I apologise yet again for a late or missing newsletter.  I am afraid I simply ran out of time, to a considerable extent because I was finishing off things and preparing for my trip to Honduras.  I have now returned from a very exciting and worthwhile trip, where I have seen the Inga alleys at CURLA (part of the National Autonomous University of Honduras) and on the mountainside, and brought back details of an excellent project that I hope we will be supporting in the very near future.  So you can look forward to hearing a lot more about it in subsequent newsletters.  However, to make up for lack of newsletter last month I am including some photos from my trip.

There were large and showy flowers, both in cultivation and the wild. (Photo by Tiiu Miller 2009.

As the plane flew low over Belize before touching down at the airport we flew over a rainforest.  It looked like a green cauliflower, with here and there tall, flowering, generally yellow, trees towering above the canopy.  Below is an image with a flowering tree from a rainforest in Honduras.

Rainforest with flowering trees.  Photo by Tiiu Miller 2009.

The Cangrejal River near La Ceiba, with forested mountains behind it. Photo by Tiiu Miller 2009.

But driving up the road by the river we saw many mountainsides severely scarred by slash and burn farming. (Photo by Tiiu Miller 2009.

A small settlement.  Many people are clearly very poor.  Honduras is the third poorest country in South and Central America. Photo by Tiiu Miller 2009.

Inga alleys on the FunaVid mountain. Photo by Tiiu Miller 2009.

In spite of all the little beasties Romy Krueger documented here are some healthy looking Inga trees on a mountainside alley cropping plantation.  These plantations were planted in 2006.  Some have already been pruned and crops planted and harvested.  This year Dr. Valle will be planting crops into all these alleys.

A perfect alley of Inga edulis at CURLA. Photo by Tiiu Miller 2009.

A perfect little Inga tree on FUNAVID property. Photo by Tiiu Miller 2009.

The most charming locals, Suzy and Betsy.  Betsy is an abbreviation of a much longer name. (Photo by Tiiu Miller 2009.