By Roberta Ward Smiley | Founder and CEO, LRFF
You read in the last progress report for this project that LRFF and the Maleku planting team planted the 14 hectares of pasture on this property. There are already 24 hectares of beautiful primary forest along the source of the Rio Sol.
When we entered into the agreement with Marvin Castro, owner of the property, to reforest he was letting his neighbor pasture his cows on the 14 hectares. A week before the planting Minor, the dairy farmer neighbor, had to move his cows out of Marvin’s property. Marvin doesn’t live on the property and only visits occasionally. In the meantime no one is watching the property.
Since planting the property in December our field director, Jimmy Acosta, has found Minor’s cows in the newly planted area various times. This past Sunday, April 22, Jimmy went up to the farm at 5 am and again found the cows eating away. He suspected the neighbor was putting the cows in on the weekend when he felt no one would know. Jimmy waited for Minor to come retrieve his cows and explained again how this project benefits all of the Maleku community, providing more water and resources.
If we can purchase this valued property within the Maleku Reserve from Marvin it will be the first property in our attempt to recuperate the Maleku’s lost territory. There are two houses on the property and those houses will have families living in them who will protect this amazing old and new forest.
Links:
By Roberta Ward Smiley | Founder and CEO, LRFF
By Rebecca Bell | Executive Administrative Assistant-LRFF/CR
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
