Finca Vida Verde

Rehydrate - Reforest Vilcabamba & Beyond is our replicable project in innovative water conservation. It is coupled with reforestation to help heal the water cycle in Vilcabamba valley and beyond. With deforestation, rainwater cannot penetrate the soil. These simple methods mimic forest conditions, helping the land retain water, giving them a chance to recover. Have a look at our video to see how this method could be relevant for you. Go to vidaverde.info/agua-arboles for Spanish version.

Our ideas: Once the retreat place for Incan royalty, our home in Vilcabamba is much-loved throughout Ecuador and is world renoun for longevity. It is now suffering from climate change and deforestation. Because of it’s fame, a success here could ripple far and wide.

That’s why we’re designing for a long-term effect that could benefit seven generations into the future and beyond. We are looking beyond short-term commercial gain to the "triple bottom line"--that is, looking at how this project benefits the environment and society, as well as the financial considerations.

We have a good model in place on our farm—“Finca Vida Verde, our one acre wonder”. From across the valley, it is eye-catching because it is greener! We are working on improving it, and adding larger models. Currently, our best mid-scale model is the private property El Mirador.. These models, as they green up, will help inspire water- retention landscaping to become a local trend.

Our ideal strategy, to enable matching the scope of the multi-eco crisis we face together, is to realize support for a program to train trainers to provide basic education in water harvesting and water retention landscaping in 3-day workshops which will provide protocols and guidelines and hands-on experience. Local water boards and farmer’s associations are possible venues for these trainings. Local trainers would support participants through the implementation phase, which potentially would offer incentives in this way—for every 30 meters of contour water-retention canal they dig, the project will pay for another 30 meters to be dug. Based on the training they have received, the land-owners would present a design plan that must be approved by two trainers. Properties will be screened re: appropriate soil/ slope/ and the location’s potential to affect weather patterns favorably.

Vilcabamba is in the rain shadow of the Andes of Southern Ecuador. It is a crossroads of Ecuador’s three main eco-zones—the coast, mountains and Amazon lowlands. Accordingly, it has one of the highest counts of biodiversity in Ecuador, and thus, the world. Thus, it is an ideal place to support Ecuador's mega-biodiversity on our model farms. What can one person do? Back in the 80s, when I was new to the environmental movement, and I first learned about the rate of rainforest destruction, my OMG !#^! response uprooted me and plopped me down in the African rainforest for 2 years of field work as a Peace Corps volunteer. My project design was used as a model for a projected $2.5 million program by the European Union. I learned that sometimes…….if you strategize, and dig in, and do what you love, and open your mind and heart, and keep all your senses highly attuned, and keep building relationships at all levels……stuff can happen. The pendulum swings. Crusty old patterns that block the Common Good can disintegrate and fall away, and POSITIVE CHANGE HAPPENS.