Ecotrackers online in English

Week 8 July 20, 2007 Margaret Novak (ASU Student / Ecotrackers Intern) So far, this week has been pretty interesting once again. A couple of men came in on Monday to talk about a new organization in Rio Morona. Manuel (from Kuamar), Rafael (from Santa Ines), and Orlando (from Macas) all have communities that work with Ecotrackers. However, now they will all join together in order to create a strong organization to protect the environment, the biodiversity, and the cultural diversity of the Orient. This is of utmost importance, as right now the petroleum internationals are trying to take over and destroy the region. I have spent the past few days working on a new poster project that we are going to hang up in the office. I am taking the 8 best pictures from the Coast (including the Galapagos), the 8 best pictures from the Andes, and the 8 best pictures from the Orient (including the Amazon River ) and combining them into a giant collage. I have a certain...

July 19, 2007 Week 7 Margaret Novak Last week was yet another interesting experience!! Throughout the week I worked on the Ecotrackers web page as well as numerous web blogs. I corrected some of the English writings as well as translated some Spanish writing into English. I also had numerous talks with Max and various other people that came into the office, and I learned much about the problems that affect Ecuador and the people that live here. For example, I learned of the negative affect that technology can have on a village. Cell phones were recently introduced into a town called Atacames. Before cell phones, people got along alright, but now, they feel as if they are a necessity. However, cell phones cost money, and the people there don´t have that extra money. Therefore, girls at the age of 12 and 13 want cell phones, and so they go into prostitution. Now, there are 12 and 13 year olds pregnant and sick just because they want cell phones. This ...

Dr. Maximiliano Moreno y Señorita Margarita, ¡Hola! Soy yo, Daniel, el estudiante del otro día. Muchas gracias otra vez por las entrevistas fascinantes, y por ayudarme en conocer el Señor Baltazar de la comunidad Balda Lupaxi. Era una visita muy interesante e importante para mí. Me afectó mucho, y por eso, escribí muchas cosas en mi cuaderno. También, cuando yo estaba con ustedes y en la comunidad, otra vez me di cuenta de que es importante compartir las experiencias y el conocimiento. Por lo tanto, quiero compartir mis experiencias para que puedan ayudar a la comunidad. Unas escrituras sobre la visita: I was with Baltazar Paza for only twenty hours, but it was a time I will never forget. I was traveling southward through the Ecuadorian Andes, researching the use of Internet technology and how it might be applied to improve communities. For this reason, I hoped to know a rural community in the Chimborazo province. Baltazar made that possible. When I arrived in Riobamba, ...

Week 6 July 9, 2007 Margaret Novak We got back into Quito early on Monday morning. We spent most of Monday organizing and catching up on things. I translated the statutes of Ecodivers and Econavigators into English and we discussed the creation of a new webpage for the organization. I spent the rest of the week working on the new webpage. We decided to use a blog for now, as it is free and works just as well. This included writing about my experiences, uploading pictures from our trip, loading the videos from our trip onto Youtube so that they could be used on the webpage, and organizing the layout. I also created my own personal blog this week, with links to various pieces of work that I have translated, blogs with my experiences on them, and other sites that I currently deem important. The other day, two people came in to talk about a new project in a town near Chimborazo . They want to bring in volunteers to help with reforestation, environmenta...

July 3, 2007 Margaret Novak This past week was awesome!! We went down to a coastal town called Salango to create a new scuba project. The idea of this project is to offer scuba classes to people in the local community so that they will be able to have an opportunity to develop ecotourism as an alternative to their current fishing industry. The system works because volunteers pay the locals for room and board, and then they can use that money to pay for the scuba equipment. For example, we paid the amount of money it took for them to rent the equipment (the instruction was free thanks to our dive instructor, Peter) and in turn we had someplace to sleep and 3 great meals every day. We (Max, Veronica , Dominica (Ecotrackers), Mario (Swiss student) and I) left Quito Monday night at about 10:30 pm. The bus ride to Salango took about 15 hours total, so we finally made it to Salango around 1:00pm on Tuesday. We arrived at the community museum, and set ourselves up in these...