is the first digital representation of the community and surrounding selva, or forest, that Santa Rita has ever had, and it may be used in ways that we never thought of when planning out the project. In addition, I think that the community members will be better equipped to plan out their farm plots, which pad the community for one kilometer in every direction outside of its residential center. Property boundaries will also be concretely determined, as will the exact limits of the Colonso preserve. And with all this information, Runa and Santa Rita will be able to work together to build more productive livelihoods and protect the great Colonso forest.
We pass on this map with high hopes and best wishes to Santa Rita!
Community events in Kichwa communities are highlighted by extensive citizen participation. Living in Santa Rita and watching my host father, Patricio Andy, interact with the community has been a rewarding foray into the Kichwa democratic process of massive village-wide assemblies. Throngs of people eager to be heard and discuss problems facing the community take turns speaking over the course of day-long asembleas, and ever so often guest speakers are in attendance. Runa attended the February 3rd assembly in Santa Rita to present our recently-completed GIS map of Bosque Colonso, a large rainforest preserve stretching between the towns of Tena, Archidona, and a number of Kichwa communities.
That morning after preparing our presentation at the office, I returned to my community with Eliot, Cass, Alexandra, fellow volunteers Grace and Catherine, and fellow Global Citizen Year compatriots Kirin and Andy to present the fruits of Runa's recent work. I started my presentation with a bit of Kichwa, my linguistic limit being the equivalent of “Good afternoon friends, my name is Chacho. Thank you all!”
Alexandra and I discussed the project, our goals in regards to its application, and how we believe it will be useful for the community members. Francisco Andy, the principal of the Santa Rita elementary school and a dynamic public speaker commanding much respect in the village, translated everything into Kichwa for the community members who have limited Spanish vocabularies. In addition, we gave a special thanks to Wilson Andy, the Santa Rita representative on the farmer's association and an invaluable partner in the project. Wilson took the majority of the map's dozens of GPS points on a number of expeditions deep into the forest, and without his help and immense knowledge of the landscape, the project would have taken much longer to complete.
I joined Wilson on one of his expeditions into Colonso to take GPS points, and it was one of the scariest and yet most transformative experiences of my time in Ecuador thus far. We planned a twelve-hour trip: six hours up the mountains and into the forest, a night spent on a small ranchito, and six hours back. However, it turned into a three-day whirlwind. We walked (by Wilson's and the GPS's calculations) over 35 kilometers through puro bosque, or pure forest, getting lost at several instances, running out of food halfway through, and making it back at 2 a.m. on the third day. Although I was terrified, the biodiversity of Amazonian Ecuador was finally made obvious to me. Monkeys, birds, insects, and plants of every shape, size, and color filled my senses and I truly realized why this incredible resource needed to be protected.
I personally think this map will be useful for a number of reasons. Firstly, this map is the first digital representation of the community and surrounding selva, or forest, that Santa Rita has ever had, and it may be used in ways that we never thought of when planning out the project. In addition, I think that the community members will be better equipped to plan out their farm plots, which pad the community for one kilometer in every direction outside of its residential center. Property boundaries will also be concretely determined, as will the exact limits of the Colonso preserve. And with all this information, Runa and Santa Rita will be able to work together to build more productive livelihoods and protect the great Colonso forest.
We pass on this map with high hopes and best wishes to Santa Rita!
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