July 28, 2009 Clean Energy Coop Meeting

So, finally I make my first entry in the directors blog; a record to let folks in the community and visitors to the zone know what we’re up to at ATEC.
Here we go…
Yesterday I went into the office for a couple of hours before an afternoon meeting with the Clean Energy Cooperative.
I met with ATEC’s two volunteers to talk about their various projects. Among many other projects, Erica and Anouck are helping with a fund-raiser to help fix up a bridge in the community of Volio in Alta-Talamanca. They went last week to visit Don Timoteo Jackson in the community of Rancho Grande/Volio to write up the list of supplies needed and take pictures. I’ll post pictures and get the list of needed materials up once I figure out how to do that. The list says that 173.222 colones in materials (US$303) are needed to fix the bridge, plus paying wages for two folks to do the work for about two weeks (I have to check on the daily wage but we’ll probably pay about 10,000 per person per day). I have a lead on a donation of about $250. And to raise the rest of the needed cash we’ll send out a community announcement, and Erica and Anouck are thinking about approaching visitors on the street here in Puerto Viejo and asking for donations face to face.

This afternoon Anouck and I went to the CoopeTalamancaSos (Talamanca’s Biofuel Coopertive) meeting in baja Talamanca. At the cooperative’s president, Don Catalino Telles’s, house in Margarita.
We got an update on the HIVOS grant that Ashley De Regil (new ATEC member and is with the Finca La Isla Botanical Garden) and Emily Yozell (member of the Coope’s directive committee, also active in many associations in the zone including ADELA and ADECOMAGA) worked hard to turn in the final report. Many accomplishments came from this grant including; holding a clean energy workshop back in May (attended by more than 55 people from around the country including representatives from various universities, government agencies, agriculturalists, people from rural and urban Talamanca and from which many interesting projects are happening), constructing a bio-diesel mini processor at ACAPRO in Hone Creek that will turn wasted vegetable oil into a clean fuel suitable for diesel cars, publishing a 2009 informative calendar, purchasing educational materials about biofuel and other environmental issues to share with the community (there have been two “movie nights” that have been well attended showing educational movies about consumerism and global warming), along with other accomplishments.
Then we went for a drive; checked out a new crop that don Walter has planted as an experimental plot of Jatropha--also known as tempate--a plant that produces a seed that yields high amounts of oil that is being used to make biofuel in other parts of the country and world. This test project is a result of the workshop held in May. It is a partnership with CONARE (Consejo Nacional de Rectores) a group consisting of Costa Rica’s five public universities and the Cooperative. CONARE is working all over Costa Rica and the members of our coope are very excited that this is their first project on the Atlantic coast! Walter’s test plot has the jatropha planted among his plantains--thus avoiding planting a mono-culture crop.
We also drove by Edwin Patterson (Limón’s ex-diputado, and ATEC’s current president) and Don Cata’s (the Coope’s president) rice field. I asked Edwin why rice? He said (to paraphrase): Tourism is one thing. In Talamanca we get some income from Tourism. We have plantains and banano, we don’t want to have the problem we did when we lost cacao back in the 80’s to the monilia fungus.100% of the farming we did was in cacao, when we lost that crop we had nothing, we need to diversify. They need help weeding the crop. Feel like getting your workout by doing something productive? get in touch:
Then we went to look at the land the cooperative is working on buying there in Margarita. It’s about 3 1/2 hectares of land that has not (to date) ever flooded! The coope is working hard to buy this land in order to build the mini-plant to produce KAF, Klean Air Fuel. Still $16,000 needs to be raised to finish the purchase of this land for this fabulous project. With us on this field trip was a friend who has invested $10,000 to help us buy the land! It’s a great investment. Write to to get involved.
Thanks to Don Cata’s wife, Ana Cecilia Hidalgo, for hosting us!

home by 7PM.