2012-2013 Restoring Tierra Negra and Planting Food Crops.
The Foundation’s land, Tierra Negra, is a pleasant hour and a half walk along the Buritaca River, with howler monkeys in the treetops above and tropical birds and butterflies soaring overhead. One important goal of the Fundación Escuela Sintana y Tierra Negra is to reforest the once thick woods that covered the mountainsides along the Buritaca River. In the recent past, Tierra Negra had been used by coca growers. Now law enforcement has reached into the mountains and is eradicating the once lucrative crop. The most essential projects now are restoring the land and planting food on Tierra Negra so mamas and their families can live there. Yarumo trees are a pioneer trees, one of the first to take over when the forest and land have been disturbed, like Tierra Negra had been. The yarumo trees kill off the brush that has taken over after the spraying by blocking its sunlight. Other native forest trees, hardwoods and fruiting, can take over again. The mama says the yarumo brings water out of the earth and builds forest. The sweet yarumo fruit attracts monkeys, birds, squirrels, wild pigs and other forest dwellers, which in turn bring with them seeds of different species to diversify the regenerating forest. The yarumo tree has a symbiotic relationship with a certain ant (Cecropia). If you hit the tree with a machete a rain of ants will fall over you to defend it. |