Current News
Another Good Year at CONAPAC December 2011
We end 2011 having accomplished all goals that we set at the first of the year, plus all the other unforeseen projects 
which invariably popped up along the way. We built seven new water treatment plants, plus an extra one for International Expeditions in a community that is not in our program. We hosted eight water workshops and completed our Adopt-A-School deliveries and community/teacher workshops in the spring. We continued our work with the garden at Las Malvinas School, the Amazon Jungle Library, community service projects, and high school scholarships. Despite Marcos leaving, our team really stepped up and we find ourselves completely caught up and all of our promised projects completed.
Plans for next year are shaping up quickly as we gather continued support from our donor base. We have funding to build six more water treatment plants, make Adopt-A-School deliveries, provide workshops, start a new pilot project to create a sustainable system of monitoring and oversight for the water treatment plants, hire a new employee to replace Marcos, purchase laptops for the staff, and continue work in the urban garden and the library. Stay tuned for more details and periodic recaps of all our jungle adventures.
We at CONAPAC wish you Happy Holidays and a Prosperous New Year!
A Very Busy Season October 2011
June, July, and August, which tend to be slower months for CONAPAC, have been just as busy as the rest of the year. Our newest staff member, Megan Thomas, has taken over as the director of the Amazon Jungle Library, and has made a three-year committment to CONAPAC. The library has two branches: one near Palmeras II and the other in the community of Sapo Playa. The programs and opportunities for children who use the library continue. With increasing donor assistance, we hope to expand next year by providing post high school scholarships and by investing in computer technology that will bring Internet access to the Amazon Jungle Library.
Staff changes continued with the resignation of Marcos Overjluis, our biologist and longtime CONAPAC employee. Marcos joined CONAPAC in 2005 and has been a driving force behind our water, fish farm, and other sustainable projects. Never one to sit still, Marcos had decided it was time to pursue his own personal business interests and spend more time with his family. The legacy of clean water and other improvements to village life will be credited to Marcos for years to come.
James Pasmino and Alberto Vela continued the work on the water projects that were promised this year. Construction of the community water treatment plants was completed at Santa Victoria, Canada, and Yurac Yacu. Our water education workshops followed, and with help from Peruvian teacher volunteers, each community had the opportunity to learn and understand more about the 
benefits and responsibilities involved in this important community improvement. In 2011, six new water systems were added. We also carried out a pilot project in Llachapa where 16 individual household water systems were installed. Our water program, which started in 2008, has now installed 21 systems in communities committed to and participating in the Adopt- A-School program. At least six more water plants will be added in 2012 as we work toward our goal of providing access to clean water to all our partner communities along the Amazon and Napo Rivers.
And finally, no summer would be complete without hosting a range of service projects for tourist guests. In cooperation with Explorama Tours, our staff facilitated over 20 groups: high school students, museum curators, educators, and just plain regular folks with a passion for the rainforest. Trees were planted, latrines built, schools and homes painted, cement sidewalks laid. Each community service day ended with a soccer game, volunteers and village residents all participating. This year we asked each service project volunteer to complete a written survey. The majority commented that their day of community service was the highlight of their trip to Peru. This part of CONAPAC's responsibilities continues to grow as we anticipate more and more interested parties to visit the Amazon rainforest to learn firsthand about this precious resource in which we all have a stake.
New Program and a Special Visitor July 2011
July brought changes as CONAPAC took over the CCC Amazon Library, adding one more major project to the CONAPAC family. Started 13 years ago by Dr Nancy Dunn, the library boasts over 4,000 titles, computers, music programs, and after school instruction. There is a second branch in a community down river about 30 minutes, so things are growing and we hope to add more branches soon. Dr. Dunn decided it was time to move on in her life so she gave CONAPAC the library as a gift and we have now taken full responsibility to keep it running. Megan Thomas, a former Peace Corps volunteer, who also originates from Michigan, has taken the reins and the transition is complete.
In July we hosted our first Rotary water workshop. CONAPAC's reputation for education has spread and, although Rotary International does a great job building water treatment plants, they don't have an education piece. We were hired to facilitate their first one in the jungle. It went very well and we expect to be doing more very soon.
Also in July, we had the honor of a visit from one of our most committed water project donors, Janice Lee, who is the Director of the S
aga Charitable Trust in the UK. Janice's organization has consistently funded more water projects for CONAPAC than any other entity. She was here 2 ½ years ago and thought it was time to return and see the work we are doing. She made several community visits and had a chance to really chat with folks and hear their feedback about the value of drinking clean water. Overall, a very positive and productive visit!
Amazon Service Projects late June 2011
June found CONAPAC very busy with service projects and other donor groups. As mentioned earlier, we have a donor out of Denver who funded a pilot project to install individual water systems in jungle homes. This was accomplished in April and the donor arrived in June to see the results. We had a great visit, the feedback from residents was very positive, and our donor shows strong signs of continuing his help with more mini-water treatment systems. We are considering installing them in classrooms, especially for smaller communities where there is no clean water system. CONAPAC also hosted the annual water project review where a third party comes in and evaluates our systems. Our partnership with the University of Colorado at Boulder has proven to be 
invaluable in accessing the effectiveness of our water program. Four grad students and their professor were here for a month, making many visits to our communities and executing in-depth interviews with the residents. We are eagerly awaiting their final and full report sometime in August, but preliminarily, we have been encouraged by the anecdotal observations which the team made before departing. However, as always, we still look forward to more suggestions for improvement!
An Amazon Spring June 2011
The water is up. After historic low water levels last fall, this spring has brought the reverse. But no complaint, as it makes everything look so much nicer and makes it so much easier to access villages by boat. The year has been busy and productive. So far we've brought three more water plants on line, with two more in the making this spring. By the end of the year, we'll add three more. The CONAPAC team just finished the community education workshops for the two latest water plants we built-—Puinahua and Yanamono II. We had almost a 100% participation rate, so we are feeling quite confident that river residents value these improvements to the community. The kids made their murals and we all had a blast! We've recently been asked by the local Rotary Club to host a water workshop for a village community where they will be providing a water plant. The club is not set up for this kind of education, so CONAPAC will be filling the void in July. It will be our first collaboration with the Iquitos Rotary Club and hopefully more will follow in our common effort to provide access to clean water.
In April we made Adopt-A-School deliveries and had a successful Conservation Expedition. The late date of Easter this year made us schedule these projects a bit early, but still we had more volunteer participants than ever before. Volunteer fees help underwrite the cost of our employee salaries, so more money can go into programs. Explorama Lodges, as always, was very generous in providing food, lodging, boats, and guides for our delivery efforts. Without our volunteers and Explorama, there wouldn't be a CONAPAC. Thank you one and all!!
Soon CONAPAC will be taking over management and ownership of the CCC Jungle Library, which was started by Dr. Nancy Dunn about 10 years ago. This unique place of learning is located about 50 miles down the Amazon River from Iquitos in the heart of the Peruvian rainforest. CONAPAC plans to make only minimal changes to Nancy's successful formula, but nonetheless this will be a transitional year. Megan Thomas, our current CONAPAC volunteer, has been learning the ropes. She will take over day-to-day management in July and, if all goes according to plan, Megan will be with CONAPAC and the library for several years to come. Keep your eye out for more information on this latest endeavor.
Water Workshops
May 2011
CONAPAC just hosted two more water education workshops in the communities of Puinahua and Yanamono II. Over 300 more rainforest residents have access to potable water through our community water treatment plants. The kids participated in creating water theme-based murals and the best group won prizes! Young and old, the value of clean water was reinforced, further strengthening Amazon River communities!
Sandy Spring Friends School Service Project March 2011
On March 16th the students from Sandy Spring Friends School in Maryland visited the community of San Antonio de Miraño for a service project. They painted houses, planted palm trees, worked on a sidewalk, and began building a playground. They finished the day celebrating Carnival, getting their faces painted with achiote, dancing around the Humisha palm tree, and getting soaking wet! The students did an awesome job and the community looks great!
A Great 2011 is Planned for CONAPAC February 2011
The schedule is filling up fast at CONAPAC. Our donors continue to respond to the need for clean water, education. and oversight. The SAGA Charitable Trust came through with funding for four water plants, plus the necessary monitoring. We have three other water plants planned from individual donors. They are St. John's Church in Chambersburg, PA, the DeBlieu Family from Manteo, NC, Amazon Amigos, and Mr. James Humphrey from Grand Rapids, MI. We haven't decided where all the water plants will be located but thus far we are committed to Santa Martha, Yanamono, Puinauhua, and San Antonio de Marupa. At the end of this year we will have built 21 community water plants, providing access to clean water for over 4,000 river residents.
Although Adopt-A-School is a year-round effort, it really starts heating up now! Books and supplies are due any day. Every hallway, empty corner, or storeroom will be stacked with paper, pencils, balls, notebooks, etc. Due to the later date of Easter this year, AAS is doing deliveries before the holiday, which means we start on Monday, April 2nd. The pressure is on, but with the long winter that most of the US states have endured, our volunteers are more than ready to get into some hot humid weather. Once again, we'll have two teams of volunteers. The first will handle only deliveries of books and supplies. The second team will do a few deliveries and then move on to the village of Llachapa for four days. Here they will help install individual water systems in 16 homes. This is part of a pilot project being underwritten by LifeSource Adventist Fellowship in Denver, CO. This one-year program will measure the usage rate and opinions of the community by using three different systems: one community-wide water plant and two different individual systems. We hope to learn which system offers the best option for communities.
Service projects are already underway, and our newest member at CONAPAC, Megan Thomas, has been helping all week with the students from Field School in Washington, D.C. There are three more projects planned for March and one in April. June, July. and August will bring a whole other round of school groups. Megan will be helping Marcos with most of these projects, as well as working at Las Malvinas school and the CCC Library new to Explorama Lodge. Welcome Megan--we're delighted to have you and your expertise!
Adopt-A-School 2011 is just around the corner Mid-November 2010
Textbooks have been ordered and received, and all 25,000 notebooks that we custom produce are on order. We're hoping to beat the Christmas rush for school supplies and other products which clog up shipping around this time of year. With Easter so late next year, the AAS delivery week has been moved up by two weeks, putting more pressure on the process. But sometimes a tighter deadline keeps everyone more focused. We expect some extra volunteers this coming year and, no matter what, it will all fall into place!
Our seven water plants for this year are also wrapping up. We are thrilled to now have 14 in place, providing access to clean water for about 3,500 people. We have more to do, but our donors continue to be generous and community interest is high. We will also wrap up our seventh community education water workshop in December. These workshops have been invaluable to the success of the water plants. Continued testing and monitoring will be a focus for 2011 as we add more water plants and care for the ones we have built thus far.
The Garden at Las Malvinas School November 2010
What a great year we've had at Las Malvinas School with our garden project. Along with growing vegetables, medicinal plants, ornamental plants, and a nursery, we have a fish and turtle pond. This was the first year for the fish farm, and although we had an uphill battle to get it off the ground, we made it happen and it's been a great success. This week we harvested the last of the 450 fish we originally added in May. From fish barely the size of your little finger, they have grown to well over a kilo each (2.2 pounds). This has been the senior class project, and the students have learned a great deal along the way, not just the process of growing and maintaining a fish farm, but the principles of business. They have learned how to make an investment and calculate 
costs to determine gross and net profits, used mathematical and scientific techniques, and experienced the joy of success.
The whole school turned out to watch the harvest along with the director of the board of education and some local press. Several women from the neighborhood were there with their baskets to make purchases. All the fish were sold immediately, either at the open market or to Explorama Lodges. The going price for this kind of fish is S/7 per kilo (about $1.15 per pound). The students have a savings account which has been building throughout the 
year. Now they will have seed money for next year as the new seniors start classes in March. The pond will be drained, cleaned, and made ready for next year. We plan to start the project immediately upon the beginning of the school year in March since the pond is already in place. This will give the fish more time to grow. We anticipate more profits to help with the cost of fish food and other expenses. The seniors this year will take a small portion to spend on a class party. International Expeditions has made this endeavor possible by providing funds for project development and ongoing operational expenses.
How Low Can It Go? October 2010
This year's low water season has been historic. Just when we think it might turn around, a little rain falls or we hear there's rain in the highlands, it only gets worse! Many items that normally come to Iquitos by boat are just sitting and waiting. The locals who normally fill the markets with fish, plantains, and other jungle fruit cannot even get to the Amazon or Napo Rivers, as their own access streams are dried up. Getting to Iquitos to sell their goods is impossible. The markets are noticeably more quiet, and that is not a good sign.
We worry about our communities that have water treatment plants. In some cases, the water pipes that feed the treatment plants aren't long enough, nor is the pump motor powerful enough to draw water for processing. Some communities organize bucket brigades in order to fill the tanks, but that too is getting more and more difficult. Most villages have a small stream or pond deeper in the rainforest on the way to their chacras, but this water will not get treated and, despite strides in producing clean water, at times it's just not possible to treat it for consumption. We are all very eager for the October/November rains to fall and the snow in the Andes to begin to melt so that water will come our way.
Fish Harvest at Las Malvinas Garden August 2010
At the end of July, students at Las Malvinas School in Iquitos carried out the first of three fish harvests for the season. The creation and development of this small fish farm in the middle of the city has been a long time in coming, so everyone was delighted to finally see the fruits of their labor. International Expeditions is the donor for this fish farm and the Las Malvinas Garden. Friends of Amazon Amigos have also contributed in a variety of ways, particularly helping with fish food for the year. During the harvest the students learned a great deal. All the fish were accounted for and about 100 were measured and weighed for a report on average size and weight. Profits from fish sales will go to pay for fish food for next year’s class. The students are learning the value of hard work, investment, sales and marketing, bookkeeping, profits, and reinvestment. And everyone had a very good time.
U.S. Students Join Villagers to Work on Projects July 2010
June should be the end of school--right? For most it is, but for a few, school's not out yet. During June and July, Explorama and CONAPAC hosted 13 middle and high school student groups doing a wide variety of projects. They have built water treatment plants, helped build children's playgrounds, painted houses and schools, planted palm and camu camu fruit trees, built benches, dug trenches and laid pipes for water plants, poured cement and made sidewalks, created art projects and painted community murals. Wow! What a lot of work! But it was fun, too. We're happy to have them and the cross-cultural activities enriched their travel experience.
Assessing Water Systems June 2010
Once again our grad students from the University of Colorado are here for more work on clean water and sanitation systems. Christie Chatterley, David Sparkman, Cole Sigmon, and Jeff Walters will be here for the month of June. Along with James Pasmiño (our new CONAPAC staff member) and local university students from Iquitos, they will be visiting all our communities which currently have water plants. If time allows, they will stop by other communities that have expressed an interest in clean water systems. These students will be providing valuable feedback to CONAPAC about usage rates, ease of access, attitudes, barriers to usage, health status, financial limitations, etc. We look forward to their observations and recommendations. This information will be shared with our donors, both large and small, as we move forward in our attempt to provide clean water systems to all communities in our Adopt-A-School program. We are on track to have 16 water plants built this year. However, there are 73-75 communities in our program. We've done a lot, but have a long way to go. Our collaboration with the University of Colorado has been a real bonus for our long-term goals and we hope to continue the partnership next year and beyond!
New CONAPAC Staff Member April 2010
Probably the biggest challenge CONAPAC has, besides the great travel distances to travel to do our work, is the lack of adequate manpower. With International Expeditions’ financial support, we were positioned this year to hire additional staff. We are delighted to introduce James Pasmiño Escobedo, an accredited school teacher who has had extensive experience in the rainforest. He taught for seven years and then worked in the Adopt-A-School rainforest community of Nuñez Cocha the last four years as its principal. He will be working in the jungle five days a week, using Marcos’s old boat to visit villages. A rotation schedule will be worked out so that each village school and various sustainable projects will be visited on a regular basis. We expect James to be able to answer questions, find solutions and encourage cooperation among community authorities, residents, teachers, parents and students. James has been contracted to work from April through December of 2010. Everyone at CONAPAC is excited about the possibilities and experience James will bring to the table. Improving our project oversight, supporting and retaining teachers, plus assisting with service projects, are just a few of the things we hope to achieve with this added CONAPAC staff member.
Great gifts from our partners! February 2010
Very soon we will begin our 17th year of providing books and school supplies to children and teachers who live along the Amazon and Napo Rivers. Unfortunately, this year our donor units are down substantially. But GREAT NEWS! International Expeditions and the Detroit Zoological Society have stepped up to fill the void. New textbooks and teacher workshops will once again be provided due to their generosity. Thank you IE and DZS for coming to the rescue. You’re the best!!
Once again, the SAGA Foundation has provided a substantial grant to CONAPAC for the construction of water treatment plants. Last year they helped us build three water plants and provided money for seven water workshops. This year, they have made a donation large enough to build four new water plants, provide six workshops and extra money for gasoline and salaries. They are an excellent and on-going donor-partner working to improve the lives of those living along the Amazon and Napo Rivers.
