Wisely and Generously

January 30, 2019
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571,338

tonnes reduced in 2018

Maria Hernandez was skeptical at first. Many people had visited her family’s coffee plantation in the Alto Mayo rainforest in Peru and have told her that she should protect the forest while growing coffee. But those people never considered her livelihood, never followed up, and never showed her how. But this group was different. “The engineers and technicians came all the way up to my farm,” and what they had to say made a lot of sense.

“We agreed to take care of all the forest in return for technical advice and support. We realized that we didn’t grow our coffee properly, using slash-and-burn practices. Now we understand the importance of pruning and organic fertilizers. We don’t cut down trees. We look after the birds and animals in the forest. We now have good coffee and vegetable crops that we sell in our own shop.”

In 2018, this project reached a milestone of 1,000 conservation agreements with local families in Alto Mayo. Because the project showed them how to use more sustainable practices and still earn a living, those 1,000 families are now ardent practitioners of rainforest conservancy who have helped to reduce deforestation in Alto Mayo by 52% and eliminated 571,338 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2018.

Is a rainforest a global resource to protect against climate change, or is a rainforest an economic necessity for local populations? It can be both.

Thank you for supporting this project, and Maria Hernandez, in 2018.

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