We met with representatives from the Association of Honey Producers in Southern Amboró, the group whose membership has sprung from 5 to more than 60. What’s neat is that you sit in this room and realize you aren’t meeting with honey producers; you’re meeting with conservations who happen to make honey. They are committed to land and watershed preservation and now are working through the same kinds of problems that conservationists around the world face.

The project has gone according to plan—downstream water users are contributing the equivalent of US$ 0.50 per month to a fund for conservation, and the upstream farmers in Santa Rosa have been cultivating bees instead of cutting down trees for agriculture. This is a watershed agreement that has worked.

Today members of the cooperative want to discuss some of their challenges with Nigel.

First, the downstream community has both a new mayor and a new head of the water cooperative. They see the fund as money for creating jobs—not necessarily conservation jobs—and want to use the money to build roads. Fundación Natura representatives as well as some of the Santa Rosa honey cooperative members will meet with the downstream mayor and water coop manager next week. Nigel is also sending a former mayor from a near-by downstream town who experienced great success with the water agreement program in his town. Nigel hopes this experienced politician will be able to influence the downstream mayor.

The second order of business was property rights, which are very difficult to determine and enforce. The coop members are being told that to keep land rights they need to make the land productive otherwise, the government will redistribute the land. Productive is defined either by cattle grazing or cleared land for agriculture. The bee keepers are concerned because bee keeping is not considered productive. The group discusses solutions and how to work with the government to keep the land.

The final order of business is a honey processing facility the coop is in the midst of building. By processing the honey, the coop can market the honey in major supermarkets and other facilities. The problem is that they don’t have enough money to complete the facility. They need US$10,000 for the equipment. Nigel brainstormed approaches for raising the money.