Ecorana Environmental ltd., Blog at it's partner field staiton at the T.R.E.E.S

We are Ecorana Environmental, an eco-travel and environmental education company that specializes in creating and planning applied learning holidays for students, researchers, and ecotourists alike. Our team consists of travel and outreach specialists as well as research biologists and teachers who specialize in environmental education and conservation. We are well-versed in providing comfortable, safe, and exciting learning and travel opportunities to a range of clientele interested in environmentally and culturally conscious travel.Ecorana is poised to offer travel and education abroad opportunities in the diverse tropical country of Belize. Ecorana employs biologists who are well-trained in tropical ecology, herpetology, and ornithology, and as such, studies in tropical biology are the primary focus of our educational holidays. However, our team’s diverse interests and expertise allow us to plan all types of holidays ranging from wildlife ecotours to yoga retreats to West African drumming courses to ecological field technique courses. Wherever your interests lie, you can be guaranteed that Ecorana will be right there with you.Ecorana maintains values of environmental and cultural conservation and stewardship, hands-on education, and inclusive learning, and seeks to instill those values in all visitors to Belize. We work with many field stations and educational centers, scientists, educators, tour companies, tour guides, eco-lodges, and parks, both on the mainland and on the islands of Belize, to make sure you go exactly where you want to go and see exactly what you want to see and more!

One of our main partners is the Toucan Ridge Ecology and Education Society (T.R.E.E.S) and their field station in Belize. The objectives of this environmental education center are to host various cultural and environmental based student courses, workshops and event hosting in the heart of the beautiful Maya Mountains of Belize. We plan on providing our services to international students as well as providing opportunities for Belizean students.

For more information see our website at www.ecorana.ca, or send us and email at info@ecorana.ca or to go directly to the T.R.E.E.S website www.treesociety.org

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Comments and emails

Hello dear readers, a few of you have sent us some great comments and some of you have written with some questions about the station, positions available etc. Unfortuneatly, Blogger are not providing us with the email of these comments.

Again, we kindly request that for specific questions about the station you visit our website at www.ecorana.ca or send us an email at info@ecorana.ca ! Your questions are valuable to us!

Thanks,

The Ecorana Team!


New T.R.E.E.S LOGO

Our friend Peter Diamond has created our new T.R.E.E.S logo! We are very proud of his work and especially of the new logo that will represent the N.G.O and Station!


Wednesday, September 19, 2012

King Vulture at TREES

As you know I have done some research in the past on the King Vulture in Mexico. So, I have a bit of a weak spot for the beautiful new world vulture. Last week after butchering a pig that the neighbour provided, we took the remains that were unusable such as skin, fat, some bones etc., and set-up one of our remote field cameras. We placed the remains and the cameras on one of the trails, right in the jungle and then came the hard part, waiting 5 days before we could see what visited our site.

After 5 days we picked up the cameras and rushed to the computers to see what we got. There it was, on the first day we had the elusive King Vulture, right on the TREES site. We were all very excited by this visit, and now we are planning experimental designs to start studying this bird, part of our long-term research protocols. Anyhow, very exciting!

In addition to the King Vulture, we had a couple of Turkey Vultures and a Common Possum. Not bad for a first try!



Officially our first King Vulture observed at TREES (on the ground that is!!!)

Turkey Vultures scoping out the food situtation

Common Possum

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Help us get Emmeth to Africa for a djembe workshop!



Last weekend Mat and I went to Punta Gorda to visit and play drums with our friend Emmeth Young, an amazing Belizean African djembe player. I met and bought a drum from him when I was in Belize in 2005. At that time Emmeth had been based out of Gale's Point Manatee, Belize, a small traditional Kriol village on the southern Lagoon, south of Belize City.

Here is a picture of my drum (headless), which Emmeth made me in 2005! I have always loved this drum very much, but early on after our move to Belize in 2011, the skin split open! I contacted Emmeth right away to see if he could fix it for me, but apparently goat skins are a rare commodity in Belize! You can skin a djembe with cow skin, but it just doesn't make the right sound. So, after months of waiting, Mat was able to find me a goat skin on his last trip back to Montreal. We brought it back to Belize and took it down to Emmeth, to have him re-skin the drum and to give us a little drumming workshop.

It was very interesting for him to see this drum again, as he is still making drums but they look quite different now! His previous drums (like this one) were always a little crooked, as he just worked with what the tree gave him rather than trying to find the straightest tree he could find. But, that just gave the drums a very characteristic sound, allowing you to get slightly different tones from the instrument depending on what side of the head you were hitting. After 7 years, he was surprised that he had made a drum that sounded so good!


A couple of years ago Emmeth (below, seen skinning my drum) and his lovely family relocated to Punta Gorda from Gale's Point, the very southernmost town in Belize, right on the ocean. There he is building a drum school, the Maroon Creole Drum School, where he will soon be able to teach and lodge students that come from all over the world to learn the djembe from him.




Emmeth has never been to Africa but has been drumming African rhythms since he was a child! Fortunately some of the traditional West African drumming was carried to Belize with the slave trade, and although when the British first brought the slaves to Belize they were forbidden to drum, members of his family still secretly kept the tradition alive, instilling this love of African rhythms in Emmeth when he was a young child. In the beginning though in Belize, drummers were not able to make the appropriate drums as they could not find the correct wood, so they made a drum out of pine, which they called a sambai. From this drum evolved some unique rhythms that are used today only in Belize by the Kriol people, and only in some villages. Although Emmeth still plays this instrument, his djembes are modelled after the traditional West African djembe.

Emmeth is desperately trying to go to Africa to take lessons from an African Djembe master. It has always been his dream to visit West Africa, and we are hoping to help him get there this coming winter! I had a prepaid course in Guinea with some friends from Vancouver, and I am hoping to donate this course to Emmeth (running in December 2012) as he really deserves to go and learn from the best players in the world. Plus, he will bring those rhythms back to Belize, keeping the djembe tradition alive! Emmeth has worked with many youth in Belize, helping to keep them out of gangs and all of the terrible social problems that go with these gangs. He has inspired many youth to "Try Drums Not Guns" and he is an inspiration to us as well! If you are interested in trying to help Emmeth get to Africa to take this course, any little donation will help, and you can be assured that it will be going to a good cause!

Contact us at vkilburn@ecorana.ca if you want to help out!