A few years ago, a few of us – ecology, economics, and business graduates – founded a nonprofit organization called Third Millennium Alliance. We raised some money and bought a lot of land in a critically-endangered rainforest and established an ecological reserve. There was a small patch of previously-degraded land right in the middle, where we have built an innovative and surprisingly comfortable research station out of bamboo, by hand. Immediately surrounding the house we are designing/growing/building a living laboratory of sustainable resource management (i.e. permaculture). Our goal is 100% food self-sufficiency within 10 years. So far, we’re maybe 15% of the way there. Likewise this is a testing ground for appropriate technology, such as off-the-grid renewable energy, water treatment and management, organic pesticide production, etc. We are also in need of various biological research projects and inventories, such as botanical research, cloud forest precipitation research, GIS mapping, setting up sample plots for a bio-mass inventory, and building a native hardwood tree nursery and seed collection and germination system.
The Tropical Permaculture and Research program is based in the Bamboo House Research Station in the middle of the Jama-Coaque Ecological Reserve. The Fall program is two-months long, from October 15 through December 15. Projects needed for the Fall Internship include: -Forest succession research in degraded/logged forest patches -Developing and testing organic pesticides on the fruit trees and vegetable gardens in the production zone -Helping design and implement a park monitoring/ranger system -Designing and building a small greenhouse or area for seed-germination and tree nursery -Implementing a previously-designed and partially-initiated small-scale aquaculture system -Stream analysis for water flow, invertebrate health, and other variables -Helping develop the trail system in the reserve for eco-tourism use, including making and implementing interpretative signs for educational hikes If you would like to learn more, please visit our Internship page on our website, where you can download a PDF file which includes a detailed program description, at: http://www.3malliance.org/index.php?id=320 If you would like to apply, send an email to the address listed in the program description and please write “Fall Internship” in the subject heading. We hope you work with you! Sincerely, Third Millennium Alliance Jama, Ecuador www.3malliance.org
