Updates in Pictures
/Our Operations Manager Mateo Johnson took some shots of our plantain operations over the past few weeks. Here we publish some of our favorites.
The Skinny on Thinning
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The dry season in Panama (January to April) brings sun, passable roads, and a lot of work for foresters. In December of 2013, we bought a small Stihl 250 chainsaw for the work ahead. The most pressing issue was thinning out the stands of teak: at about year seven, teak experiences acopamiento, or crowning, when the tops of the trees, initially planted at 3 x 3 meters start to touch.
Read MoreELTI - Facilitating Sustainable Forestry
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Traveling through Panama for the first time in 2004, I was amazed at the amount of land dedicated to the cultivation of teak. The increasing global appetite for the valuable wood and decreasing amounts of old growth teak available make teak an attractive investment for investors and project promoters, who plant it by the tens of thousands of hectares.
Read MoreLocally Sourced Plantains for Indigenous Congress
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The Darien Indigenous Collective Lands held their Congress on the 13-14th of December, hosting nearly 3,000 people from all the Embera Collective Land villages in Darien.
Read MoreA silvopastoral experiment: cows and trees
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Last month we began using cattle to control pasture growth on our Finca #2 in Nuevo Paraiso, Rio Congo.
Our employee Jose "Ino" had been asking us to try this system, known as silviculture, to reduce our maintenance costs and to generate income. So, we decided to try a controlled experiment to see if the cows would control the vegetation without damaging the trees.
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