October Meeting and Yard Tours Cancelled

Fellow MRFC Members,

Due to Hurricane Milton, the Board has cancelled next Monday's club meeting, and the member yard tour scheduled for October 19 will be rescheduled to a future month.

No doubt many of our fruit trees will be blown over. For those that can be stood back up, correct resetting techniques can greatly improve their chances of recovery. This video by Jeff Wasielewski illustrates these techniques (the portion from minutes 20:30 through 33:00 concerns post-hurricane recovery). Jeff, along with Jonathan Crane and Carlos Balerdi, also explain resetting and other important post-hurricane recovery practices in this online article.

We hope that you and all our fellow Floridians will be safe, and will be able to manage whatever challenges this historic storm brings.

-- The MRFC Board of Directors

September 2024 Meeting - Paul Beaver - Western Amazonia Fruits and Ecotourism

Speaker/Topic: Paul Beaver - Western Amazonia Fruits and Ecotourism

Meeting Date/Time: Monday, September 9th, 2024 at 7pm.  

Location: Harlee Building/County Fairgrounds, 1303 17th St W, Palmetto, FL 34221

Our September Speaker

From the Program Committee: 

Our September 9 speaker will be Paul Beaver, owner of Amazonia Expeditions. Amazonia Expeditions offers specialty travel excursions in wilderness and wildlife reserves throughout South America, as well as in Africa and Asia, but its primary focus is the Amazon forest of the Tahuayo River basin in Peru.

Paul is a supporter of the Angels of the Amazon foundation, which provides the indigenous people living in the 14 communities of the Tahuayo River with basic human needs such as health care, education and economic initiatives. The people of the communities help protect a biodiverse 1.1 million acre conservation reserve that is home to the greatest diversity of species of monkeys found in any protected park or reserve in the world.

Paul received his doctorate in biology from the University of Chicago in 1976. After teaching positions at Purdue University and the University of Washington, he began work as a conservationist biologist and ecotourism provider in the western Amazon forest in 1980. His conservation work earned the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Chicago, and his work in ecotourism earned his business a Presidential Award for social responsibility in Peru in 2019.

Paul will give a presentation on his ecotourism mission as well as review the unique fruits of the western Amazon forest.