Mangrove Swamps

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The coast down here is pretty poor, everywhere you go there are whole areas being burnt in a spanish colonial technique, called slash and burn. Farmers clear the land by burning large pieces of land, which clears and gives some short term fertility fopr about a year. But after that the land is deemed pretty infertile, so farmers move onto the next piece of land...its all pretty heart breaking to see, as you know its not good for anyone in the long term.

The absolutly fantastic people at Rio Muchacho see www.riomuchacho.com are trying to operate by example, an alternative to all this. Operating by example is not enough, so they are really trying to effect cultural change, by training up local people on the farm. But one of the best things they are doing is running a local school, which is an environmental school, that has ecology at the heart of all subjects, i.e., maths and geography have ecology at the heart of teaching these subjects. Students get project to take home with them, like building chicken tractors at home, which starts to creep culturally into the mindsets of the fathers which are the hardest to influence. The children get rewarded with chickens if they complete their homework, which gives some incentives to the parents to support their children. Aside of all this the school is a really lovely school, really creative, with lovely organic gardens and a really nice atmosphere. The mother´s come down and learn how to grow and cook vegetables and it really is more than a school.

Another big thing thats effecting the local ecology and economy is the huge boom in shrimpfarming...Ecuador is the main global exporter of shrimps.

Unfortunately shrimp farming is devastating the local environement, and destroying the local economies based around the Mangrove forests. Mangrove forests are the only trees that have adapted to growing in salt water and their root systems stabilise erosion and create homes for huge amount of crustaceans, molluscs and sea birds. This created a huge economy for local people in fishing, this work was mainly the employment of all the local women. The shrimp farming came in in the 1980´s with modern farming techniques and cut down 95% of the mangrove forest,,,having massive devastaing effects on the local environment and specfically destroying all the local women´s employment oppurtuniities. Shrimp farming only employs a few seasonal workers, so has not substituted that local economy. In the last 10 years the shrimp farms themselves have become susceptible to diseases, which have wiped out most of the shrimp farms...many now lie abandoned. The good news is people are starting to realise that what they used to have, was better economically and sustainabbly, so they are starting to replant the mangrove forest. And lately they have jsut started the first Organic shrimp farm in the world....buy them if you can!!!!

The people at Rio Muchacho have also been working with the many women who have been displaced from their traditional economies of crabbing...they used to make quite a bit from doing this sustainably! The local area is trying to get to grips with recycling which believe me doesn´t happen in the rest of Ecuador. Local women are recycling this waste paper, and collecting seeds and husks and making this into recycled hand made paper, which they now sell as a fair trade product aroung Ecuador. We went to visit them at their houses along the former mangrove forests, and believe me they are really poor, but hopefully things are starting to change.

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