Hi everyone, I would like to introduce myself and make a connection in this space. Thank you to Alpha Lo for inviting me.

My partner Juan have been co-creating a forest regeneration project (Sueño de Vida/"Dream of Life") on a badly degraded piece of land in the Choco Andino Cloudforest in Ecuador. The Choco Andino is one of the most biodiverse places in the world, but large areas of it have been logged and are now cattle pastures or extractive monoculture farms. This is where we live and work. Our home is completely off grid, builtbwith bamboo and clay, we harvest rainwater, only use a small solar system, and have limited satellite internet. This is why I'm writing here and likely will not be able to connect via Zoom. 

I am able to make good use of our limited wifi. We have an updated website where I publish articles on Agroforestry and DIY projects, send out a monthly newsletter, and post videos to our YouTube channel. I do what I can--digitally-- when I can. 

Which is fine. We moved out here to be immersed in a simplified and rewarding way of life, working with soil and plants, seeing the wildlife return, growing much of our food, and watching the soil life regenerate.

With 4000mm of rainfall every year and an abundance of rivers and natural springs, we do not want for water. However, the subtropical soils are compacted and harshly weathered since the removal of the forest canopy some 40 years ago. This soil is badly eroded and does not infiltrate water. On our land (15 ha) we have planted successional agroforestry systems on 6 ha to create the shade canopy and biomass needed to restore the delicate balance that sustains a tropical wet forest. We also are allowing the remaining land to regenerate naturally to secondary native forest.

At any rate, we have much to share from our project and much to learn from you fellow regenerators here as well. I would like to engage with this initiative in any way possible given my remoteness and lack of unlimited wifi. 

Here is our website

www.sdvforest.com

Thank you very much for holding this space and I look forward to meeting more of you.