Touch the Jungle Update

The nonprofit project, Touch The Jungle, is a rainforest and wildlife conservation project working in a rural area of Ecuador. So you are probably wondering why we are currently raising funds to build a high school and how that relates to habitat and wildlife conservation. It's really simple. The local people are ultimately the end line of defense to protect the habitat and wildlife. Without their direct cooperation and involvement, it is a losing battle to protect anything on a local level. Outsiders can buy all the forested land they want, and people can donate to "protect an acre of rainforest" but if the people who live there are not actively involved in habitat protection, then nothing is really protected at all.

However, the majority of the local people live in extreme poverty without even the most basic life necessities, which often is the reason why they will end up agreeing to timber clear cutting or mining, sometimes illegally. TTJ's approach is to work directly with the local people and help improve their lives in order to empower them to protect their own forests and wildlife. We have found in Intag, the community we work with, a very strong fundamental desire to protect their natural resources such as their forests, their rivers, their wildlife, even at great sacrifice to themselves. So TTJ works hard to help them protect their forests and watersheds.

In this case, they do not have a high school. TTJ believes that building a high school/trade school will give the young adults of this region the tools to help them protect their forests, watersheds, and wildlife better than ever before, and for many generations to come. Our high school will be a satellite location of the government schools, the government will provide the teachers, curriculum, and ongoing support once we build the school. The TTJ school will also be a trade school that students can earn degrees in organic agriculture and animal husbandry, watershed management, forestry management, wildlife management, etc, and our wildlife rehab facility will be directly involved with students as well.

Providing this type of education will not only improve the lives of generations of young adults, allows them a chance to have better jobs, but it also directly provides them with the tools to protect their habitats and wildlife. No longer will mining, drilling, or timber companies come in making false promises, lies about the environmental effects of their destructive practices. The local citizens will have the education to directly confront those lies and take a stand, with facts and knowledge on their side. They will have the knowledge to live sustainably in their own communities day to day as well. The Touch The Jungle school will become the training grounds for generations of Environmental Warriors and together we will save this area of tropical rainforest and cloud forests of Intag.

And not only will we help the Intag forests, but contamination of the Intag rivers and forests will run down into the Amazon forest and the coastal rainforests of Ecuador to further contaminate and harm wildlife, habitat, and peoples further downriver. In short, TTJ provides help in many ways to the area of Intag, Ecuador. We improve the lives of local people by providing education and health care for their children and young adults, supporting local businesses, helping women start their own businesses and supporting women's issues, creating jobs in Eco tourism, etc. The end gains of all those efforts are the protection of wildlife and habitat.

So no matter what your interest, whether it is helping children in poverty, education, healthcare, clean water, environmental issues, creating jobs, wildlife or habitat conservation, we hope you will see a way to help TTJ in our efforts. Our US nonprofit agency, Earthways, covers all overhead and admin expenses, so that 100% of your donations go directly to the project level. Everyone that works with TTJ are volunteers, including myself. This year, Earthways is matching all donations we raise towards the school project, so your donation is automatically doubled. You can read more about TTJ on our website at http://touchthejungle.org/ Please consider making a donation to Touch The Jungle this year.

Thanks! ~Tracy Wilson, TTJ project director.

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