Kate's Ecuador Adventure: War on Mora

Yesterday, I went to the highlands with a group of local and international students to participate in the on-going struggle against the invasion of mora (or, in English, blackberry). We headed to El Junco Lagoon, possibly the only freshwater lake in Galapagos. The view was beautiful, as was the weather. Apparently, when the other classes visited El Junco for a field trip, they could not even tell that there was a lake there because it was so cloudy. We could see out over the highlands and all the way to the ocean from the top. El Junco is located inside a volcano, which you may or may not be able to tell by looking at it.

Anyway, I digress. Mora is an introduced species to Galapagos, but it has flourished and overtaken much of the native vegetation of the highlands. Best way to take out anger= use a machete to hack down a bunch of mora. It does hurt, however, if you happen to get stabbed by the huge thorns the plant produces to protect itself. This happened to me several times over the course of the afternoon and it is quite painful.

To prevent the mora we cut down from growing back, we planted endemic miconia in its place. We also contributed by eating as many of the blackberries as we could find.

Overall, it was a fun experience and it made me feel like I was actually giving something back to the community.