362 peasant families seek to rebuild the native forest in the department of Guaviare, in the Colombian Amazon, to bury a history of decades of violence and environmental damage

Where these peasants live, at the confluence of three large Colombian regions, the Andes, the Ori-

noquia and the Amazon, high levels of deforestation are taking place due to the advance of the

agricultural frontier. According to recent data from the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and En-

vironmental Studies (IDEAM), 66% of the country's deforestation is concentrated in six depart-

ments; two of them are Caquetá (20%) and Guaviare (5%) that are part of this confluence of re-

gions.

Deforestation and transformation of the forest represents an imminent danger to the ecological

connectivity between the Andes forest and the Colombian Amazon. According to the Amazonian

Institute of Scientific Research (SINCHI), ecosystem diversity is subject to multiple human related

pressures such as the turning forests into pastures for livestock, cultivation of illicit crops, illegal

mining and selective wood exploitation. The region’s potential for oil extraction and the construc-

tion of road infrastructure increases the pressure over these regions.

As one of the strategies to reduce deforestation and promote forest conservation, in 2015 the pro-ject "Forest Conservation and Sustainability in the Heart of the Amazon" funded by the Global En-vironment Facility (GEF) and implemented by the World Bank, was approved. The main goal of the project is to prevent deforestation of 9.1 million hectares (has) while providing alternatives to local communities to improve their quality of life and strengthen their organizational processes. With a duration of 5 years, the project is being executed by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, the National Natural Parks Unit, IDEAM, Natural Heritage Fund and the SINCHI In-stitute.

Farmers are key actors in the project and their main role is to commit to no deforestation in their farms, allocate a minimum of three hectares of land for a productive agroforestry project, and over-all use the forests natural resources without deteriorating it.

Communities of the Colombian Amazon work hand in hand with science to conserve the forest

The goal of sustainability and conservation

Results of more than 20 years of research developed by SINCHI, with active participation of local

communities, has been fundamental for the development of Heart of the Amazon project. SINCHI

oversees the project’s pillar that promotes sustainable practices for prevention and control of de-

forestation due to the expansion of the agricultural frontier and colonization. To do so, the objec-

tive was set to develop a work model with farmers to enable them to manage their farms in a sus-

tainable manner, by conserving and recovering their different ecosystem functions, such as the

regulation of water resources which is particularly significant given that the Amazon can regulate

close to 50% of the planet’s fresh water. Other benefits expected for the intervention model are:

biodiversity protection and being carbon deposits that avoid large CO2 emissions accelerating

global warming.

Area of influence Caquetá

Area of influence Guaviare

Source: Patrimonio Natural

After 20 workshops with discussions

about climate change, forest management, Amazon goods and services and benefits from biodi-

versity, and in which nearly 500 people participated, 362 families (1,287 people approx.) decided

to act to conserve the jungle. These families committed to stop cutting the forest and conserve it

in their farms, to turn at least three hectares into forest, and to implement agroforestry production

systems. As compensation, they would training and inputs like tools and plant material, in addition

to economic incentives to compensate for the days they designate to comply with the agreement

instead of working in their farms.

The next step was a land use planning exercise at the farm level. In this stage, the beneficiaries

helped to build an analysis of their properties, to draw their farms using satellite tools maps, and

to project their desired farms. Because most of them were settlers who arrived initially at these

territories due to uprooting, displacement or migration, most of them did not possess property ti-

tles or clearly defined property boundaries. This situation required individual visits to the farms to

record the coordinates of their location. During workshops, participatory maps were created,

where each beneficiary delimited his property area, identified the current land uses, and estab-

lished potential uses for the application of landscape management tools.

Guided by the SINCHI experts and focusing on a sustainable production systemic approach, the farmers identified the number of productive areas, the state of their forests, waters reservoirs and land cover, and existent infrastructure, as well as the level of community organization and train-ing. The net result of the process was to identify what they were doing well, what were they doing wrong and how to correct it.

The initial activities conducted by SINCHI were: identify and gather potential beneficiaries, explain to them the project and encourage them to participate. This allowed for the first step of the process: the signing of a voluntary com-mitment to conserve the for-ests. For six months, researchers traveled to different farms located at different faraway regions. Some of these farms are more than 4 hours away from San José del Guaviare, and other ones are more than 6 hours by river from Cartagena del Chairá, the closest urban centers.

Source: Revista EcoGuía

Agreements of will: Paramount to save the Heart of the Amazon

Re-conversion of the territory Farmers, sponsored by the territory communal associations, began the reconversion process of their properties. For this, they considered the eco-systemic reality of the region: mostly forest, with an enormous diversity of timber and non-timber species.

To fulfill their commitment to convert three hectares of their land into forest, beneficiaries received

timber species such as Colombian mahogany, Black Manwood, yellow tree and cacao. This

aimed to implement what SINCHI technicians call a model of agroforestry production.

The job continues: today 43,745 hectares of land are being planned to make them economically and environmentally more sustainable. In these lands, agricultural and livestock production prac-tices will be improved and forest management and environmental conservation practices will be incorporated. With the support of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, credit bene-fits are being coordinated for licit productive activities with incentives for environmental conserva-tion, integrated agricultural and environmental rural extension and commercialization of forest products. The project has been a challenge for both scientific research and for institutions that have partici-pated as allies, such as: the regional environmental authorities (CDA and CORPOAMAZONIA), the Governors of Caquetá and Guaviare, the Municipal Mayors of San José del Guaviare, Cala-mar and Cartagena del Chairá, and the producers' associations Cooagroguaviare, Ascatragua and Asoes.

559 women and 728 men were trained in topics such as crop pro-duction improvement, clean farming practices, forest management, cli-mate change adaptation, and eco-system services; all of these fo-cused on its applicability for the ben-efit of the farm. They also received training to manage the plant material received from SINCHI and which was produced at the El Trueno Ex-perimental Station, a 119 hectares biological laboratory located at El Retorno in Guaviare.

Heart of the Amazon project has undoubtedly contributed to the integration of environmental policies starting in the bases represented by the communities, while responding to their eco-nomic and productive needs. The beneficiaries, are proud protagonists in the development of sustainable productive systems that contribute to the conservation of the amazon forests.

Source: Instituto SINCHI