SAVING THE AMAZON WITH YOUR HELP

Yachana is making progress in the development of a project, working with Conservation International, to declare all of our 2,500 acres (1,000 hectares) into a protected forest. This is a program of the Ecuadorian Ministry of the Environment to declare private reserves as part of this initiative. It is taking time due to all the government requirements, but we are almost there. The thing about this agreement that is important for me is that once the land is part of this government program, by law it has to be maintained in the condition that it was at the time of registering it into the program. In our case, about 90% of our land is in rainforest and 10% in either tourism infrastructure or agriculture. The farming techniques we are using we can show to the local farmers so they can improve their methods of farming. More along the lines of Permaculture. I will keep you posted as things progress. Thanks for your support and please keep helping. Thanks, love you, Douglas

We are making good progress in the construction of our medical clinic and laboratory. We hope we will be up and running by March of this year. I am talking about the medical facility in a report on saving the rainforest. The two are completely interrelated. One of the big reasons locals cut down their forest is to raise money, many times for medical emergencies. One of the functions of our medical facility is to have specialist who will come to provide highly specialized checkups for different problems. We will have the equipment and facilities for these kinds of medical visits. The residents can come to us much easier, and at less cost, than go to a capital city. And get better attention. Our rainforest protection is also moving forward well with our work in a government program called Carbon Zero. I will keep you posted as that progresses. Thanks for your support, and remember, I love you                   Douglas