Dear Friends,
This last year, we partnered with Earthshot Labs to expand our Spider Monkey School Initiative from eight schools to twenty schools, allowing us to serve more than double the amount of future conservationists and environmental leaders throughout Los Santos. After graduating our first class of Environmental Leaders of Azuero in 2021, we have continued to strengthen our Eco Youth Club and our ongoing Pro Eco Pelaos program, which meets every Friday at our office to educate these future leaders.
Open Source Plant Knowledge
We’re happy to announce that one of our biggest and most important resources, our Plant Database, is going to get a major makeover next year! We are currently working with local and international botanists to renew the database, and stay tuned for some more exciting announcements on how to access our extensive records of all the plant species in the Azuero Peninsula! This is part of our goal to become an important environmental resource center for the region.
And of course, the biggest news of the year: The reforestation season is in full swing, and it’s one of our biggest efforts to date! We began in June and have already reforested 20 hectares with nearly 300 volunteers, but we still have a long way to go. We want to reforest at least 40 hectares this season, and we will make it! We are using 30,000 trees that were grown in our tree nursery by microproducers as part of one of our newest and most exciting programs. Keep reading to learn more!
In 2020, we began and successfully ran a program that created six Environmental Councils in six rural regions of Los Santos. These environmental councils organize climate action and reforestation training for local communities, and give them funding to build community nurseries that provide income for around 40 families. In turn, the nurseries provided us with nearly 30,000 saplings which will reforest around 30 hectares of forest along our ecological corridor. It's the perfect way to create sustainable income for local families, provide access to climate education, and bring us all together to be a part of restoring forest and biodiversity in Azuero!
We are expanding this program in 2023, and with your help we can provide sustainable income and climate-resilient education for nearly 200 rural residents of Los Santos, and grow nearly 14,000 saplings that will reforest approximately 14 hectares of riparian rainforest in Panama.
Check out our new campaign on GlobalGiving!
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