Los Cedros, Equador Project

Machelle and I (Jerry Hartman) have been consulting with a project in Equador. The central conflict is extraction industries who have been given exploratory mineral rights that also overlap with the Los Cedros Reserve that the government also set aside for ecological protection. The current project is a conservation trip where scientists will be doing research and gathering data to show the biodiversity of the region as part of a National Geographic Explorer Grant. The grant had “raising awareness” as one part of the outcomes of the trip. One of the team members, Dan Thomas (who works at Whitman College) saw our poster about our work in Suriname, and approached us about working with the media team on their project. We have been consulting on ideas and also about how to possibly use part of the community directed filmmaking process. They are very interested in working with indigenous in the area. We are not planning on traveling at this point, but are working with a documentary filmmaker Dylan Stirewalt who lives in Oregon. Also, Clayton Kruse, a senior Film, TV, Media major at Walla Walla University is also going on the trip as part of his senior project. More on this project as it develops. This project has been voted on by the Eclectic Reel board of directors and is an official project of our non-profit.