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With almost 50,000 hectares under cultivation, the Alto Mayo Valley is the most important rice producer in Peru. It is watered by the Mayo River and 20 other tributaries that originate from the two mountain ranges that rise to the south and north of the plain. The mountain range flanking it to the south is the Alto Mayo Protected Forest, which has 182,000 hectares under protection since 1987. It is one of the most biodiverse spots in the country and is considered one of the priority protected areas nationally, according to the National Service for Confederationally Protected Natural Areas.
In contrast, the vast plain that stretches at the foot of both massifs has been cleared and turned into a vast prairie where monocultures of rice, coffee, and grazing are mainly cultivated. On the territory, believers of the Second Jerusalem Presbyterian Church live together with the native communities of the Awajún ethnic group and thousands of itinerant farmers, especially from the Sierra de Cajamarca.
The relentless expansion of agricultural frontiers over the past few decades has destroyed thousands of hectares of forest and threatens the sustainability of key water sources, while the indiscriminate use of pesticides – some mandated by the international community – is poisoning rivers and plunder on land. The murky and sediment-rich Mayo River flows through the backbone of the rice basin.
“The common practice is to cut down and burn the forest and wait for something to grow. No one in government said ‘do it like this’,” says Constantino Aucca of the Andean Ecosystems Association (Ecoan). “We had to break bad practices and introduce good practices. There is no short term. Changes take at least five years.”
Peruvian biologist Constantino Aucca Constantino Aucca from the Andean Ecosystems Association (Ecoan). Marco Zileri
Aucca is working with the organization Conservation International (CI) on a comprehensive and complex strategy to restore forests hand-in-hand with local communities so that “they can produce sustainable and organic products with higher market value and improve the quality of life in harmony with nature”. . , says Daniela Amico from CI.
In the Awajún indigenous community of Shampuyacu, in the heart of the Alto Mayo Valley, an industrial-scale nursery has been operational for seven months. The plan is to plant one million trees on one thousand hectares over the next 12 months. A total of ten kindergartens have been set up in the Alto Mayo Valley, but the largest is in Shampuyacu.
“Guaba, tornillo, cedro, lagarto, shimbillo, metohuayo, caimito, caoba,” enumerates engineer Santos Chasquibol, the nursery’s coordinator, as he walks down long corridors between rows of seedling. “The screw is made of very hard wood and reaches the spot very well, insects hardly affect it; “Cedar will be appreciated by our children who know how to think like that,” says Chasquibol, describing the qualities of the most notorious species of wood.
“Chope is a native fruit of the region and vanilla, a species of orchid, grows well in the Muddy and Aguajales regions. “The kilo pays 160 soles (just under $45) and abroad, a well-managed $290,” notes the engineer. Coffee, pitajalla and copazu plants (among the fruit-bearing species) or guacapu plants (among the wood species) also germinate in the nursery. A total of 40 native species are produced under the harsh tropical sun. The vast variety of tree seeds they use are harvested by the Awajún themselves from the surrounding tropical forests.
“If people don’t see real benefit, they won’t join the program. Humans are responsible for deforestation,” Aucca recalls. “If we know what the problem is, why aren’t you working on it?”
Nursery in the Awajún community of Shampuyacu, growing native species of trees and fruit in the Alto Mayo Valley of northeastern Peru. Marco Zileri
Reclaim the forest for the ancestors
Sisters Meslibeth, Sherline and Sandy Achallap devote themselves to the manual labor of peeling or sowing seedlings from the nursery, 200,000 seedlings per campaign. “The tree gives us the air we breathe, the water we use, and it’s used to build our homes,” says Meslibeth, an Awajún Indian who patiently buries each seed one by one in an infinite bowl. “We want to win back the forest for our ancestors,” he says.
The community work in the kindergarten is organized in shifts that change weekly, so that as many local women as possible take part and benefit from a corresponding daily wage.
Last year, the Shampuyacu community signed a conservation agreement with the state’s National Service for Protected Areas (Sernamp), a government agency that reports to the Ministry of Agriculture. The community pledged not to cut down another foot of old growth or primary forest and to replant their already degraded acres with native trees from the nursery.
Shampuyacu is one of the communities hardest hit by deforestation and deforestation and indiscriminate use of pesticides. Indigenous peoples often lease their land to outsiders at very low prices. Accelerated soil degradation is forcing farmers to continue clearing forests in search of fertile soil.
Some 20,000 hectares of the Alto Mayo Protected Forest have also been deforested, but the phenomenon has been mitigated by conservation agreements signed in recent years with 729 families and another 20 collective bargaining agreements, including the latter with five Awajún aboriginal communities out of a total of 15. The annual rate of deforestation over the period 2018–2020 was 195 hectares per year according to the CI.
The red areas indicate the progress of deforestation in the Alto Mayo Valley over the past decade. decency
The conservation agreements include support to improve the productivity of coffee plantations, governance schools, craft and product marketing workshops, community libraries and ecotourism ventures.
“Reforestation attempts to reverse this perverse cycle by planting native species, many legumes, which have the particularity of fixing nitrogen from the air and nitrifying soil and degraded soils. “What the locals are planting are long-term, perennial plantations,” emphasizes Aucca.
A sustainable future rooted in the soil and in the minds of Shampuyacu’s indigenous community. “Conservation in the sense of “don’t touch, just look” is not practicable. You have to understand that people have basic needs, it’s a question of justice,” explains Braulio Andrade, forest engineer and head of project management at CI.