Birth of a Blue and Yellow Macaw

May 2011

A Blue and Yellow macaws chick Ara ararauna was born in the Wildlife Rescue Centre of the Pro-Forest Foundation.   Once found in the lowland forests of western Ecuador, the species is now restricted to Varzea forest and swampy areas within mainland forest in the Amazon region of Ecuador.  This is the first macaw born in our wildlife reserve center and represents an important milestone in our efforts to bolster the population of them.  

Search for Great Green macaw nest

March 2011
As part of the project 0925159 “Conservation of the Great Green Macaw” funded by The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, field visits were made to find active nests of the Great Green Macaw in the Cordillera Chongón Colonche.

Various visits were made. In July, a trip was made to the farm of Mr. Felipe Quimi, who had indicated the constant activity of a pair of great macaw close to his property although without any sightings. Then in August it was reported that there was an active nest in the Hacienda Piguabe, a site which had a nest in 2009. Unfortunately, no nest was found during 2011 of this critically endangered species in Ecuador.

Search for Great Green macaw nest

World Parrot Trust Project: Rehabilitation and release of Red-masked parakeets

In April 2011 the construction of two flight cages began for the Red-masked Parakeets (Aratinga erythrogenys) in the upper part of the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest adjacent to the Jaguar guard station. The project has the economic support of the World Parrot Trust. The cages were constructed for the rehabilitation of the mentioned species before their release back into the wild so that they can pass through a process of adaptation and training.   The red-masked parakeet is one is the most trafficked of all species in Ecuador and is listed globally as a threatened species.

Flight cages for the Red-masked Parakeets



Red-masked parakeets



Jos Nolle Visits Cerro Blanco

On May 9th, we were visited by Jos Nolle, Chair, International Development of Niagara College, Canada. Jos is a long time friend of the Pro-Forest Foundation and Cerro Blanco. For more than 10 years, Jos has been a enthusiastic link between students from Niagara College and our foundation.
Through their internships, several innovative projects have been carried out at CerroBlanco, including the design and construction of our hummingbird and wildlife garden, the design and construction of artificial nest boxes for endangered Great Green Macaw's and the design and construction of our "Avenue of the Birds" self-guided nature trail.

In his capacity as a Rotary Club member, Jos Nolle led a successful fundraising  campaign among more than 10 Rotary Clubs in Canada and the US, which led to the construction of our Foliage Gleaner Ecolodge. With the support of Jos and Niagara College, two Canadian university students, Daniella Mastracci and Shazia Khan recently completed internships with the Pro-Forest Foundation and supported our work in key areas, especially community outreach through the environmental education programs at our community environmental education center at Puerto Hondo, work the implementation of organic home gardens with our community park guards, among other projects.

We look forward to continuing to work with Jos and Niagara College and say "muchas gracias" for all your support.

Creating Awareness Abroad

Christine Parrow, Instructor





As the saying goes, the flutter of a butterfly's wings in Ecuador (or in this case, the flap of a macaw's wings) is felt all the way in upstate New York! Our dear friend, Jane Johnson has helped make the connection with Christine Parrow. Christine lives in the beautiful Catskill Mountains of New York State in the middle of a forest reserve (that sounds familiar!). She teaches art at the State University of New York at Sullivan County, and in her own words, "I always encourage my students to learn about the environment and environmental issues through projects and classwork. When I heard about Cerro Blanco in Ecuador and the amazing work you all do there to provide protection for the animals, birds and plants, I wanted to share it with my class".

Classroom 1






Classroom 2



Classroom 3 copy
Cerro Blanco sign







DRAWINGS





By Mike Daigle


By Jeralyn Walters


By Jillian Alexander 
By Nina Stewart
By Kaylan Cemelli
By Martin White




By Latoya George
By Carlee Maree
By Kaylan Cemelli
Christine showed her class our DVD on Cerro Blanco and she said the students "were all amazed". She said they especially related to the Great Green Macaw, "which is so magnificent but endangered". "We did not know about the dry tropical forest. Here we have rain and/or snow throughout the year. The reforestation project is inspiring, and the commitment of the staff and local people to keep the forest undeveloped, got a thumbs up from all of us".

We thank Christine and her students for their much appreciated support and for sharing their beautiful drawings with us. We hope you can someday come and visit us and meet our resident artist of sorts, Eduardo Jaime, who just produced some beautiful new mammal ID guides and who is also featured in a current exhibition of painted horses by well known artists in the city of Guayaquil. Eduardo manages to include natural elements in his rendition of "derzu" named after the famous hunter/tracker Dersu Uzala, of the famous Kurosawa film by the same name.



Mammals in Cerro Blanco (Front)



Mammals in Cerro Blanco (Back)

By Eduardo Jaime Arias
















From the website http://arteurbano.com.ec/detalle-artista.php?aid=1001,"The work of Eduardo Jaime is constructed with patience and talent, in a series of thematic units that comprehends his particular vision of our natural surroundings. In the period of vegetation, his painting is transfigured, the same occurs with the animals and birds, reminiscences of those things that from an early age caused him amazement. Many of the themes intermix the visual splendor with a rich chromatics charged with meaning. This fecund dialogue conducts the painter to a organized esthetic exposition in which the deep root of equilibrium and order stands out. Eduardo Jaime not only is dedicated to capturing appearances, but also aspires to embody in them the total presence of image and spirit".






Coral Snake on the horse










Urban Art Guayaquil 2011 "Horses of Color" is an initiative that is inspired in the well known "Cow Parade" that was born in 1998 in Switzerland and which has toured some of the most important cities of the world, Zurich, Chicago, New York, Sydney, Houston, London, Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires and Quito, Ecuador. 

Urban Art in Guayaquil 2011 "Horses of Color" is a cultural window that is integrated by 31 life sized figures of four emblematic horse races. They have converted in canvasses for famed artists from Guayaquil, "The Pearl of the Pacific" to show their creativity.






Details on the horse

Cerro Blanco Protected Forest Threatened by Land Traffickers

Eric Horstman

Despite the fact that the constitution of the country of Ecuador recognizes the rights of nature, much still remains to put in practice this groundbreaking legislation.

A case in point is the threat to the natural integrity of the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest by a group of land traffickers.  For some of you in the USA and elsewhere, this may be a foreign term.  For over thirty years in Ecuador, and especially in the city of Guayaquil, much of the expansion of the city has not been in an orderly fashion.

Instead, certain persons wrap themselves in a lie as being community leaders fighting for the rights of the people, in this case taking control of land by force and then dividing it up in tiny parcels to sell to mostly poor people in search of a roof to live under.  Many of these “leaders” have strong political connections and one who operates in the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest buffer zone, even as a evangelistic pastor.

The 15,000 acres protected since 1989 in Cerro Blanco due to their close proximity to the city of Guayaquil, has been a target for land traffickers in the past.  Both in 1997 and 2000 a so-called agricultural cooperative (just a front for the traffickers) tried unsuccessfully to take by force a part of the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest.  Thanks in large part to the press and public pressure on local officials the threat was averted.

Once again, the land traffickers have appeared in Cerro Blanco.  In June of last year, five persons were arrested by the environmental unit of the Ecuadorian National Police, while hacking fence lines in Cerro Blanco, on land owned by the Pro-Forest Foundation.  Members of the environmental unit of the Ecuadorian National Police arrested the traffickers and the Foundation pressed charges.  The five detained persons were held for a little over a month and then released, pending their trial.

The leader of this group, has re-appeared, beginning on April 9^th, sending a group of 13 persons including two lawyers to enter Cerro Blanco and clear an area of 1,600 m2 on land owned by the Pro-Forest Foundation, and planting corn.  A total of 70 trees that were planted as part of a reforestation project, were cut down as well.

We called the police to take action, as our park guards that are stationed near the site do not have a legal base to take action.  Intimidated by the lies and deceptions of the lawyers accompanying the land traffickers, they failed to take action in this moment.

After nearly a week waiting for the police to provide us with their report, we drew up a contingency plan for the three-day Easter holiday, suspecting the traffickers would strike again.  Indeed, this happened and on Saturday, April 23^rd, twenty people tried to enter Cerro Blanco by force with a pre-fabricated bamboo house.  This time, the police acted decisively, preventing the traffickers and their lawyers from entering Cerro Blanco.

Knowing that public opinion served in the past to move authorities to act, we put out Facebook and Tweeter messages, with results.  El Expreso, a Guayaquil based national newspaper, provided coverage, while a friend contacted the Minister of the Environment, who ordered an investigation.

The Police Superintendent also ordered the police to support us and today, personally inspected the sight of the land invasion and reiterated his help.  Today, the situation in Cerro Blanco made the headlines of two other Guayaquil based national newspapers and yesterday and today, I gave interviews to four TV channels, Ecuavisa, RCT, TC and Canal Uno (Teleamazonas has also gone to the invasion site and filed a report).  Right now our efforts are focusing on the authorities to sanction the traffickers both under the penal code for the attempt to take our land by force, and also to sanction with fines for the environmental damage, especially the destruction of the 70 planted trees.

I will keep you posted as things develop.

LINKS:

http://www.vistazo.com/webpages/pais/?id=15222

http://www.eluniverso.com/2011/04/26/1/1445/invasion-afecta-bosque-protector-cerro-blanco.html?m=tu

http://www.expreso.ec/ediciones/2011/04/22/guayaquil/guayaquil/invasores-estan-deforestando-area-de-cerro-blanco/
http://www.diario-expreso.com/ediciones/2011/04/28/guayaquil/guayaquil/cerro-blanco-paraiso-en-peligro/
http://www.ambiente.gob.ec/?q=node/1282

The Pro-Forest Foundation Celebrates Earth Day

Eric Horstman

As part of the Pro-Forest Foundation’s outreach program in the communities within the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest buffer zone, we organized a tree planting program with TC Television on Saturday, April 16^th.

The event commemorated the celebration of Earth Day and was carried out at the Marianita Rodas Elementary School in the village of Puerto Hondo, with the participation of over 40 students from the seventh grade.

The tree planting was carried out as part of the social responsibility program of TC Television.  Previously, I participated in a special program on water, my comments focusing on the relationship between the protection of forests and water (please see this link http://www.tctelevision.com/programa.php?id=68).

For the Earth Day celebration, TC Television brought twenty celebrities from their different programs to Puerto Hondo.  With the slogan “Lets take care of the world that will be for our children” each celebrity joined up with two children from the school to plant their tree.  Each tree was marked with a bamboo stick with the name of the celebrity and the kids painted on them. 

At the end of the tree planting, a agreement was signed with the Director of the Marianita Rodas Elementary School and myself in representation of the Pro-Forest Foundation, in which the school agrees to take care of the planted trees.

As I explained in my opening remarks, this tree planting represents a symbolic act of recognizing the interconnection that exists between the dry tropical forest that is protected in Cerro Blanco, and the nearby mangroves.

Our contribution to this important initiative by TC Television was the donation of fifty native dry forest trees (and a couple of lemon trees) as well as the labor and technical assistance to prepare the planting site.  The rest is up to the children of the Marianita Rodas School.

In a country that suffers one of the highest deforestation rates in the region, we hope that this initiative will be expanded to other interested schools and organizations in the coastal region as well as the rest of the country.