As the new year is starting, we are packing up our suitcases, sub-letting our appartments and finishing up on the final to-dos before stepping into the airplane to fly to Uruguay. We (my beloved husband and I) will spend 7 months on my family farm overlooking the floodplains of the San José River which is part of the nature reserve of the Santa Lucia wetlands. Wetlands are my big passion. I am a biologist and geographer focusing on research towards sustainable water management through participatory processes and policy impact. You can find my profile here on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ctavellan/.

Besides doing some maintenance work on the roughly 100 year old farm house and continuing to work remotely on my research projects, my main goal of my stay will be to embark on setting up environmental education trails in the Paso Flores reserve, a 17ha large forested area in the neighborhood. Together with the local Rotary Club and like-minded people we will physically put in trails through the shrubbery, remove some of the invasive blackberries and start showing native plants and animals to school classes. We also purchased some cameras to better observe animals. Let’s see what we discover.

If you want to help us, come volunteer or donate to this GofundMe https://gofund.me/ba432d06.