SELVA-Vida Sin Fronteras & Friends of SELVA-USA successfully implement water harvesting system in the Ecuadorian Amazon
SELVA-Vida Sin Fronteras
AMAZON PINK DOLPHIN
03/06/2019
For almost three decades, SELVA-Vida Sin Fronteras has been actively supporting a growing public consciousness that the access to fresh drinkable water is a major issue.
Common sense suggested that if the source of 18.5% of the total supply of fresh water that falls daily on our planet, is conceived in the head -waters of the Amazon river basin, one could assume that this particular eco-system is of universal significance. Following this logic, we had expected that states, governments, international organizations, et.al. would go out of their way to ensure that the appropriate measures be put into place to safeguard this vital resource critical for the survival of all forms of life. Actually a human being without access to water would be dead within a week.
For almost three decades, SELVA-Vida Sin Fronteras has provided concrete scientific data, based on empirical reality, to different states, governments, and international organizations, et.al. that development policies based on extractive economics, oil and mining in particular, were literally destroying ancestral indigenous communities, flora, fauna and contaminating water supplies with levels of polycyclic hydrocarbons exceeding by more than 150 times, the maximum legally permitted in the United States and Europe.
Within this context, we negotiated with the principal actors and industries responsible for this environmental disaster, we pleaded with Presidents, Vice-Presidents, members of Congress and local provincial authorities to consider alternative development programs, -based not on theoretical abstractions but rather on the results of successful pilot projects. We sued those who are actively engaged in destroying nature. We took direct action to halt in their tracks these obscene individuals and corporations, perpetrators of the annihilation of the Amazon Rainforest.
After almost three decades, SELVA-Vida Sin Fronteras has come to the conclusion that Common Sense is the least Common of all Senses.
With extractive economic policies being accelerated by the government of President Moreno, in particular by former US Vice-President Dick Cheney’s “Hell’s Polluters clan member” Carlos Perez, Ecuador’s Minister of Energy and non-renewable resources, the environmental impact is going from bad to worse and we shall soon be reaching the point of no return. Rivers, streams and groundwater hydrology are totally polluted and unsafe for humans, flora and fauna inhabiting the Rainforest.
Consequently, SELVA-Vida Sin Fronteras has completed a rainwater harvesting system conceived as an alternative to the dire situation prevailing in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Friends of SELVA-USA financed this project, which was completed June 1st, 2019.
The results have been particularly encouraging. From a surface of approximately 200 square metres, and based on three rainfalls of average intensity, 1 litre of rainwater was harvested in just over 5 seconds. The intermediate holding tank of 1,100 litres filled in less than 10 minutes which then was automatically pumped up into the principle water supply tank, containing 18,925 litres and located in the Amazon Reserve for Peace – Aguarico operational base. The principal tank was filled in 2.8 hours, and provides clean water for 30 people for approximately 1 week.
By: Mariana Almeida & Pieter Jan Brouwer
Fixing water directing bricks on three central cone roofs
Water directing bricks
Connecting tubes to channel harvested rain water
Harvested rainwater in 1,100 litre holding tank with automatic regulator
Control box with tank cleaning and overflow valves
0.85 hp pump transporting water from holding tank to central tank on the Amazon Reserve for Peace
Laica, the first to enjoy a rain water shower from the overflow of the main holding tank
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE:
Mariana Almeida
Arno Ambrosius
David Dunham
Gustavo López Ospina
Gertjan Storm
Editor: Pieter Jan Brouwer
“Amazon Pink Dolphin” is the official blog of SELVA-Vida Sin Fronteras. The intention of the blog is to generate debate on environmental issues; the Amazon Rain forest in particular. Contributions and support are done on a voluntary basis and do not imply institutional affiliation. Similarly opinions expressed in this blog do not necessarily represent the official position of SVSF.
