Ayni, Regenerative Food Forest in the Amazon

Dear friends and supporters,

The rainy season is coming to an end in the Peruvian Amazon. The rivers recede and expose fresh fertile soils. Very much excited, we began a new stage of our work with indigenous communities, in particular indigenous women, to recover and promote sustainable production systems and agricultural practices.

We initiated this work last year through a Permaculture and Agroforestry Course at our Permaculture Center with the participation of Kukama and Shawi representatives, and the installation of the first 2.7 hectares of diverse agroforestry plots (or chacras integrales) in indigenous communities. This year, we were able to intensify our partnership with the Kukama women from the Marañon River. At the end of February, we visited the Kukama communities of Nuevo San Juan, Shapajilla, Parinari and Tangarana, to present and formalize a new project, through which we will support approximately 20 families in the four communities to install their agroforestry plots, based on their ancestral forest farming knowledge.

The women themselves are the protagonists. Each village selected a woman to lead the work in their community; they are called the promotors, or las promotoras.In April we organized a one-week workshop for the four women and an additional young person from each village, in which they acquired deeper knowledge related to seed germination, organic fertilizers, grafting and design of the chacras, among others. This will allow them to lead the installation of plant nurseries in their communities, which will supply the future agroforestry plots. The promotoras are also the direct link between the families and our Institute. They will receive further training in the future and offer technical support to the families in the communities throughout the project.The chacras integrales will offer alternative income and improve food security for the participating families, all-the-while contributing to the regeneration of the Amazon, through regenerative agroforestry practices as opposed to harmful agriculture.

At the Chaikuni Institute we believe in the importance of sharing, exchanging and spreading knowledge. Over the last months we put our heads together and thought of new ways of how to improve our offer. This is how we came up with a new training course, which teaches “Traditional Knowledge for Self Sufficiency”. In this 12-day course, participants will develop skills and knowledge to design and implement regenerative projects in the tropics based on the indigenous concept of "Sumaq Kawsay", which promotes the idea that the collective well-being of the community is achieved through harmony within nature (learn more about the course).We welcome everyone to our course – the paying participants from around the world always create a possibility for local indigenous students to participate for free.

For us, each report is not only an opportunity to reflect on the work we have been doing and to celebrate our progress, but also to express our deepest gratitude for your continued support. You make our work possible.

With love from the Amazon,

The Chaikuni Institute Team