Ayni, Regenerative Food Forest in the Amazon

Dear friends and supporters,

We started this year full of energy, grateful for the achievements we were able to accomplish last year, and now preparing for another year that promises to be full of growth. These last few months have been a time of much reflection for us, as we have been able to close some projects and start new ones.

A key area in which we've really been able to advance a lot recently is our Permaculture Center, which, you may remember, functions as a learning hub and demonstration site, of service to Amazonian communities and international visitors alike. Last year we were able to establish 3 new agroforestry plots, applying various techniques, demonstrating systems at different stages of development. Adding the recent plots to the 3 sites we already had, today we count 6 agroforestry demonstration sites at our Center, totaling 2.69 hectares.

Our agroforestry plots boast a large diversity of timber trees, fruit trees, as well as medicinal plants. In addition, we've installed and enhanced our vegetable garden around our main building. Finally, over the last months, we've developed and improved the monitoring system of our yields. We are excited to tell you that in January alone, our fields produced over 200 kilos of over 35 different species of plants!

Thanks to this abundance that nature provides us with, over the recent months, we further took some large steps with a project that long has been on our minds, but only recently is really taking off: the development and transformation of organic Chaikuni products. Under the leadership of our local expert, Teresa, in close teamwork with our long-term volunteer and resident, Mirjam, we've been experimenting with the transformation and development of different products, combining research with local knowledge. We currently sell more than 10 natural products, that go from organic foods, natural insect repellents to cosmetics, and more are in the making. These products not only allow us to generate additional funds for our activities, but also to demonstrate to local families how to transform and add value to their primary products, while at the same time revalorizing traditional knowledge from our Amazon region.

We are really excited about this and all that is yet to come. Stay tuned. Your support is really the strong backbone that lets us continue to do what we love to do, support local families, and do grassroot work to regenerate the Amazon.

Thank you for your continuous support to the Amazon rainforest and its peoples,

The Chaikuni Team

Dear friends and supporters,

These last few months have demanded a great effort but have also brought us much gratification. We are happy to share this update from the field with you and elaborate a bit more on how we continue to foment a movement to regenerate the Amazon thanks to your support.

As we wrote to you in our last report, our second 33-day Amazonian Permaculture course has just begun. We are currently hosting 20 participants from around the world learning about the foundations of permaculture. Our Permaculture center continues to grow and attract passionate volunteers and people eager to learn about how to live sustainably.

We keep expanding our work with the chacras integrales agroforestry system with local communities. We continued to support local families to install their own agroforestry systems. By the end of September, we had assisted with the installation of a total of 8 hectares only in 2022. In addition, we are very proud to announce that we finally have been able to bring our agroforestry outreach work to indigenous communities. In mid-August, a group of over 20 Kukama and Shawi representatives participated in our 5-day course "Introduction to Permaculture and Amazonian Agroforestry", both sharing their own extensive traditional knowledge, while learning a thing or two from our permaculture team.

After the course completion, our team traveled to the Kukama community of Tangarana and the Shawi community of Nuevo Chacatán to support the communities in installing their own chacra integral agroforestry system. For us it is important that people decide on the type of chacra they wish to have and maintain; the Tangarana community chose to work together on a communal chacra, while in Nuevo Chacatan they chose to install a small communal chacra area and enrich 3 family chacras. (For more details of our work in Tangarana, please read our blog)

Furthermore, at the end of September we organized our 2nd “Diálogo de Saberes” (wisdom, or knowledge dialogue) with the participation of Shawi, Kukama and Bora peoples, indigenous students from the OEPIAP (Organization of Indigenous Students from the Peruvian Amazon), local communities and agroforestry experts. For two days they exchanged experiences, knowledge, and participated in workshops on agroforestry systems, food processing, native beekeeping, and chicken farming. These dialogues are extremely enriching for all participants, and we are determined to continue to arrange more of these types of events soon, as we keep striving to support the recovery and promotion of sustainable indigenous agricultural practices and production systems. We are confident that with your help we can continue to support Amazonian communities while helping the planet.

With much gratitude,

The Chaikuni Team

Dear Friends and Supporters,

We hope you are all doing well. We have a lot of exciting things to tell you. But first, we wanted to let you know that we are celebrating this month. The Chaikuni Institute is turning 10! On June 20^th, 2012, Chaikuni´s founders held the meeting that formally called into life our organization. While our Institute was originally founded as a Permaculture Institute, today we run three equally important programs - Human and Nature Rights, Intercultural Education, and Permaculture. We believe that our three programs combined, in alliance with Amazonian communities and our international supporters, offer holistic solutions to the Amazon and its peoples. We invite you to take a moment and celebrate with us.

Since we last wrote to you, we have finished our first 33-day Amazonian permaculture course, in which the 6 international participants discovered permaculture solutions for regenerative living in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon. We´ve already scheduled a second 33-day course with a major focus on ecological building techniques for October this year.

We furthermore advanced on a mission we´ve been having in mind for a long time: locally and organically produced Chaikuni products. For now, our product line includes a natural insect repellent, deodorant, and toothpaste; chocolate balls with honey from stingless bees and peanuts, herbal teas such as guyausa and achiote, star fruit and banana jam. Bear with us as more products are in the making. The idea is both to generate additional funds for our activities, as well as to demonstrate to local families how to transform and add value to their primary products.

Our demonstration sites at the Permaculture Center also got a boost: we reforested one of our chacras integrales with 50 fruit trees such as pijuayo, avocados, mangos, zapotes, cacao, and copoazú. We also installed an entirely new agrofloresta of about 2000m², an extremely productive and diverse agroforestry system focused on fruit production: avocado, mango, lime, coconut, cacao, and coffee. Remember, while we produce for our center, the main purpose of these productive agroforestry sites is to serve as demonstration sites for local villagers, so they may see firsthand the possibilities of the chacra integral agroforestry system.

Speaking of our neighbors: in our last report we wrote to you that by the end of last year we had completed and even surpassed our goal of reforesting 24 hectares of degraded lands with chacras integrales in our neighboring villages. Throughout the process many additional families inquired whether Chaikuni could support them to install their own agroforestry systems.

With more limited funds, we set ourselves the goal to reforest another 6 hectares by the end of September 2022. In May, we ran a new introductory workshop on the chacra integral system for 15 farmers, and scheduled visits and technical assistance with at least 9 families. Just last week, in a large logistical exercise, we also delivered 2662 fruit and timber tree seedlings and 350 small citrus fruit trees to the participating families, whom we will assist in installing their chacras over the coming weeks.

Given this local demand and our determination to keep supporting local Amazonian families to improve their food security and generate an additional income, while at the same time doing something great for the planet, we would also like to let you know that we are raising our fundraise goal to 150.000 USD.

Thank you for your continued support and for being part of our movement to regenerate the Amazon.

With appreciation and gratitude,

The Chaikuni Team

Links:

• More info about our upcoming permaculture course in October

Dear friends and supporters,

We hope you had a great start into the new year - despite the ongoing pandemic. At Chaikuni, we made a huge effort over the last months of 2021 to close out the year according to all the goals we had set ourselves. Our team intensified the pace of assisting the families we work with installing their agroforestry systems. We achieved our goal for 2020/21, to install 24 hectares of diverse agroforestry systems in our 4 surrounding communities, having worked with 35 families. We were also present in the local schools with our environmental awareness classes, and in community assemblies finishing up communal land use plans and organizing community surveillance of their forest and resources. 

In early December, we held our first Diálogo de Saberes (wisdom, or knowledge dialogue) at our Permaculture Center. One of the biggest and most important events in the history of our Institute, this gathering brought together indigenous elders, wisdom keepers, students, community members, agroforestry experts, and other local allies. For three consecutive days, approximately 50 participants exchanged experiences and profound knowledge on ancestral forest farming practices and the control and management of Indigenous territories. 

The three days were truly inspiring, both in the knowledge shared, as well as in the intimate atmosphere where personal experiences and deep eco-cultural knowledge across more than six different Amazonian Indigenous peoples, Peruvians, and international participants was shared. Participants left with a renewed enthusiasm for their ancestral knowledge, the new ideas generated during the gathering, and the desire to deepen the exchange between the different indigenous groups and institutions that participated in the gathering. Deeply excited and inspired, we are committed to continue facilitating these powerful intercultural knowledge exchanges.

In our last report we wrote to you that we had been handed over beautiful facilities from our sister organization the Temple of the Way of Light. Since then, we have made great advances to maintain and improve the facilities, and have started a new process to redesign and repurpose our center, based on our mission, dreams, and the new opportunities. We´ve renovated buildings, built new dry toilets, planted new vegetable gardens and prepared different huts for visitors and volunteers. Having re-opened our permaculture volunteer program in September, we have already had 9 longer term volunteers working with us. 

Finally, our permaculture team has been busy putting together an all new and exciting 33-days Amazonian Permaculture course, which will start next month. Over the course of the program, participants will discover permaculture solutions for regenerative living in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon. The course will cover topics such as natural and ecological building techniques, regenerative food production, renewable energy, and of course diverse amazonian agroforestry systems. 

As always, please receive a huge THANK YOU from us for all your support. Without it, all that we do would not be possible. 

With gratitude,

The Chaikuni team

Dear Friends and Supporters,

As you may remember, we have set ourselves the goal to have implemented 24 hectares of chacras integrales – diverse and productive agroforestry systems - in 4 of the surrounding communities of our permaculture center by the end of this year. The end of the year is approaching quickly, and our team is moving full steam to reach this goal.

We currently have 33 individuals that participate in our agroforestry work. They all have different sizes of land; altogether we work on 26 hectares. Of course, some participants are less eager than others, and the work is in different stages with different participants. Several longer phases, during which we couldn´t access the communities due to the pandemic, interrupted our work methodology, complicating our work significantly. Nonetheless, we are positive that we will get close to our goal of 24 installed hectares by the end of the year.

To support the agroforestry work we also held a full-day training at our permaculture center for the project participants in September. The training went more into detail about our agroforestry model, but also included a very practical part of how to correctly plant and care for seedlings of different valuable local Amazonian tree species, such as Cedar and Rosewood, among others. We also handed out over 2000 seedlings to the participants, to be planted in their agroforestry site.

We furthermore continued with community assemblies in the 4 surrounding villages to speak about communal land management and sustainable land use alternatives for the future. All four communities have at least had 2 such meetings and are closing in on a vision for their future land management. San Pedro, one of the communities, has completed the process and made communal agreements on future communal land use. We also continued our environmental education session in the local schools.

Finally, with regards to our own permaculture center, we have some exciting new developments to share. Our sister organization, the Temple of the Way of Light, with whom we share the land, has handed over infrastructure that it no longer uses to our Institute. This includes a large and beautiful house with dining area, kitchen, and toilet facilities, as well as plenty of rooms and several individual huts – opening a new world of possibilities for us. We have been busy planning an educational permaculture program, that includes monthly courses on a specific permaculture topic open to anyone. We are starting now in October with a 3-day introduction to permaculture. Finally, in September we also launched a regular volunteer program for people that want to stay with us for at least one month and deepen their tropical permaculture knowledge. We already have two volunteers working with us.

All the above will help us to further develop our permaculture center, improve our demonstration sites, and contribute to strengthening our work with local communities, creating a movement to regenerate the Amazon. None of this would be possible without your continued support. Thank you for being part of the movement.

With appreciation and gratitude,

The Chaikuni Team