Información sobre el proyecto/actividad

Most tropical forests with bamboo stands, particularly those in easily accessible areas of the north western region of the country where a high percentage of the local communities live in poverty conditions, are rapidly being degraded due to unplanned and uncontrolled overexploitation and other demographic pressures. It is therefore paramount to seek and implement alternative sustainable activities before these resources are irremediably depleted.

As such, this proposal envisages reducing the tropical forest degradation and simultaneously improving the socioeconomic conditions of extremely poor rural communities, as well as their environmental quality, in the aforementioned region. More specifically, it aims to ensure the rehabilitation and sustainable management of degraded or endangered tropical forests with bamboo stands and to effectively contribute to poverty alleviation in an area with a high level of unmet basic needs and hence with a high level of deforestation (185,000 ha/year) in Peru. The native communities and poor rural populations are to be the main beneficiaries of this project, as their income levels will increase through the sale of sustainably harvested and used products.

Demonstration plots will be selected and established through a broad-based participatory process in order to provide training to poverty-stricken rural communities in intermediate techniques for the rehabilitation and management of forests with bamboo stands, the implementation of forest nurseries, and the establishment of plantations, particularly in protection areas of highland forests in the region. A pilot centre will be established for the handcrafted manufacturing of bamboo products of competitive commercial quality by local communities participating in the respective production chains.

Major outputs expected are as follows:
- Local populations (250 people) trained in intermediate techniques for the rehabilitation, management and sustainable utilisation of forests with bamboo stands;
- 200 ha of tropical bamboo forests rehabilitated and sustainably managed; and
- 4 rural communities (2000 people) actively involved in and economically benefiting from an equal number of bamboo production and marketing chains.