In the middle of a deforested forest, in the Peruvian region of San Martín, Wagner García Gómez lives at 66 years old. To get to your little oasis you have to walk a dirt road under the scorching sun that leaves no room for shade. Its neighbors, like most of the residents, chose to deforest their land and dedicate it to the cultivation of corn. García, on the other hand, decided to keep it intact, sacrificing any income that the cultivation of this grain could bring him. "My intention was always to find a forest to preserve it, and when I found this land intact I acquired it," he says.
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But people like García are scarce in a region that is mainly dedicated to the cultivation of this grain. According to the Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture (MINAGRI), more than 24,000 families grow yellow corn in a region that represents 20% of the planted area of the entire country, ranking first in terms of hectares planted.
His way of thinking forces him to live very austerely and the low income he has are thanks to the support of his daughters and the raising of a few chickens and pigs. He is so committed to forest conservation that he is outraged by the attitude of his neighbors. "I always tell many of them that I find it regrettable what they are doing. I do not understand how they can destroy a tree, which is a living being and a co-worker. It is not necessary to destroy it, on the contrary, it must be supported "explains Mr. García visibly angry.
García's situation is one of the great challenges in preserving the environment: achieving economic performance from the forest without deforesting it. For this reason, he decided to put himself in the hands of professionals to find financial support that would guarantee him to continue conserving his trees.
One morning, García showed up at the URKU office in the city of Tarapoto asking about Daniel Vecco, an agricultural engineer, professor at the University of San Martín and director of URKU Estudios Amazónicos. He has spent a lifetime dedicated to the conservation of the environment, the care of animals and the defense of the territory. In its beginnings, Vecco accompanied native communities to confront land invaders who illegally removed wood from their territories. Today, he prefers to continue his fight from his office creating projects and aid programs for forest conservation and animal care.
I don't understand how they can destroy a tree, which is a living being and a co-worker. You don't have to destroy it, on the contrary, you have to support it
Wagner García Gómez
The first thing that Vecco came up with to help Garcia was to try to include him in some reforestation program promoted by some environmental organizations. But he quickly encountered the first stumbling block. The help provided by these programs depends on the number of trees planted, but not on the ones that are preserved. Garcia was not planting trees, but was simply keeping them standing.
"There are a series of initiatives that articulate reforestation programs that give farmers incentives to reforest, but many times these programs do not understand the relationship between reforestation and conservation," explains the engineer. And he continues: “It is interesting because, although they give support, they are not the solution to the problems. Many times they can even become the cause because they incentivize deforestation to be able to access financing. ”
Vecco is stubborn, tanned in a thousand battles and knows the law right down the middle. For this reason, he decided to visit García's land to see his condition and find a formula. Walking through the intact oasis of García, the engineer did not cease to marvel at the hard conservation work that was being carried out there.
Upon entering one of the forest areas, he discovered some animal troughs and feeders that García had built with useless tires. In addition to conserving flora, this man was trying to shelter wild animals. So Vecco's light bulb went on and he glimpsed the possibility of creating for García a plan to establish an authorized area for the breeding of wild species within his forest.
"Currently, the use of wildlife is prohibited if it is not done legally in authorized centers. If we manage to generate these authorized centers, we can also ensure the consumption of wild fauna obtained in a more ethical way than industrial breeding that goes against the conservation of the forest, ”says the engineer.
Such a project would help Garcia keep his small island afloat in the midst of an ocean of deforestation and live more decently. Their situation is the same in which many other inhabitants of the Amazon are. On the one hand, accessing aid for the conservation of the jungle; and on the other, to find the way to obtain an economic yield without damaging it. A necessary dilemma to solve not only for them, but also for the global economy that has been sustained for centuries in the extraction of raw materials from the Amazon, destroying forests and thereby promoting global warming.
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