Youth Foresters

APECA YOUTH FORESTERS

The next generation must impact the condition of the environment with new patterns of behavior to relieve the environmental crisis of Global Warming. The most effective teacher for a child is a parent who models desirable behavior.

In the social culture of the Amazon Rainforest family units are especially strong. Trust is placed most easily in the fellow family members who are interdependent in all aspects of their survival. Children accompany their parents to the family garden, learn to use a machete by age 8, and become responsible for carrying heavy loads of platano (green cooking bananas) or buckets of water on their heads. Survival is demanding, and everyone must help with the work required to feed and shelter the family.

APECA, with the cooperation of their trained village conservation leaders, provides education and saplings to 10 year olds in the remote villages. Many of the youth in the program of APECA”s Youth Forestry have been born to families who have had the community experience of Promotores de Salud. Trained Parteras (Midwives) have helped in their birthing. Now these children will nurture the trees to replenish the forest and effectively stabilize their community.

APECA in Peru, is a grass roots organization working with remote village populations, focusing on the education of youth who will become future conscientious foresters. El Fundo study center has been offering education in conservation and health to elected community leaders since 1996. Among its many projects APECA is providing saplings with seminars on forestry skills to 10 year olds in remote Amazon river villages to be mentored by trained community elected conservation leaders.

APECA provides saplings from their tree nursery at El Fundo to these trained and mentored. Empowered with education and saplings these young people plant and nurture ten trees on their own land. This project provides the materials they will use to build their homes when they are adults. These trees will also provide their families with an endless supply of cooking fuel. And finally, these future entrepreneurs can develop a business from efficiently managed renewable resources on their own land.

APECA is thereby a critical presence by enabling and encouraging sustainable community development in the Amazon Basin. APECA Youth Foresters are responding to the Paris Agreement of 12/2015 by setting an example through their daily life style.

These YOUTH FORESTERS are the generation that will help stabilize the Global future. APECA is a critical presence instilling sustainable communities in the Peruvian Amazon Basin.

For further information on the origins and intentions of this project see the detailed document below, or Contact APECA at: apecaperu@apecaperu.org!

To donate to APECA please click on the icon below, or you can mail a check to APECA, Inc. 23371 Mulholland Drive Suite #193, Woodland Hills CA 91364.

The NGO, APECA, has been directing social support systems in the city of Iquitos, Peru and the surrounding region for more than twenty years, and is represented in country by the founder, Regina Low. APECA is the formulating and executing institution of the following Reforestation Project.

Groups involved:

NGOs; Ministry of Agriculture; National Institute of Natural Resources; Communities of the District of Fernando Lores; National University of Peru in Amazonia

Goal:

The replenishment, management and conservation of the Amazon Rainforest in five rural communities.

I. IDENTIFICATION

I.1 Diagnostic of Present Situation

A climatological change is taking place in the Peruvian Rainforest, due in large part to extensive and unregulated logging practices. The pillaging of the Rainforest, without adequate control on the part of the population, has caused a negative impact in the ecosystem, seen in the increase of serious flooding and erosion along the length of the Amazon.

The Rainforest consumes large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, releasing equally significant amounts of oxygen. The Rainforest holds the prospect of reducing carbon dioxide levels in the environment, ameliorating significant world wide atmospheric problems. On the local level, Rainforest trees and shrubs provide food for jungle animals, which thereby provide food for Amazon communities. Extensive logging of the Rainforest drastically reduces available food for animals and people alike, threatening daily subsistence of river reduces available food for animals and people alike, threatening daily subsistence of river populations.

This project revolves around ecological education to be presented and developed in five communities in the Fernando Lores district. Established communities in the Muyuy Islands and the Tahuayo River are those which will participate in the planned Reforestation Project. For many years, these communities have used trees and palms for cooking fuel, housing construction, roofing materials, and profitable products such as firewood and charcoal, both in high demand in local markets.

Species used most frequently include Capirona (Calycophyllum Spruceanum), Tornillo (Cedrelinga Cateiniforme), Cumala (Virolas sp.), Yarina (Phytelephas Macrocarpa), and Irapay (Lepido-Caryum Grasite).

I.2 Approach to Present Situation

The goal of this project is the recuperation of the Amazon Rainforest through intensive Reforestation. The application of environmental education for the inhabitants of Amazon villages is fundamental, in the sense that the population, through training, will learn a more comprehensive criteria for recognizing the importance of a nurtured Rainforest.

This project presents the opportunity to change the condition of the Rainforest, while maintaining traditional labors of the population. By way of the protection and proper use of natural resources, through technical planning in a consistent and regulated quality, this project will be beneficial for Peruvian, and global ecosystems, while remaining connected to the requirements of the wood market at the regional, national, and world levels.

Demand for wood products is continuing to grow, in part due to the general rise of the rural population. The demand is localized in jungle villages, characterized by its volume relative to the industrial scale. This project seeks to find a way to satisfy family demands for forest resources, as well as the demands of local markets in Tamshiyacu and Iquitos.

The education necessary for the success of this project will consist of appreciation of the Rainforest environment, the benefits of conservation, and proper treatment of a flourishing Rainforest, as well as specific information concerning reforestation. This information will include skills in establishing nurseries, as well as knowledge of types of species used, handling of sprouts, methods of replanting, control of pests, and maintenance of the principal operations. Emphasis is placed on the participation of women and school children, and teaching them the responsible way of working for the care of nurseries.

II. TRAINING

II.1 The training program

The design and intention of training is educate the local residents on the basic knowledge needed to best benefit from this project. Knowledge will include which species will be worked with from the time of planting in nurseries to the time for sowing in the land.

Components of Program: 1. Recognition of the Area; 2. Pilot sample involving proposed species; 3. Calculation for a population model; 4. Elaboration on the needed cultural education; 5. Application of the needed cultural education; 6. Analysis and processing of investigations in the five communities; 7. Preliminary information of prospecting trips; 8. Planning of the community reforestation program; 9. Development of specific project activities, including the training program as follows–a. First training lecture: Understanding our biodiversity; b. Second training lecture: Defining a community reforestation program; c. Third training lecture: Natural regeneration, and its uses, including the benefits of regeneration for the community; d. Fourth training lecture: Installation and planning of nurseries; e. Fifth training lecture: Reforestation systems and their handling; f. Sixth training lecture: Handling and conservation of forest systems. 10. Monitoring and Evaluation of Installed Systems; 11.Collective Evaluation of the Program; 12.Final Report.

II.2 Costs

Costs will be shown in three phases. The primary phase of the project is framed around the identification of the natural regeneration of forest species, as well as the obtaining of botanical seeds. The secondary phase will consist of concerns the training sessions that each community will receive. Communities have been chosen for population density and degree of organization they possess. Training will focus on sensitizing the population to the importance of natural resources, in reference to reforestation work, as well as the handling and sustainable use of species used. This phase will have duration of three months, and will act in conjunction with the investigative group. The third phase is comprised of work in the field. Field work will be divided between five communities, where a total of twenty hectors will be reforested in each, for a total of one hundred hectors. Participation of the population is extremely important in this phase, so the people will learn skill in caring for their own resources, as well as the management of support such as food, medicine, equipment, tools, and materials for the field. Coordination must also be considered as an additional cost for these three phases, for efficient development and satisfactory relationships between trainers and the community.

II.3 Economic and Social Analysis

The positive environmental impact of this project will be evident when the forests and shores of the Amazon River have been replenished. With the training of the population in the handling of conservation, and use of Rainforest resources, the project will evolve into a sustainable system. While these ecological benefits are short term, economical benefits will not surface until the trees are matured enough for bringing to local markets

The monetary benefits of this project can accrue without corresponding social benefits, which would satisfy the necessities of the community and better the way of life of rural populations. Through training, this project seeks to sensitize local population, with the goal of establishing a compromise between the use and care of natural resources. Resources can only be managed through sensitization, and income will only be generated through proper care of the ecosystem.

III. CONCLUSIONS

The importance of this work in the Peruvian Amazon is vital, in the sense that the future of the Rainforest depends on the sensitization of people to the correct handling of natural resources. The communities participating were chosen for population density, as well as for the large sector they cover of the Tahuayo River and the Muyuy Islands. The training given to the community members facilitates the care and maintenance of systemized Rainforest plantations, assuring their permanence and creating a controlled, regulated method for grand scale reforestation, maintenance, and conservation of the Rainforest.