Preserving the Amazon

Image Source: Reuters

With industrialization’s illusory progress enticing less-developed nations with notions of ‘ease’, protecting the Amazon’s deforestation in the four South American republics where its’ boundaries lie has been a struggle. It is a conflict akin to finding a needle in a haystack, and this ‘said’ needle is vital for continued life on planet Earth. The world’s rainforests serve as carbon warehouses, producing significant amounts of oxygen, thereby regulating global weather by buffering against floods and droughts.

In Brazil, the Amazon's destruction has reached an all-time low. This record ‘low’, in the last 24 years since Brazil has been monitoring deforestation, has been achieved with decreases in states where rampant destruction has historically taken place (44% in Parra and 31% in Mato Grosso). These decreases are offset by increases in the states of Acre (10%), Amazonas (29%), and Tocatins (33%).  Primary causes of deforestation in the Amazon are: trafficking in timber and minerals, which is illegal, fires, and the increased adoption of agriculture and breeding livestock.

Successful decreases in the Amazon’s deforestation have been obtained in Brazil as a result of strict environmental policing deterring aggressive development. Measures taken to protect the forest have not been exclusively punitive. Pro-active educational measures have shared information with cultures, living in the forest, about alternative means to make a living.Rainforest Partnership’s successful eco-tourism venture in the Pampa Hermosa Region in Peru is an example of communities taking action to preserve their local rainforest due to pro-active educational efforts.

Rainforest Partnership has established a three-way partnership between the communities of San Antonio and Calabaza, in the Pampa Hermosa Region of Peru, and the University of Central Peru to preserve 15,000 acres of the local Colibri Cloudforest and instead, develop infrastructure, sustaining eco-tourism. Since 2008, Rainforest Partnership has been in dialogue with the communities while providing financial, legal, and educational support towards various projects.  In 2009, the first steps were taken when approximately 150 residents in San Antonio and Calabaza took action to cease collection of butterflies and orchids, the hunting of birds and bears, the extraction of wood, and the cutting and burning of forests for pastureland.

Historically, families in these communities have generated income by knitting small crafts and cultivating coffee and potatoes on plots of land near their homes. If crops were unsuccessful, adjacent land was converted from rainforest to pasture in order to plant new crops. As a result of financial support, buildings have been renovated, painted, and furnished, trails have been created, and a waste-management and collection programs have been initiated.  As a result of education efforts, the communities have built compost pits for recycling organic materials, plastic is collected for recycling, which keeps the communities clean, women in the communities are learning about healthy kitchens, diversified cooking, and sanitary conditions when cooking, and residents are being taught how to manage a hostel, eco-lodge, and how to work as tour guides.

Peru, is not the only republic where Rainforest Partnership is providing support to preserve the Amazon. Since 2010, in Ecuador, Rainforest Partnership has been supporting women of the Sani Isla community to develop an Artisan Craft Business instead of choosing means to generate income that results in deforestation.

The success of Rainforest Partnership’s ‘collaborative, bottom-up, and results driven projects’ provide not only ideas but success stories of how solutions, can be not only sustainable, environmentally but economically. The world shares in the responsibility of finding the lone needle in the haystack, somewhere yet everywhere, given the confluence of variables affecting the world’s CO2 levels. We do not have the luxury of being able to wait to act anymore. We must do our part and take action, now.

Earth Day Happy Hour

Thank you so much to all who came to our Earth Day Happy Hour at Lustre Pearl! We had so much fun and hope you learned a lot about our different projects in the rainforest and got to see some of the products that our communities are making. We also hope you had fun playing with the petting zoo and drawing on Big Ass Canvas! Can't wait to see you next year!

A big thank you to our event sponsors!

• Natural Treasures
• Tamale House
• Nissan North
• Lustre Pearl & Bridget Dunlap
• Berkadia & Leslie and Brant Smith
• The Austin Chronicle
• Ticketbud
• Texas Disposal Systems

Ecohostel Progress!

April 2013, ecohostel coming along, getting ready for the summer!  Coordinated by Eusebio Alanya, community leader and RP project coordinator, March and April have been busy months with a lot of progress once the rain slowed down after heavy rains in January and February.

Sani Isla and the Threat of Oil

March 12, 2013

Our partner community in Sani Isla has faced pressure from oil companies to open their land for prospecting and eventually drilling, but the community refused. When Sani Isla learned about Rainforest Partnership, the community voted to ask for their help developing a business specifically for the women of Sani Isla. Through this project, the Sani women are making an income – for the first time in their lives. This income helps them pay for medication, food, and other support for their families, and it helps them have control over their community-owned, titled land. This artisan business, and Sani Isla’s community-owned ecolodge, “Sani Lodge”, has helped the Sani community be a strong voice for forest conservation. Recently there has been a blast of global news about the the oil pressure Sani Isla has faced. This article from the UK’s Guardian includes a reference to Rainforest Partnership’s work: http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/05/ecuador-amazon-split-oil-money

Here are several articles about this issue of oil pressure in Sani Isla and this region of the Amazon:

Ecuadorian tribe gets reprieve from oil intrusion (The Guardian)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/17/indigenous-ecuadorian-tribe-oil-intrusion

Rain Forest for Sale: Demand for oil is squeezing the life out of one of the world’s wildest places (National Geographic)

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/yasuni-national-park/wallace-text

Ecuador adopts rights of nature in constitution (Rights of Nature)

http://therightsofnature.org/ecuador-rights/

How oil extraction impacts the rainforest (Amazon Watch)

http://amazonwatch.org/news/2013/0107-oil-extraction-how-oil-production-impacts-the-rainforest

Drilling for oil in Eden: initiative to save Amazon rainforest in Ecuador is uncertain (Scientific American)

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/03/17/drilling-for-oil-in-eden-initiative-to-save-amazon-rainforest-in-ecuador-is-uncertain/

Ecuador’s indigenous leaders oppose new oil exploration plans in Amazon region (Earth Island Journal)

http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/ecuadors_indigenous_leaders_oppose_new_oil_exploration/

http://www.avaaz.org/en/oil_in_the_amazon_global_rb/ (this is a petition against oil extraction that has raised over 1M signatures globally within a week)