Recently the Community Recycling Center of Chugchilán, Ecuador built by Black Sheep Inn and funded through an ECOCLUB.com Awards grant in 2006, caught fire probably by arson. Fortunately only the roof was destroyed, the building itself held up quite well to the fire, which made the repair work easier. The arsonist was probably a youth with a book of matches; an unfortunate game of what someone can do with very little. 

A group of local neighbors noticed the fire and actually broke the lock on the door to get at the full water tanks inside the building to put out the fire.  The water tanks for the native tree nursery were placed inside the building for security reasons and they collect water from the roof of the same recycling building.   Some of the adobe walls came out of the fire hardened and cured like kilned red bricks.

Meanwhile an NGO aid organization has purchased the property next door to the recycling center to build a native tree nursery.  They are planning to produce 100,000 seedling trees per year!  This is a much larger scale nursery than what we were trying to do.  They want to also use the decomposed organic waste of the recycling center.  The local village government has recently purchased bricks to build more permanent composting areas for organic waste.  Check out the photos that show the rebuilding of the roof and in the background the new native tree nursery with built in irrigation watering systems.  The initial ideas are now being carried on and fostered by new energy (and funding).