“Of course, many people in aid and development community have seen the imbalance and they are working on mitigating its damage. But we cannot return to the original or primitive balance - it is gone forever. We can reach a new equilibrium by empowering the people in these native villages to control their lives and destinies. My project in Cuarto is one of many attempts to find the new positive equilibrium. It is in this spirit - to learn with the people the new equilibrium and our place in it - that my project proceeds.”

Tanya’s project, based upon re-balancing and re-enlivening the native culture, seeks to create a new positive equilibrium through the re-harmonization of her people with their forest territories in a changing world. It also recognizes the naiveté of modern people - of us -, who come to help. It comes with the understanding that when you realize that you are in a cathedral like the Amazon forest, you don't shout, rather you are respectful, and that if you have not prayed their before, you sit and watch and see who worships and how they worship. And critically, it recognizes that if you learn to take your time before making judgments, like deciding that "these people are poor and need my help", you and they can find balance.

It is based on agro-forestry, using their knowledge of the forest and the balances within it to create not only a cash crop-living for the village, but to enter and enlarge the circle of harmony within the forest. It seeks to help heal the damage that has been done to the forest and to create a new cycle of sustainable living for the Cuartanos that will rejuvenate the icaros, and ripple out through the forest as harmony, and through the western development community as a model.