Landscape Reclamation
In Madre de Dios, the attraction of imported forms of agriculture has long pulled farmers away from older, more sustainable practices. The combined influence of lifestyles and practices from Brazil and the Andean highlands of Peru have swayed many farmers to cattle farming, regardless of poor dollar-per-acre yields and ignoring the disastrous consequences of clear-cutting one of Earth´s most biodiverse forests in favor of grassy pastures. After five years of cattle grazing, soils are compacted and leached of nutrients. Meanwhile, farmers burn their fields annually, further destroying the life in the soil. After ten years, even a long-abandoned field will no longer revert to forest; the grass´s grip is too tenacious. Camino Verde´s center at La Joya is just such a landscape, with pitifully poor soils that have suffered at least fifteen years of burning and grazing.
In reflection of the economic realities of the region, we have chosen to take to the task of restoring this ravaged landscape using technologies and techniques that are both ready available and require little labor. (Restoring in this case means re-creating a self-sustaining forest.) We believe that only by limiting ourselves to a palate of inexpensive and work-reducing practices will we be able to offer solutions that have widespread appeal to subsistence farmers. Reforestation that requires heavy machinery, prohibitive initial costs, or a major work force is inherently alienating to the small farmer. Our intention is to encounter solutions that are attractively easy and cheap.
In the planting season of 2007-8, we planted hundreds of fast-growing, soil-enriching leguminous trees, including species that have attracted attention in similar land reclamation projects elsewhere in the tropics. Several of the species planted—amasisa (Erythrina sp.) and gliricidia (Gliricidia sepium), for example—are easily propagated by large cuttings that are virtually cost-free and easy to plant. We also included several species that require transplant as seedlings, such as Inga and Leucaena. The results were mixed, if not entirely discouraging. Mortality was high among both seedlings and cuttings. The continued presence of the tropical grass species choked out many of the first plants. In 2008 we attempted a more vigorous solution to the choking and restrictive grass. After a neighbor’s annual fires swept across our pastures, we began planting aggressive cover crops—Mucuna and tropical kudzu—to beat out the grass. By blanketing the soil in enriching cover crops we hope to set the ground for a renewed planting campaign in the 2009-2010 rainy season.
