The first crew of community members have now been down in Belize for 3 months, and are setting up an infrastructure to really get things going.

Now with a basecamp setup in Benque Viejo Del Carmen, the small border town located most closely to the Better In Belize Ecovillage site, we can more easily monitor and focus on construction of the community. You see the basecamp is actually the Benquehouse guesthouse that is currently half finished but not open for business just yet. We will be using it as a place for community members to stay while involved in volunteer work or in transition to or from the ecovillage.

From Benque, the ecovillage is a mere 15-20 minutes down Arenal rd. Construction in the past few days has begun by widening and making new roads to give easy access via vehicles to much of the site, as well as having local machete men hack new trails, and clear old trails for easy foot passenger access down to the river and to other areas of the site.

We have been quite cautious in begining construction as we didn't want to accidentally destroy any rare medicinal or food plants that would be of benefit to our community. The local machete men that we hired for clearing trails are also skilled in plant identification, and already discovered a few rare plants that we've had to work around.

Land clearing is a necessary part of any ecovilage jungle project, as the jungle here is far too thick and lush, but it's important to be a ecologically balanced as possible in this instance, and to gather the knowledge ahead of time to know how and where to clear land, and what to leave intact. We will have 50% of the land left as green space, and we must choose it wisely to maintain the most efficient permacultural sustainability.

Soon we will be constructing the first building on the property, and from there will come more. It's a satifying feeling to see the first construction happening in the ecovillage I plan to live.