Reforestation in Peru

The LATA Foundation planted 8,000 trees in the Cancha Cancha region of the Sacred Valley of the Incas on 19 January. This is part of the reforestation project run by ECOAN (Asociacion Ecosistemas Andinos) to plant a million trees by 2020. Another 4,000 trees were planted in Tacllapata on the same day and a further 10,000 in Patacancha. ECOAN have since planted an additional 15,000 trees.

This year's tree-planting season got under way with 10,000 trees planted on Saturday 10 December and 13,000 the following day. These were funded by Amazonas Explorer, a travel company based in Peru which has long been a member of the Latin America Travel Association. Paul Cripps of Amazonas Explorer informs us that his company provided around 50 volunteers (office staff, guides, drivers and porters) and around 200 people participated from the communities of Pampacorral and Quishuarani.

"It is a whole family affair, " says Paul. "The men dig the holes, the women plant the trees and the kids pick up the plastics bags. It’s amazing that in literally 4 or 5 hours we plant that quantity of trees but it does get done. "

"Both communities have their own nurseries so we bought the seedlings directly from them, we paid them to plant the trees and we gave them lunch as well – so something like 95% of the money we spend goes back to the community."

Another 5,000 trees were planted on 15 December and 8,000 on the 16th. Then on the 22nd of December a staggering 22,000 saplings  were planted followed by another 12,000 on the 28th. That makes 70,000 trees in December alone.

This brings the total number of trees planted to 205,000 to date of which the LATA Foundation has already provided 28,500.  

We actively appeal to travellers, supporters, travel companies and organizations dealing with Peru to support this reforestation campaign.

Each sapling costs $1 (61p) so a contribution of £3 will plant 5 trees. 40 donations of £15 will provide a thousand new trees towards our goal.

The saplings are a native Andean birch. The tree-planting programme is designed to counteract the environmental pressures of tourist activity and to support local communities. The success rate is currently over 95%.

We are particularly grateful to The Adventure Company for inviting their passengers to contribute towards reforestation. Their contributions were then matched by the company and raised over £2000.   

Please help us if you can.

Contributions

If you would like to make a donation or set up a monthly direct debit to support our reforestation project, please click onto our Donations pages or go to www.justgiving.com/lata.  

Date added: 28 January 2012