REFORESTATION AND QUALITY OF LIFE IN BOLIVIA
Talk
about long range planning! According Montserrat Madrid, the Community of St.
Paul member who works with peasant communities in the Highlands of Bolivia, in
2006 the CSP initiated a reforestation project in the high plateaus of the
Andean mountains in Cochabamba (Bolivia) to improve the quality of life for the
people of this zone and to reverse the deforestation of
the region that began almost 500 years ago. Deforestation has been occurring
since the Spanish colonial era, when the region began to receive more
population. Because of the high altitude forests are very slow growth, the
needs for housing, cooking, building and mining structures began the process of
deforestation which also accelerated in the last two hundred years because of
overcrowding and many more people consuming the timber for firewood. At the
same time, there was no effort to manage the local forests and to reforest.
It’s not
as simple as planting seedlings and sitting down to wait for fifteen or twenty
years to begin harvesting the new pine trees. First came the feasibility tests
for a tree nursery at the high elevation (3666 meters = 12,027 feet). Then,
gradually, came the necessary infrastructure for such a project: water springs,
canals, water tanks, tool sheds, technical advisers, recruiting and
organizing 37 local land-holding participants and planning the layout of
reforestation areas for each of these community participants.
After the
seedlings in the nursery have grown to a size that can be planted, they are
distributed to the 37 land-holders, who are responsible for forestation of 5-10
acres established under the guidance of the technician. The technician monitors
and coordinates the work in the nursery. In addition to this nursery
management, the technician also oversees the selection of plants ready for
planting, the planting and the management of the plantation areas. At present,
200,000 plants are growing in the different plantations areas, including 45,000
planted earlier this year. The majority of the plants are growing well, thanks
to abundant rains, and are being groomed and tended carefully. It is expected
that 50,000 more trees currently in the nurseries will be ready to be
transplanted in the next rainy season.
As these
trees mature and are ready to harvest in 10 or 15 years they will provide good
quality wood that will benefit the 37 landholding families but also the 150
families of the community at large. In an initiative that won’t see a payoff
for a couple of decades, the community’s organizing work of raising awareness
of the project’s benefits through educational courses and workshops as well as
lots of hand-holding has been an essential leadership process. This process has
been vital so that the participants and community members can understand and
remain committed to the empowerment that the project will bring. As one proud
participant says: “We have been able to establish the highest tree nurseries in
Bolivia. We have very good plantations and we will continue on to build our own
timber mill and carpentry workshop”. Now, that’s empowerment!
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