The Other Side of Reforestation

On the 19th of July 2021 field workers of NGO Rio Momon Conservation Association and villagers of Sargento Lores village, which is nearest to our headquarters, gathered to execute one very specific task.

Right in the middle of our NGO’s reforestation area, we found a Muena tree that was dying. It has already lost its top and all of its branches except two. Big wind storms that we have been experiencing since October 2020, have devastated the jungle kilometers around breaking the trees. This is not a normal weather pattern. But then again, the whole of 2020 was not usual regarding weather. We practically didn’t have a rainy season, we experienced very cold weather which was followed by big wind storms. On top of it, we have witnessed the intensified activity of termites, wood ants, and leaf cutter ants, which brought even more imbalance and destruction of plants and trees.

Our Muena tree lost most of its branches during two wind storms, and we have found wood-eating ants in them. Seeing that we knew that tree was dying and would eventually fall down. Of course, we didn’t want to cut the tree down, but as the time of San Juan was approaching, which usually brings a few days of cold weather and wind, we had to make a decision. That Muena tree was in the middle of three important areas – NGO’s reforestation zone, fruit garden, and the pasture where our bulls are. So, with a heavy heart, we decided to take the tree down. That reforestation zone is very important to us as it has all the species of trees that have been overcut or that even no longer exist in our area of the river as they have been all cut down, like Tornillo, Huacapu, Marupa, Lupuna, Mari Mari, etc.

We have asked for help and nine villagers from Sargento Lores village answered, knowing it will be hard to take that tree down without making a giant mess. It took us more than three hours to execute this task without anybody getting hurt.

Thanks to our friend Ignacio, who is a very good tree climber, we managed to prepare the tree to be taken down as safely as possible. Ignacio climbed the Muena tree from a nearby tree using very long bamboo and then took down two remaining branches while the rest of us were holding our breaths and keeping our fingers crossed for it to go well.

When that was done, we approached cutting the tree. While one of the villagers was chainsawing the tree, the rest of them were pulling on it to go in the right direction, as it did. In the process of cutting down the Muena tree, none of the other trees were hurt, which was our goal.

In the end, we want to express our gratitude to all the villagers that helped – Ignacio, Eliso Junior, Eliseo Senior, Wilber, Debora, Marixa, Tito, Martin, Henry and our little helpers Adrian and Nemias who was feeding our curios bulls grass and keeping them away from the area where Muena could fall if taking it down went the wrong way.