You say you want a revolution? This is what it looks like
For eighteen straight days in June, Ecuador — the country where our Sueño de Vida ("dream of life") carries on its day-to-day process of regenerating rainforests — was rocked by a massive social upheaval. During that time, several friends and followers of SdV wrote to see if Juan and I were ok, and to ask my perspective on the events.
It is heartening to find people asking – it's not like small South American countries make the front page in the "developed world." But the people of Latin America produce a huge portion of the world's food supply, and the land holds significant stores of freshwater, oxygen-producing forests and over half of the Earth's biodiversity. We should all be paying attention, because what happens in Latin America, happens to all of us.
I believe there are many good and hard questions arising from the story I'm telling here, lessons worth reflecting on as the world as we know it is rocking and rolling toward changes we can't even imagine. How can we make our governments hear demands and meet our needs? What does "consent of the governed" really mean? Are we perhaps too attached to our notions of "stability" and compromise "for the sake of peace?" How long will we stand down while our rights to autonomy and dignity are chipped away, poco a poco, little by little, no matter which side a person's beliefs land on the spectrum?
And to conjure up an old song, how much longer will we trade —
cold comfort for change?
CONAIE, a unified indigenous organization, is a powerful political force on Ecuador, credited with toppling three presidents and instigating many social and economic reforms since the 1990s
The problem we are facing here is not only "our" problem. It is not only the problem of the indigenous people or the farmers. It is the problem of millions and millions of our compadres.
It is the problem of all humanity.
It is the problem of poverty for the majority and the very few who have sucked the blood of mother earth, and also our brothers and sisters, our fellow humans.
It is a problem of civilization, not just in Ecuador, but globally.
--Leonidas Iza, leader of CONAIE (the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador), in a speech delivered in Quito one week into the massive peoples' uprising that began on June 13 and continued for 18 days
While most mainstream news outlets reported on the protests, the word "protest" doesn't even begin to capture the essence of the events. Ecuadorians have a more accurate term: Paro Nacional, a full-on stop or total paralysis of the country. Hundreds of thousands of farmers, workers, and students rode on the backs of trucks for days, or walked hundreds of kilometers. They slept on the streets or on the floors of schools and public spaces. As a friend of mine commented, the degree of sacrifice and mobilization is difficult to fathom from here. The people came together with one purpose: to demand that the government "re-orient itself in service of the people."
Roadblocks are a proven way to get the government's attention in Ecuador. With all the major roads cut off throughout the country, protestors show just how much the cities need (mainly) indigenous farmers who supply 80% of the food.
Note: In no way do we advocate for violence as a means to an end. And to my gentle readers in North America, no doubt the uprising appeared violent, especially as it was reported in the major (mostly government owned) news outlets. In fact, the unrest made for an interesting week for us as we had visitors from the US and Canada staying with us and felt more than a little worried about getting everyone to the farm and back to the airport in the midst of the turmoil.
The scene greeting our visitors on the main highway from Quito. Even when the roadblocks aren't on fire, it's an unnerving sight to see a pile of boulders and rubble flanked by entire families holding spears. But the goal is to make the government negotiate, not frighten tourists. While the urban uprisings claimed the lives of four protestors and one soldier, no tourists were harmed during the paro.
Every human rights organization from the UN to Amnesty International has decried the government's use of "indiscriminate and disproportionate" use of excessive and lethal force to repress a population acting in accordance with their right to assemble. The president issued a state of emergency giving him power to deploy the military, declared Leonidas Iza, the indigenous leader, a terrorist, But a video that just surfaced today corroborates eye witnesses saying Iza was ambushed by military personnel – not police – and pushed, shoved, and stuffed into an unmarked van. Far from being a terrorist, Iza is the president of a constitutionally ratified confederation of ethnic tribes who also have representation in the National Congress. You cannot label people as "terrorists" simply because they do not back down when doused with tear gas and arrested without cause or due process.
For eighteen days, while we built a new garden bed with our workshop participants, demonstrators poured into the major cities. After several days of watching the police brutally manhandle demonstrators on private social media channels (the mainstream news wasn't showing that part), I decided not to calm our guests with assurances that this would all simmer down soon while the paro began to look less like a protest and more like a war. It felt important to me to be true to what I felt: This is important and necessary. The demands of the people are reasonable. They have the right to assemble and make demands of their elected officials who are taking the country down and profiting by it. And it doesn't look like they are backing down anytime soon.
What's at stake
No, we won't back down. Protestors shield themselves from tear gas and pellets with whatever they can find.
Unlike the much shorter-lived but equally forceful anti-IMF strike in 2019, this time I could see that the current president, Guillermo Lasso, was going to play a more hardline reactionary game. Lasso, a career banker recently implicated in the Pandora Papers leak, has completely ignored the rising inflation and deepening poverty, especially among Ecuador's farmers and working class. In Lasso's first year of presidency, while he's been out making huge concessions of land to oil and mining companies, the cost of the monthly "basket" of basic necessities has more than doubled from $350 to $780, while the minimum salary has stagnated at $425. Everyone except for the wealthy is struggling just to squeeze by, including us. Political analysts have openly critiqued Lasso's policies for "a total lack of sensitivity." And the paro nacional was not merely an outbreak of frustration. CONAIE issued a statement to the government thirty days in advance with their demands, clearly stating that a strike was imminent if they were not acknowledged. They were ignored. Strained to the absolute limit, the thirty days expired, the people took action.
In the remote jungles and mountain peaks, demonstrators used other tactics. For the past several years, the constitutionally protected lands of indigenous and campesino (peasant farmer) communities have become a dumping ground for foreign oil and mining companies. There's an average of two spills per week in the Ecuador Amazon. Chevron has yet to pay a single dime of the 9 billion dollars in damages they owe the Waorani from a massive spill that still affects the health of people living hundreds of kilometers downstream. Despite having lost fair and square in a high court, a Chevron executive has gone on record saying the company will continue to file appeals "until hell freezes over."
Open pit mines destroy forests, use massive amounts of water, and contaminate rivers.
Meanwhile, water contaminated with mercury from mining activity threatens entire ecosystems. One of these new mining projects courted by President Lasso is happening right in our "backyard" of the Chocó Andino Cloudforest and endangers not only the forest, but the livelihoods of the people earned by farming and agritourism – including ourselves and several of our colleagues in agroforestry and regeneration. The intimidating roadblock our visitors encountered on the way here was manned by families from the nearby community of Pacto, where a successful cooperative producing organic panela (raw sugar) is in imminent danger of losing their organic certifications due to contamination that comes part-and-parcel with mining. If the proposed mining activity continues, all 1500 people employed in organic panela production will lose their livelihoods.
In a highly organized and strategic manner, groups of mainly indigenous nationalities and campesinos blockaded nearly every major oil production and mining site in the country--241 facilities in all. Petroleum production, the largest driver of the Ecuadorian economy, quickly came to a near paralysis. When it comes to protecting their ancestral land, Ecuador's indigenous people do not mess around. As one of our visitors put it (after navigating around several intimidating blockades to get to our farm):
Americans really need to take notes on these protests because the US is failing its people in so many ways right now and I don't think Americans have any idea how to demand what they need like the Ecuadorians do.
The revolution will not be televised
On our farm, everything was tranquil as always. But we all felt the effects of the paro nacional.
Hmm, something to reflect upon, that. Why is protest culture so galvanizing not just in Ecuador, but throughout the global south? Many years ago, I read a short but scathing book by Frantz Fanon called The Wretched of the Earth. Fanon answered that question succinctly: the vast majority of people will not exchange cold comfort for change. Only when they feel they have nothing to lose (but their lives), will people rise up and face down their oppressors. People here have less to lose. They are more willing and able to go without comforts for as long as it takes. They know how to burn eucalyptus branches to dispel tear gas and shield themselves from pellets with trash cans and street signs. And they act together, in solidarity, with entire neighborhoods – people without much themselves – providing food and blankets for the active demonstrators.
Even as the blockades and mass demonstrations began to cause food shortages in the towns, "Fuera Lasso!" became a rallying cry as the crowds of protestors grew even larger. Last week, after taking the back roads into town to avoid the roadblocks, I ordered a quick breakfast at a local cafe. The owner brought my tigrillo – mashed green plantains with onions and cheese – stating matter-of-factly that it was sin huevo porque el paro, with no eggs because of the strike. Her cheerful tone, without a hint of apology or complaint, said We're all in this together. Here, sacrifice is an essential component of making change. As one of our employees told me, Sí, es durisimo, pero es necesario. Yes, it is very hard, but necessary.
When I came to Ecuador, the country had a bustling and energized vibe
In the beginning
In 2015, Juan and I arrived in Quito with all of our worldly belongings: two suitcases apiece and as much cash as we could legally bring in. For the first eight months of our new lives here, we stayed with Juan's family on the south side of the capital. Unlike the gringo-ized gated quadrants of the north where the presence of brew pubs and espresso bars rival that of any gentrified US city, the sector where we lived was a solidly working class place of concrete terraces, narrow streets, and closet-like corner shops that sold basically everything. I recorded my impressions at the time:
—In Quito, the sun is strong and hot and the air is cool, brilliant, and laced with fumes. The streets are steep and narrow and cars on small tires careen around up and down at frenzied speeds. The bus doesn't stop completely but only slows a bit when people are boarding and goes right back to breakneck speed so it's a good technique to jump on and grab quickly for the first handhold with one hand while palming your quarter to the controlador encouraging you to ¡siga siga! and sit down or get the hell out of the way. The construction is of brightly painted cinder block and walls over gated entrances are embedded with broken glass to deter the more ambitious thieves. There is music everywhere. Latin pop on the bus, Andean flute in the artisan markets, old men gently harmonizing boleros in the plaza. Food is plentiful, delicious,and cheap. Everyone everywhere is hustling and selling something and the mornings are punctuated by shouts advertising wares for sale: natural honey, tanks of gasoline, giant sacks of potatoes tossed down from ancient pick-ups by highland women, their long black hair escaping felt hats pinned with flowers. For all the extremes of altitude, climate, and noise, the people are sweet and unperturbed. Our neighbor is a metalworker and the grinding from his in-house shop (all the shops are in house here) ceases only at night. The graffiti is sharp, raw, and political; Ecuador no es un banana republic. And everywhere and always the dogs are barking. The green and velvet gray mountains frame the chaos on all sides, embracing it with indifferent magnificence.
Coming from an empire in decline, the energy is a straight shot of adrenaline. This is a rough place, pulsing hard and rising up. It is fresh and difficult and brimming with possibility. This is a good place to come with a dream.
End of an era
The upwardly mobile energy I felt was no illusion. In 2015, the year I arrived, Ecuador's economy had been flourishing for nearly a decade and an entire generation of emigrants were retuning home to their thriving country. Then-president Rafael Correa had dismissed the influences of the IMF and US government (it was Correa who gave asylum to WikiLeaks renegade Julian Assange), and deftly administered a budget designed to improve education, healthcare, and infrastructure, create jobs, and generally level the field.
That year, two friends who had spent time in Ecuador in the 1990s visited us in Quito. They marveled at the public spaces, the museums and city parks, the free recreation centers powered by solar energy. I'm not saying it was a Utopia, but there was a general sense that if you wanted to work, you could, and live with your personal dignity intact.
Although a left-leaning politician, Correa is also an economist who understands the need for entrepreneurs to access marketplaces. While raising taxes on the wealthy and large corporations, Correa streamlined a lot of the bureaucracy for regular folks to open and operate small businesses. The hustle-bustle of the neighborhood where we lived showed this was no welfare state.
In 2016, a series of massive earthquakes hit the coast of Ecuador, destroying entire towns and killing thousands of people. In the wake of the tragedy, I saw the solidarity of the Ecuadorian people as they came together to get food, clothing, and supplies to the coast even while heavy aftershocks still rocked the country. Witnessing the sense of shared suffering and the determination to take action I distinctly recall thinking, If these people ever needed to revolt, they could really raise hell...
Murals in Quito often have political messages. This one calls for the removal of the US naval base in Manta, a coastal city.
And as recent events prove, they certainly can.
Things fall apart
By the end of his second term, Correa's shine had dulled. Overall I think he did a remarkable job providing ways for hard-working people to live decently. And I appreciated his disdain of foreign intervention that likes to keep other countries, especially those with agricultural and mineral wealth like Ecuador, on a short leash. But I'd be remiss not to mention that Correa's record of success wasn't marred by some draconian measures, especially when dealing with Ecuador's most united and incendiary political group, CONAIE – the very same people responsible for toppling three presidents, instigating a movie-worthy coup in 2002, and igniting both the anti IMF uprising of 2019 and the paro nacional this past month.
Despite a strong and active resistance, oil companies keep ignoring warning signs and spilling oil in the Amazon. And governments keep giving them tax breaks and loopholes.
In my view, especially in light of the hell that was indeed raised in the past few weeks, Correa committed his gravest mistake in 2013 when he opened up an area of the Yasuni Amazon reserve to Petroecuador, a national oil company. Clearly wary of CONAIE's history of chasing presidents out of office, Correa made another misstep when he ordered police to shut down the office of Fundación Pachamama, a grass roots non-profit base for CONAIE's long-standing fight against oil and mining extraction on indigenous land and crucial watersheds.
I don't mean to generalize here, but to an outsider like myself, especially one from a country where political compromise is seen as a virtue, there is a certain Never forgive, never forget resolve built into the indigenous confederation's modus operandi when it comes to big corporations and fronting politicians. A meaningful case in point: CONAIE was so embittered by Correa's actions in 2013, they rallied against Lasso's opponent in the most recent election, Andreas Arrauz, a former cabinet member and protege of Correa. With over one million ballots left blank by indigenous voters, Lasso squeezed out a narrow win.
Bitter? Or just an understandable reaction to one politician after another courting their support and then selling them out? I'll just tell the story, and let you be the judge.
Premonitions
2019. Anti IMF protests rocked Ecuador and Chile.
In 2019, after four years of living in a pretty peaceful and modestly prospering country, I got a taste of CONAIE's influence and what was to come. Correa's successor, Lenin Moreno, was – not to mince words – a "moderate" weakling and throwback to the títere (puppet) presidents of the past. After ten years of waiting outside a closed door, the International Monetary Fund was eager to start pulling strings again. Lenin was offered a "deal": Here's a few billion dollars, but you need to apply our tailored austerity program to your economy, a move that would have substantially raised the cost of living, especially on farmers, transporters, and the working class. CONAIE, tired of not gaining ground through their representation in the National Assembly, went back to their tried-and-true tactics. Strike, march, and protest.
As usual, everything was tranquil on the farm. But I watched the events with keen interest. Juan's mom and sister sent us videos they took with their phones. When the bus drivers joined the strike, Juan's sixty year old mother walked stoically home from her job as a caretaker for an elderly woman, carefully skirting the piles of burning rubble with a pretty scarf tied over her face to filter out the smoke and fumes of tear gas. Unlike Lasso, Moreno caved in quickly and the IMF came up empty for only the second time in their history.
I know hindsight is 20/20 and all, but I clearly recall thinking, This is just a beginning.
Cacao farmers earn less than the minimum wage in Ecuador
Walking a mile in farmer's shoes
The following year, the year of corona, pandemic and lockdown ensued. And things changed irrevocably for us here at Sueño de Vida. While Juan and I were becoming more adept at this whole agroforestry farming thing, we never really had to depend upon it. Not like the majority of our neighbors who sell agricultural products as their main income. We had other revenue streams, which although very modest, buffered us from the absurdly low prices farmers get for the fruits of their labor. We had visitors, small retreats, some investment from the States. That year our lives as gringo expats came to an end. We were farmers now, and in for a needed wake-up to what that really meant.
We went to sell our cacao to the local middleman, who then sends the dried beans onward to a port where it gets exported to [insert big candy company]. For days of hard labor harvesting the fruit and hauling heavy wet sacks out of the field through a haze of mosquitos, we were paid $72 for two hundred pounds of cacao. $72 does not go far, not in Ecuador, not anywhere.
Chagrined and wide awake, I began reading about how the international commodities market works, about why the farmers of Latin America (the whole global south, actually) are paid so little for providing the world's sustenance and the global north's food luxuries like coffee, chocolate, sugar, and pre-cut tropical fruit salads in plastic cups.
Five Hundred Years of Pillage
In my searches, I stumbled upon a book called Open Veins of Latin America by Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano. For days, this book held me in a spell, eyes wide open and hands trembling at the words. Because in that pathetic $72 of crumpled bills I received for the hardest work I had ever done, I got just a glimmer of understanding the injustice of it all. I read this passage again and again, remembering the images of the 2019 protest, thinking to myself, These people aren't just protesting against the IMF, that's just scratching the surface. This is five hundred years of pillage.
Galeano writes:
—But our region still works as a menial. It continues to exist at the service of others’ needs, as a source and reserve of oil and iron, of copper and meat, of fruit and coffee, the raw materials and foods destined for rich countries which profit more from consuming them than Latin America does from producing them.
Everything, the soil, its fruits and its mineral-rich depths, the people and their capacity to work and to consume, natural resources and human resources … our wealth has always generated our poverty by nourishing the prosperity of others.
Galeano wrote those words in 1971. And I can tell you from even my tiny bit of personal experience as struggling farmer, they are as true as ever.
Who is CONAIE?
CONAIE stands on a tripod of land, culture, and liberty
In the historical context of colonialism then, the 2022 uprising is another skirmish in a long uphill battle for justice. But before I wrap up this story, let's backtrack a bit and take a quick look at the formidable indigenous people of Ecuador and how they came to be that way. As the paro raged on, I read everything I could find about the history of CONAIE, giving myself a crash course in Latin American politics, a world where foreign powers maneuver for control of vital resources, and a people who have had enough mobilize an offensive in their own defense. Reading it, you might wonder, as I did, is this a history of overthrow and coup, of chaos and instability? Or is the story of people fighting for emancipation and self-determination on ancestral lands?
I'll say this much: when I listen to indigenous people talk about their connection to the land, water, plants and animals and I see what deforestation does to their home, I understand why they fight like they do.
In 1986, after centuries of enslavement, servitude, racism, and repression, Ecuador's 1.7 million indigenous people began to organize into a multi-ethnic confederation in an effort to turn the tide taking them under. With twelve ethnically distinct tribes, CONAIE is actually the umbrella for three sub-groups of Ecuador's three main geographic regions: the Kichwa (Inka) people of the Andean highlands, the eastern tribes of Amazonia, and to the west, the Afro-indigenous people of the coast.
Unified and with a strong leadership, CONAIE mobilized in 1992 to protest a land reform law that would have privatized communal indigenous lands and handed them off to the oil sector. While preparing to start a hunger strike in a church, indigenous leaders were surrounded by police ordered to use lethal force if necessary to break up the protest. The response changed the way indigenous people were seen in Ecuador completely. Hundreds of thousands of indigenas, with the support of the campesinos, poured into the cities, blockaded roads, and occupied plazas while chanting, singing, and playing traditional music.
Juan, who was a teenager at the time, remembers:
—Before that first big protest, there was a lot of racist feeling against the indigenous. Which is ridiculous because most Ecuadorians have indigenous blood.
There still is a lot of racism, I reminded him. Look at some of these comments on La Posta (a social media news page based in Quito). Lasso only has 15% approval, but the people who support him are calling the indigenous "savages"...
Well, yeah, there still is racismo, but back then it was just how people saw the indigenous – as poor and ignorant, not able to make decisions for themselves. And maybe after, you know, hundreds of years of being put down, there was something to that.
I thought of Galeano's words. Five hundred years of pillage. So what did you see, I asked. How did it change?
I just remember the streets being full of people, walking around, just sleeping where they were, for days. It was intimidating. You could tell they were together, they were getting knowledge about how to organize. I remember the plaza close to my father's workplace was so full of people no one could pass or even move. And I remember thinking, ok, now the indigenous are going to be a force…
The Chocó Andino Cloudforest is now a site of major mining concessions–and resistance
After getting a small taste of victory with some of their terms met, CONAIE mobilized again in 1994 against a World Bank loan granted to (again) privatize the oil sector and a proposal to privatize water resources and sell off large areas of indigenous inhabited land. The protests were as fierce as they had been in '92, but with mixed results. The oil privatization passed, but the water and land proposals were stopped. The leaders of CONAIE realized they would need formal constitutional recognition to defend their rights more effectively.
In 1998, CONAIE secured that recognition, at least on paper, with a formal re-write of the Ecuadorian constitution that re-defined Ecuador as a multi-ethnic nation and granted sovereignty to each of the twelve tribes unified under CONAIE. In this respect, Ecuador's government became the first to acknowledge the autonomy of indigenous people and many reforms were made to guarantee their rights to their cultural heritages, including bilingual education in Spanish and their mother tongues, and their right to consent or deny use of indigenous land for oil and mineral exploration.
In reality, these rights are more often than not completely disregarded by presidents pressured by foreign interests to "open up to investment" – which historically has always meant extraction of more oil and minerals from indigenous lands.
A coup, a junta, and a midnight phone call
In 2002, bowing to pressure from a certain foreign power, Ecuador abandoned their currency and switched to the US dollar. CONAIE mobilized again, this time with the mass support of the working class and 500 military personnel, including a group of rebel colonels.20,000 people marched on Quito, stormed the National Congress and declared a three-man junta with a certain Col. Carlos Mendoza as acting chief. That very night, Mendoza got tapped by the long arm of the gringo. He received a series of phone calls from the OAS, the U.S. State Department, and senior White House officials threatening Cuban-style isolation if power was not restored to the ousted president (who had already fled). The next morning Mendoza ceded power to the former vice-president.
Wait. It gets better.
Not happy with that outcome, the people of Ecuador called for an election and voted in one of the rogue colonels who had led the coup, Lucio Guitiérrez. CONAIE initially supported Guitiérrez, but quickly turned against their former ally when Guitiérrez signed a letter of intent with the IMF. I think by now we've all figured out that Latin American countries and the IMF go together like juggling chainsaws while riding a unicycle. At any rate, CONAIE led a massive uprising and ousted Guitiérrez along with most of the cabinet and Congress with a slogan of Que se vayan todos (They all must go), borrowed from the 2001 Argentine uprising.
Now, perhaps you're thinking, But what's the good of all this chaos?
Well, after toppling three presidents in eight years, and still watching politicians betray them, the leaders of CONAIE began to think exactly that. From 2006 onward they pursued a more subdued agenda, trying to exert influence over public policy and work through their representation in the National Assembly. Besides, with the working class in Ecuador doing relatively well for themselves during the Correa years, they didn't have a base to mobilize. Like Fanon said, people who have something to lose generally won't risk it.
What happens now?
CONAIE is back, fiercely determined, buoyed by a disillusioned working class, and with international human rights groups on their side. From where I'm standing, although he just narrowly survived an impeachment vote, it's difficult to see Lasso staying in office another three years.
Claiming he had Covid, Lasso was not present at the signing of the agreement ending the strike, yet he was seen shaking hands and embracing military personnel just a day earlier. These maneuvers win him no points with the people of Ecuador, I can assure you. Yesterday I watched a video of Lasso, still displaying once again a total lack of sensitivity, complaining about all the money the reforms will cost, as if the money were coming from his offshore account and not the public coffers. He just doesn't seem to understand what "consent of the governed" means.
CONAIE made ten demands of the government, all of which were at least partially met. For the poor, the fifteen cent cut in the price of fuel doesn't seem like enough, but there are also reforms to relieve debt burdens on farmers, increase spending on education and healthcare, and reduce the prices of basic necessities.
On the environmental front, ecological action groups are claiming victory. Amazon Watch reported:
--Among their key victories are a repeal of Executive Decree 95 promoting oil and gas expansion and a reform of Executive Decree 151 affecting the mining sector. Both decrees authorized the government to expand the extractive frontier into Indigenous territories and important conservation and forest areas.
Well, it sounds good.
With a grounded understanding of past uprisings and their outcomes, I'm wary of early celebration. I get CONAIE's distrust. They've been burned, and they don't forget.
All eyes are on Ecuador now to see which way the scales will tip. Latin America's brief fling with neoliberal populists is ending, but not without some messy break-ups. Argentina is watching, the people rumbling with discontent and on the verge of mobilizing themselves. Brazil will almost certainly vote out Bolsonaro, who has managed to destroy more rainforest in three years than his predecessors did in the previous thirty. As for Lasso, he has ninety days in which to meet the terms of the agreement on all ten counts. If he doesn't, CONAIE has already issued an ultimatum:
Do your part, or we will be back.
What can I do?
You might think that with all the damage done by foreign "investment" in Ecuador and Latin America, that the global north should just pack it up and get out. Or perhaps those are just my own dark thoughts when I'm having a bad day. But the majority of foreign influence in Latin America is not investment – it's extraction and exploitation. You can do something by investing in people who are regenerating what was destroyed.
At Sueño de Vida we work in a meaningful way to heal land ravaged by deforestation. How meaningful? According to a recent UN Foresight Brief on climate change,
--It is of the utmost importance to stop deforestation and to increase reforestation efforts around the world. Agricultural practices should focus on soil building, year-round soil cover with plants and the use of agroforestry methods.
That is exactly what we do here at SdV. You can help by helping us do what we do every day: plant forests that nurture soil, people, and community.
Click HERE to donate directly to our reforestation fund OR make a monthly pledge on our Patreon.
About the author
Kristen Krash is the director and co-founder of Sueño de Vida, a regenerative agroforestry farm, education center, nature reserve in Ecuador’s Chocó Andino Cloudforest. Prior to moving, Kristen was known for her guerrilla gardens — productive green spaces she created in any available space. Now an urban transplant in the South American rain forest, she has adapted her urban gardening and sustainability skills to large-scale reforestation of degraded land. She takes a practical and accessible approach to helping others achieve more balance and self-sufficiency in their lives.
Kristen’s articles and interviews have been featured on popular sustainability platforms like Abundant Edge and The Mud Home, and in the Rainforest Regeneration Curriculum at the Ecological Restoration Camps.