Nariño department of Colombia, July 2023
Families came for the event, sometimes even three generations, equipped with boots, hats, thick jumpers, and small tee-shirts: the complete kit. Here, in the hills of Ipiales, in the heart of the Andes and a stone’s throw from the border with Ecuador, you know you have to be prepared for every eventuality. The climates follow one another but are never the same. Not that this bothered the hundred or so people present that morning: they were all locals and many of them work very close to the land. The Nariño department is one of the most productive in Colombia for potato cultivation, dairy farming, and market gardening.
That morning, these volunteers were responding to a proposal from Impulso Verde, a Franco-Colombian foundation, and local partner of A Tree for You. They took part in a Sembraton, a tree-planting marathon. The foundation organises several every year to raise awareness among people from all walks of life – groups of friends, teenagers, and families interested in environmental issues. Colombia is the fourth country in the world most affected by deforestation. In 2020, 171,685 hectares were felled, 8% more than in 2019. The initiative by Impulse Verde and A Tree for You is not just an opportunity to spend a pleasant Sunday in nature: it is also literally saving the ecosystem.
The aim of these marathons is to spend the day planting as many trees as possible, in the most suitable environment, in order to ensure the carefully selected plants are as sustainable and viable as possible. One of the challenges of reforestation in the Nariño is prioritising species that are local and adapted to the high Andean forests. Among the species planted on this particular day were punde (Tournefortia fuliginosa Kunth), laurel (Morella pubescens), Andean alder (Alnus acuminata), pelotillo (Viburnum pichinchense), pumamaque (Oreopanax ecuadorensis), and charmuelan (Geissanthus mezianus Agost).
As a result of this initiative, 6,600 trees were planted in 11 different municipalities. This success was thanks to support from A Tree for You donors.
Other trees will be planted throughout 2023 as part of the project. In total, 20,000 trees will be planted, 13,000 of which will be perennial by the end of the project, i.e. three years after planting.
While the sembratones are always a time for sharing and uniting participants in joy and laughter, they are only the tip of the iceberg of the whole project. To get to this point, dozens of people had worked diligently and patiently every day for months. The project is based on a network of 15 farmers’ and indigenous associations (Pasto ethnic groups, contemporaries of the Incas), of which 70% are women and involve 190 families. In 2022, the number of community nurseries belonging to the Impulso Verde network doubled thanks to the creation of new nurseries, enabling the project to accept requests from new communities wishing to extend the reforestation programme to their area of influence, in an Andean region where the need for reforestation is huge.
The project supported by A Tree for You has two other facets: developing economic alternatives to deforestation and raising environmental awareness. The aim is to promote activities like community beekeeping and processing of aromatic and medicinal plants into cosmetics. There are also plans to raise awareness, particularly among children, as part of the ‘My Friends the Trees’ project.
More on the project in the next article…!
