Help us keep fighting for the Amazon!

by Alliance for a Sustainable Amazon Inc.

Project Report | Apr 25, 2022
News from the Peruvian Amazon

By Geoff Gallice | Project leader

Greetings from the Peruvian Amazon!

It seems it was yesterday when we shared some our accomplishments of last year, but 2022 is already way in and many things have already happened at Finca Las Piedras, our research and education center in the Peruvian Amazon! While our research team keeps working hard and producing half a dozen of new scientific articles for the year, our research residency program for Peruvian undergraduate students selected four bright young individuals for placements during the first half of the year. Through this program, we expect to contribute to these students’ scientific training. This means that our work has a double impact—not only are we generating important information about Amazonian biodiversity, but we are equipping the next generation of Peruvian biologists and conservationists with the professional tools they need to succeed and keep making an impact.

As for our environmental education program, we are putting the final touches for what it will be a great year working again with local children. In collaboration with the Red de Aprendizaje y Conservación, led by NatGeo explorer Carmen Chávez, we will be using the resources of her recently released book called “Who is there?” – a beautiful book about mammals captured with camera traps in our own station as well as in others throughout the region. Our children will be learning about mammals with pictures taken from their own forests!

We are very excited about everything that is planned for the rest of the year and are always very grateful for your support to make it happen.

With gratitude,

Geoff, Johana and the rest of the ASA team.

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Dec 23, 2021
Hello and happy holidays from the Peruvian Amazon

By Geoff Gallice | President of the Board

Hello from Peru!

The rainy season is now in full swing here in the Amazon which, for us anyway, means the holidays are upon us. We thought we’d update you with some of our exciting accomplishments as we wrap things up for the year.

Research is an important part of our work to protect biodiversity, and we’ve made great progress. We have, for instance, documented hundreds of species of butterflies and other animal and plant species at Finca Las Piedras and throughout the SE Peruvian Amazon, and we have documented the life cycles—what the caterpillars look like, and what plant species they feed on—of more than 20 butterflies, all for the first time! This information is important because it is the foundation for understanding the threat status of species in the Amazon, and this information is not available for the vast majority of species here. We’re also incredibly proud of the fact that we have more than 10 articles either in progress or already published in scientific journals, all with Peruvian students as authors. This means that our work has a double impact—not only are we generating important baseline information about Amazonian biodiversity, but we are equipping the next generation of Peruvian biologists and conservationists with the professional tools they need to succeed and keep making an impact.

On the reforestation front, this has been our most successful year yet. We have worked with several of our local Brazil nut harvester families to plant young Brazil nut trees in their concessions for the sustainable harvest of this important non-timber forest product, helping to strengthen the management of nearly 10,000 acres of natural rainforest in our community. We have also planted thousands of trees in different areas at Finca Las Piedras, our research and education center, that will one day provide food and shelter for a dizzying variety of Amazonian wildlife and serve as a model for more sustainable land use in our region. Our final task was to prepare thousands of seedlings in our brand new shade house for planting next year, to keep our reforestation success expanding into 2022.

Finally, we have made great progress this year in environmental education. With restrictions related to COVID-19 slowly starting to ease in Peru, we were able to safely resume working directly with our local children to deliver quality educational experiences. This year we brought 120 children from 8 single-teacher rural schools in our region to Finca Las Piedras to learn about Amazonian biodiversity and its importance. This was the first such experience for the majority of these kids, and it will be an important first step in helping them form strong environmental identities. We’re excited to keep the momentum going into 2022.

Thank you so much for your continued support. We need the Amazon and without your help we would not be able to keep fighting for it. Happy holidays!

With gratitude,

Geoff, Johana, & the ASA team

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Aug 24, 2021
Report for project Help us keep fighting for the Amazon (46531)

By Geoffrey Gallice | Project Leader

Greetings from the Amazon! It’s the peak of the dry season here at Finca Las Piedras, our base of operations in Peru’s Madre de Dios region, and that means lots of interesting things are happening in the rainforest. The dry season brings lots of changes—many plants, for instance, are flowering, getting ready to later produce fruit as heavy rains return in a few months. The timing of fruiting and flowering is called ‘phenology’, and we have just finished setting up a permanent 1 hectare plot in which we will monitor this for nearly 200 species of Amazonian trees. Data gathered from the plot will also allow us to monitor how the rainforest’s carbon storage changes over time, and how climate change is impacting tree mortality and recruitment. We have also recently completed our first full year’s sampling of butterflies in our permanent monthly trapping study, and ASA staff are now busy trying to tease patterns from the mountains of data the study has already generated. Just like for plants, we are interested in the impacts of climate change and other human disturbances on butterfly populations in our part of the Amazon. These are just a couple of the many things our team of researchers is busy with at the moment, all of which are laying an important foundation for understanding how the Amazon works, how it is changing, and how we can best protect and restore it.

On the education front, after a tough couple of years of restrictions due to Covid-19, schools will soon be resuming in-person classes and we are thrilled to soon get back into the field with our local children! One thing that we’re particularly excited about is a new project we’re launching that will bring more than 80 local students from 10 rural schools in the local school district to Finca Las Piedras. We’ll work with the kids to teach them about the rainforest, its plants and animals, and how they all work together to keep the Amazon healthy. This will be an important experience for children who have few other opportunities for hands-on learning, and we expect to make significant progress in helping to shape their environmental identities. Our hope is that strong environmental identities will translate to more sustainable actions among the next generation of rainforest stewards, ensuring both a healthy environment and local livelihoods long into the future.

As always, thank you for your support—together we are continuing to have a huge impact in the Amazon, just when the rainforest and the people who live here need it the most. We are all so grateful to have you on our side.

Sincerely,

Geoff and Johana

sustainableamazon.org | Facebook | Instagram

Tel. (USA) +1 443-445-0994 (Peru) +51 981-699-368

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