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

Monday, September 10, 2012

End of Maya Calendar Celebration at TREES!



Dec. 21st 2012 is the end of the Maya Calendar! What better place to be for this occasion than in Belize, the Center of the Maya World?

If the world does not come to an end as some people predict, we will host an open house December 30th through January 2nd at our new biological research and educational facilities set in the beautiful jungles of the Maya Mountains of Belize. We are inviting one and all to come and experience our beautiful property and well-equipped facilities in tropical paradise.

 


Experience Belizean hospitality at its best with our new simple but comfortable shared cabanas or private 2-person tenting accommodations (all bedding and tents provided!). We will wow you with delicious Belizean cuisine made of all local and organic (wherever possible) ingredients. We offer both hot and cold showers, as well as flush toilets and jungle composting toilets!

Biologists will not be disappointed in our field station! Birders will be thrilled at the bird diversity on our 200 acres of mixed habitat types, including tropical lowland moist forest with lots of riparian habitat, cultivated and uncultivated orchard, and open grassland and forest edge. Herpers will not dismay as our many streams and rivers provide homes to turtles, frogs, lizards, and snakes who will most certainly grace you with their presence whether you want them to or not!

Being a biologist is not a requirement for having fun at our site! If you are into relaxing in tiny bathing suits, our property offers lovely relaxing river swimming holes and hammock stands, and if you prefer to spend your holidays feeling useful, our field station could only be made better by a handy person, a gardener, a landscaper, an artist, a graphic designer, a cook, an educator, and a musician! Just tell us in advance what you would like to get out of your stay with us, and we will provide!

On New Year's Day we will have a giant feast, followed by a local band and non-stoppable dance party, giant bonfire, and an open bar and all-you-can drink panti rippas.

You can get this all-inclusive package for just $65 CAD per person/per day, which includes accommodations and all food (3 meals a day). An additional $25 CAD fee will be charged for the New Year's eve party, which will get you all you can drink rum beverages, and a live local band and DJ! We recommend the full 4 days/4 nights to really get your fill of our place, but folks can stay for less time, depending on their heart's desires.

Our site is easily accessible by public transportation, which is fast, cheap, and a fun cultural experience. We can reduce meal costs if you will not be around for certain meals. We can also help you plan the rest of your vacation in Belize. Belize is an amazing little Caribbean country with so much nature and culture to offer!

Please RSVP soon (deadline October 15th) if you are seriously interested in this opportunity! Things book up really fast over Christmas holidays in Belize so we need to start planning this event as well as the rest of your trip accommodations as soon as possible. Because we will need to book and pay for so many things in advance, we ask for a 50% deposit on your stay here by October 31st 2012.

For more information on our site, find us at www.ecorana.ca

Thursday, September 6, 2012

House Hunters International!!!

Bonjour à tous, c'est pour vous dire que notre épisode d’House Hunters international va jouer demain soir (vendredi le 7) sur HGTV Canada. Vous pouvez donc voir moi et ma copine Vanessa à la chasse pour notre terrain pour la Station écologique au Bélize. Le titre de l'épisode est 'Canadian Biologists in Belize'. Si vous êtes intéressé, je suggère que vous vérifiez votre TV Hebdo pour savoir l'heure de la diffusion dans votre région!

Hello everybody, just to let you know that our House Hunter International episode is finally playing tomorrow evening (Friday the 7th) on HGTV Canada. You can join Vanessa and I as we hunt for our Field Station property in Belize. I would suggest that you check out your local listings to see what time it is playing in your area. The title of the episode is 'Canadian Biologists in Belize'!

Voici l`horaire général, the HGTV schedule:

http://www.hgtv.ca/schedule/

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

New Ecorana logo

Our friend and my mentor's son, Peter Diamond has designed the new Ecorana Environmental Ltd Logo. We really like the new design, and are very proud to have this design as the official company logo!

We hope you like it as well!

The Ecorana Team


We are back!

Hello dear TREES followers, we are sorry for the lag in posts we were on a vacation in Canada for the last few weeks visiting family. We had a great time, and we started some PR work as we are now planning on officially opening on January first! We met the Save the Frogs gang again and Vanessa attended the 7th World Congress of Herpetology in Vancouver in August. We are now ready to take on the world, well at least have them over at TREES.

Thanks to Brendan and the neighbours the communal facilities are looking very nice. The shells of the buildings are now complete, floors, painting, roofs cleaned and repaired. Vanessa and I will now complete all of the cabinet work, the counters, bring in tables and chairs and decorate and should all look good for January.

We are currently working on the preparation of a few winter workshops in addition to the University groups already signed up for the winter. We will keep you posted but as for now it appears that we will be offering a Photography workshop, Yoga workshop and African Drumming workshop between January and March. A few new workshops may be offered soon after.

The good news is that we now officially have our new website. It is still in its infancy, it only has three pages for now but we will work on it vigourously in the next couple of weeks. For those interested are site can be found at www.ecorana.ca

We were very pleased by some of the comments we have received from our readers, unfortuneatly, some of the comments came out as unknown and we are unable to reply to some of the questions and requests of our readers. Questions and comments can now be sent to info@ecorana.ca !

Thank you faithful followers, keep checking us out!

The Ecorana Team!


Friday, July 6, 2012

Avocados

 Our plan and objectives is to eventually be able to feed ourselves and the students with wholesome organic food that comes solely from the station and our community! For now we are exploring and slowly learning what we already have on the property and what we can eat. We have already posted about pineapples and cashews, now the best part... we have just found 2 large avocado trees on the property (There may be more). One is about 25 meters from our house! After buying and fixing up the Avocado Picker 3000, we picked our first avocados. We had to wait a couple of days for them to ripen but wow, best avocados I have ever eaten!!!


Beautiful shiny avocado!

Eva and I ready to catch us some avocados! 
I am testing out the Avocado Picker 3000, works like a charm
First Avocado to be picked at TREES

Vanessa looking forward to trying out her loot!













Cashew Phase 2!

Now that we picked our cashews, we removed the fruits from the seed and let them dry in the sun for a couple of days.! We can't wait to see how small the bag of roasted cashews will be coming out of this quantity of unshelled cashews?

Keep posted for Phase 3, the roasting of the cashews!

Cashews dried in the sun!

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Interesting Trogon observation


 Last week during our Herp-o-thon, some of us where still looking out for birds and not just snakes and frogs! On our return walk from the waterfall hike we stumbled upon a really interested observation of a Violaceous Trogon (Trogon violaceus) in a Termite nest. These most beautiful birds in the same family as the Quetzal are found to next in wasp, termite or ant nests. While we had heard of this behaviour before we had never seen a live example. We were all quite pleased to come upon this female most likely incubating eggs in this large termite mound.  Apparently they will peck out a hole in the termite mound, in the following days the termites will fix up the mound and fill the damage part of their nest, thus creating a perfect little burrow in the middle of this well insulating and protected fortress, incroyable!