ARCAmazon: Reforestation Updates

Thanks to our incredible supporters at WildFF, we have been able to sustain a long term partnership with Peruvian-based, nonprofit ARCAmazon. ARCAmazon works to find solutions that promote the conservation of biodiversity and the sustainable development of the Las Piedras Watershed, which is located in the heart of Peru’s Amazon rainforest. This important watershed serves as a physical borderline between unsustainable resource extraction and one of the world’s last remaining intact rainforests. In 2015, with the help of WildFF, ARCAmazon acquired 11,000 acres and built an ecotourism center that has, to date, hosted over 300 international and local visitors interested in ecotourism, tropical ecology, and wildlife research.

ARCAmazon Updates from David Johnston, Executive Director:

“Thanks to the support of WildFF’s charity fundraising event last year, ARCAmazon was recently able to build their first tree nursery at the Las Piedras Amazon Center – LPAC. The tree nursery is complete with its own watering system, which is designed to bring water from the local Loboyoc Stream, for the plants. The vision of the nursery is a healthier, more productive rainforest. And the mission is to reforest some of the important species which were removed from the area in the timber boom, before ARCAmazon took over the management of the land. These critical native species include Mahogany and Spanish cedar. The team will also populate the camp with a variety of fruit and fast-growing timber trees as well as flowering plants which we hope will attract wildlife to the center. The area around the nursery has been cleared and prepared for botanical work and we will eventually build a laboratory here. The team has begun purchasing and collecting tree seedlings from local nurseries and friends. Donations of trees have already come in from Natalie Wetenhall and the community of Puerto Nuevo. Thanks all, we look forward to seeing the fruits of this project over the years.”