[Scpg] Check out "Rolex Awards for Enterprise" from Ecuador

[Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson]

Click Here: <A
HREF="http://www.Rolexawards.com/laureates/laureate2.jsp?id=0037">Rolex
Awards for Enterprise</A>

I thought you folks might enjoy this Perm story. Also the one on food storage
is great...Bob

  Ms Maria Eliza Manteca Oñate

Destructive farming practices and the overexploitation of timber have 
destroyed over 90 per cent of Ecuador's native forest, causing severe 
erosion and soil degradation. Determined to protect the remnants of 
indigenous forests, while at the same time improving living standards for 
rural people, Maria Eliza Manteca Oñate has established a nature reserve 
near her home village in the north of the country. She has also launched a 
successful education programme, whereby adults and children learn 
sustainable farming techniques at a model farm.

Conservation at the grass roots level is a popular concept these days, yet 
few proponents of this fundamental approach are as qualified to promote it 
as Maria Eliza Manteca Oñate. This 44-year-old former nurse from Ecuador is 
making a considerable difference to the lives of the people in and around 
the Andean valley in which she was born, in addition to helping reverse 
decades of environmental damage. And grass roots - or more specifically the 
soil fixing properties of the grass plant vetiver - actually play a crucial 
role in the conservation efforts that secured Manteca a Rolex Award for 
Enterprise.

Practices such as slash-and-burn forest clearing, cutting too much wood and 
planting crops longitudinally down the steep valley slopes have destroyed 
93 per cent of Ecuador's forest cover. This in turn has led to severe 
erosion of potential farmland. Rain washes fertile topsoil down the steep 
mountain slopes, where it clogs the lakes and rivers feeding the nation's 
hydroelectric power plants. Manteca, wanting to protect the remaining 
tracks of forests in the Andean region in which she grew up, has 
established a successful nature reserve on the Cerro Golondrinas, a 
mountain between the Mira and San Juan rivers. The new Rolex Laureate has 
also set up a model farm where local people are learning how to live from 
farming and protect their natural environment.

Maid, nurse, educator, hostel owner, environmentalist

A farmer's daughter from the Mira valley, Manteca has always loved nature. 
"As a young girl," she says, "I became aware of the destruction of the 
natural resources in my area." She blames migration away from the region, 
economic pressures and modernisation in general for the fact that sound 
traditional farming methods gave way to more destructive practices.

"It is very common for girls from my area to leave their villages in search 
of a 'better life' in Quito," Manteca reflects, "because at home their 
future is mapped out for them." And this is exactly what she herself did at 
15. Curious to find out what the "big city" was like, she left her family 
farm to work as a maid in Quito. Disillusioned, she says, by the way rural 
people were exploited, she decided to study for a career that would enable 
her to return to her home and help the local population. She trained as a 
nurse at evening classes, specialising in nutrition and disease prevention, 
and eventually returned to her village in 1987 to run a government-funded 
health education programme.

Working with volunteers and doctors from other villages, Manteca set out to 
forge friendships with families before teaching them the principles of 
proper nutrition. It was a period of her life she remembers with great 
fondness, but one that sadly lasted for only 10 months.

The project was suspended through lack of funding and Manteca returned to 
Quito where, with the help of friends, she set up a small tourist hostel, 
La Casa de Eliza.


"From that moment I set myself the target of finding a way to earn money so 
that I could return to my village to work with the local people and find 
ways of improving their economic situation," she recalls.

"Quite by chance a friend invited me to visit her home village of Morán, 
and that was how we discovered the Cerro Golondrinas. We had the idea of 
organising treks around the area, which we gradually realised has an 
extremely rich biodiversity, with vast areas of primary forest that needed 
to be protected." The trekkers would spend the nights at the house of a 
farmer, who eventually offered to sell his farm to Manteca.

The enterprising Ecuadorian bought the farm and 200 hectares of land with 
the income generated by La Casa de Eliza. And then, together with a group 
of committed friends, she launched the Cerro Golondrinas Cloudforest 
Conservation Project and Reserve in 1991. The project later became the 
Golondrinas Foundation.

Vetiver to stabilise the soil and prevent erosion

The group set about protecting the region's remaining forest and promoting 
more sustainable farming practices. In order to find out how best to 
cultivate the degraded soil covering many of the farm's steep slopes, 
Manteca visited dozens of other farms before hearing about the vetiver 
plant from the CIAT, the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture in 
Cali, Colombia.

Well known for its use in the perfume industry and originating from India, 
vetiver is a robust plant that is unpalatable to livestock and resistant to 
extreme climatic conditions. Perhaps more importantly, though, its roots 
penetrate deep into the ground, stabilising the soil around it and helping 
resist the erosive effects of rain. When planted as hedges along the 
contours of the land, vetiver can help create gently sloping, cultivatable 
terraces. The international Vetiver Network provided Manteca with technical 
support for applying these terracing techniques.

Manteca promotes permaculture - the planting of different types of plants 
and trees - as the best means of cultivating these plots. She admits that 
she was sceptical when introduced to the method by permaculture expert Ali 
Sharin, an Australian working at Ecuador's Tropical Forest Research Centre 
(Centro de Investigaciones de Bosques Tropicales).

"I didn't think it was suitable for us to show farmers how to cultivate 
their land this way, because they already had their own planting methods 
and had always considered trees as obstacles," she says. "But as I talked 
with Ali, it gradually became clear that we needed to adopt such an 
approach to avoid pests and insects and to regenerate the soil."

Sharin's advice was a great help to Manteca when she set up a model farm, 
Peña Negra, in 1998. "We began translating the permaculture theory into 
practice and growing crops using procedures that the local farmers 
understood," she explains.



Manteca advises farmers to plant fruit trees with short- and long-term 
yields, plants that fix nitrogen in the soil and traditional crops such as 
kidney beans, maize, yucca and legumes, which are suited to the area and 
easy to grow. "We also explain to farmers that by adopting this approach, 
they will be able to dispense with chemicals and lead a more healthy life," 
she adds.

Her efforts are already paying dividends. Local farmers are gradually 
accepting the idea that it is possible to live off the land without 
damaging the soil. And, with the help of her Rolex Award, Manteca is 
planning to set up a second model farm, at Santa Rosa, on the outskirts of 
the Cerro Golondrinas Reserve. Located at an altitude of 1,600 metres - 800 
metres higher than Peña Negra - it is ideally positioned for growing 
blackberries and blackcurrants.

Education for environmental conservation

Like Peña Negra, this second farm will provide practical training as part 
of an educational programme on the importance of nature conservation, 
launched by Manteca in 1997. Although directed principally at farmers, the 
programme is also aimed at schoolchildren, teachers, NGOs (non-governmental 
organisations) and local and regional authorities.

As if these activities were not enough to keep her occupied, Manteca still 
runs La Casa de Eliza. She divides her time between Quito and the Mira 
Valley, where she also manages another small hotel, La Carolina, from where 
she organises the forest treks that fund the Golondrinas Foundation.

The Golondrinas Foundation was legally created on 26 June 1996, and at the 
same time the Golondrinas Reserve, which today occupies 1,400 hectares, 
officially became a protected forest. In the longer term, Manteca plans to 
expand the reserve to 25,000 hectares, an objective that she is closer to 
achieving thanks to the Rolex Award funding. She is now also in a position 
to pursue her ultimate objective, to raise children's awareness of 
environmental issues and the importance of preserving natural resources. "I 
also want to set up handicrafts and ceramics workshops for women and young 
people, using natural raw materials to help them improve their economic 
situation," she says.

Maike Potthast, a German biologist whose doctorate was based on a study of 
the vegetation of the Golondrinas Reserve, says of Manteca: "Eliza is an 
incredible person. She is enterprising, with exceptional tenacity in 
general, but even more so in the Ecuadorian cultural context, where women 
are still used to a submissive role, especially when they come from the 
countryside."

Judging by what she has already accomplished, there is little doubt that 
Manteca will achieve her outstanding goals, and it is little wonder that 
Rolex Award Selection Committee member Sir Crispin Tickell described her as 
a "force de la nature".



Combining public health training and business expertise with extraordinary 
passion, vision and tenacity, she has managed to make a major impact on the 
economic, agricultural and ecological viability of the region.

"Maria Eliza's appreciation of her country's forests and love of her people 
really drove the development of this project. By showing people that it is 
possible to have productive farms without destroying the forests, she has 
changed the whole way of thinking in Ecuador. The Committee was immensely 
impressed by her personal journey and her commitment to her people and her 
country."
Prof. Adrienne E. Clarke

"Although others might have fled because of the destruction of more than 90 
per cent of their forest country, Maria Eliza returned to her village 
filled with courage, passion, and dedication to resurrect the landscape. 
She overcame erosion with simple contour planting that slowly promoted 
vegetation, crops and trees to once again clothe the barren hillsides."
Mr Gilbert M. Grosvenor

"I was deeply inspired by the life and work of this woman. Combining her 
public health training and business expertise with extraordinary passion, 
vision and tenacity, she has managed to make a major impact on the 
economic, agricultural and ecological viability of the region."
Dr Kathryn Sullivan

"The dedication, courage, and tenacity of this extraordinary woman 
impressed me beyond words. Her efforts for others, for the environment, and 
for preserving a renewable and important resource, are not only 
commendable, but they should also act as an example to all humankind."
Mr John Stoneman

"The creation of a nature reserve with which the local people can identify 
themselves and their interests, the introduction of new methods of 
agriculture and the diversification of the local economy have together 
transformed the prospects for effective conservation, and given local 
people hope and confidence for the future."
Sir Crispin Tickell

Ms Maria Eliza Manteca Oñate
President
Fundación Golondrinas
Isabel la Católica 1559 y Cristobal Gangotena
Quito
Pichincha
Ecuador

www.ecuadorexplorer.com/golondrinas/