Permaculture, organic tropical fruit farm and nature reserve at the edge of the amazon in Ecuador.

We are a holistic permaculture farm focusing on a sustainable lifestyle by growing and cooking our own organic foods 🙂

In our climate almost everything grows. Just to give you and idea from Coconuts to Cocoa/cacao, Soursop, Jackfruit, Babaco, Breadfruit, Passion-fruit, etc. We (Swiss & French couple) started in March 2016 building our Non-Profit Organization with the philosophy of permaculture.

LOCATION
South of Ecuador at the edge of the Amazonas region surrounded by nature with great access to the Troncal Amazonica E45 (national road) only 2km away from Los Encuentros and 15minutes from the city of Yantzaza and about 3hours from Loja/Cuenca.

LIVE & WORK AT PERMATREE
Everyone works for 5 hours per day (6 days a week) on projects or maintenance, and helps to cook the meals. We use shared facilities: kitchen; bathroom; laundry area, and we take turns with daily chores like cleaning. We provide WIFI (internet limited a few hours a day, unless you want to get a personal CNT-chip $5 =300MB).

EAT & COOK HEALTHY
Eat healthy seasonal, local and partially organic food. We eat as much organic produce as possible and harvest as much of our food from the finca as we can. Sundays we go to one of the local markets to buy our food for the entire week. We cook all our meals together.

SUSTAINABILITY
Learn first hand what sustainability looks like. Our water is directly from the waterfall. Our house in built from fast growing bamboo instead of wood or cement. We have no glass windows just bamboo windows and most doors are recycled or made from bamboo too. We have recycled many beer bottles for the shower and toilet facility. We have also recycled used tires for stairs and erosion control projects. All our light bulbs are LED so they use a very small amount of power. One of our showers is heated by black pipes with the sun’s rays. All of our grey waste water goes into a banana circle and then a pond. We have composting toilets and use the compost in the garden. We try to be an education center where many people can learn about all these ideas/techniques and how they can apply them in their own homes. We also have a natural swimming pool which is fueled by the overrun of the main water tank for after hot days:)

SURROUNDED BY NATURE
At PermaTree you are literally surrounded by nature. We are located at the edge of the Amazonas region in the south of Ecuador with a breathtaking landscape view of the Rio Zamora. The twilight is spectacular on cloudy days. At night you can enjoy listening to the frogs, bats and owls. During the day, if you are lucky enough, you can see eagles very near our bamboo house. Snakes, spiders and moskitos are a part of the ecosystem here. You can walk around the farm which is about +75 hectares or 180 acres. There are several creeks and waterfalls within the different micro climates of the property.

FRUITS AND VEGETABLES AT PERMATREE:
Depending on the season you can find: papayas, bananas, plantain, cacao, ice cream bean, sugar cane, pineapple, guava, lemons, guayusa, hierba luisa (lemon grass type), cassava (yuca), wild cherry tomatoes, corn, rosemarie, basil, thine, aloe vera, vetiver, neem, noni, naranjilla, zapote and we have been planting guanábanas, mango, avocados, oranges, grapefruits, chirimoya, coconuts, strawberry, maracuya, bread fruit, bamboo (bamboo shoots), macadamia, peach palm (contact), soursop, jackfruit, star fruit and dragon fruit.

KNOWLEDGE:
Participate as and teach/learn from people who share their knowledge. On the other hand, we are always looking for mentors to teach the respective topics which match the specific sub-project. Or visit the farm to get a taste of permaculture in the green. Here we stress collaboration. We are about mutual enrichment and working together. There is no room for people who think they know everything.