Polylepis forests elevate 5,000 meters above sea level. Acción Andina – a community-based initiative operating across South America – is one of the finalists in the Earthshot prize 2023
Why are Polylepis forests of the Andean Mountain threatened?
Up on the misty mountains of the Andean Mountain range along the western side of South America and below their glaciers lay the high-altitude, threatened Polylepis forests.
The multi-country restoration project Acción Andina, whose goal is restoring the degraded native forest landscapes of the high Andean region, has been selected as one of the finalists for the Earthshot Prize 2023, one the most prestigious environmental prizes, which this year will be held in Singapore on November 7.
The project is among the fifteen finalists selected from more than 1,100 nominees. It provides economic and conservation benefits to local communities in the region.
Restoration projects – The Earthshot Prize’s five categories and winner Notpla
Prince William and the Royal Foundation founded this global environmental prize in 2020. The first-ever Earthshot Prize was held in London in 2021, and the second one in 2022 in Boston. Until 2030, the yearly winners of the Earthshot Prize’s five categories ‘Protect and Restore Nature’, ‘Clean our Air’, ‘Revive our Oceans’, ‘Build a Waste-Free World’, and ‘Fix our Climate’ will receive £1 million each to scale their solutions.
Last year, the Omanis carbon capture project 44.01, the Australian Program Indigenous Women of the Great Barrier Reef, the Indian startup Kheyti, the Kenyan business Mukuru Clean Stoves, and the UK seaweed-based packaging company Notpla, won in the prize’s five categories.
Earthshot prize 2023 finalist – Acción Andina, Indigenous communities at the forefront of conservation
This grassroots, community-based initiative is one of the finalists in the Earthshot prize 2023 ‘Protect and Restore Nature’ section. Along with the Brazilian ‘Belterra’ project and Sierra Leonean ‘Freetown the Treetown’ initiative.
«The native forests of the Andes region are not only one of the world’s richest and most diverse ecosystems. But are also a critical tool in our fight against climate change. The knowledge and expertise of indigenous communities closest to the problem of deforestation are also the closest to the solution. We believe we must harness their knowledge and abilities for a collective and large restoration effort. Putting hundreds of thousands of local people first. We are grateful to The Earthshot Prize for recognizing this work. We share this honor with all the communities and our local partners in the Andes. As well as the international community who are supporting our common goal of protecting the land we call home». Said Florent Kaiser, CEO of Global Forest Generation, and Constantino Aucca Chutas, President of Acción Andina, about this achievement.
With a holistic eco-restoration approach people get involved in the association’s restoration projects and plant nurseries managed by local communities. Acción Andina is one of South America’s most significant forest restoration and rural forestry conservation efforts.
Projects preserving biodiversity in rural forestry – Asociación Acción Andina has planted 6,508,208 native trees
The Peruvian non-profit Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos (ECOAN) and the US non-profit Global Forest Generation (GFG) founded Acción Andina in 2018. Constantino Aucca, co-founder and President of Acción Andina, is a biologist with thirty years of experience in conservation leadership. He earned the title of Champion of the Earth in the Inspiration and Action category, the UN’s highest environmental award.
«Constantino Aucca Chutas’s work reminds us that indigenous are at the forefront of conservation», said Inger Andersen. «As some of the best custodians of the natural world, their contributions to ecosystem restoration are invaluable and cannot come at a more urgent time for the planet».
Since its founding, the association has planted 6,508,208 native trees, with 2.7 million native trees planted in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru just in the 2022-2023 planting season. Their long-term goal is to restore one million hectares of native forest ecosystems across the Andes throughout Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Argentina over the next twenty-five years.
Their actions would contribute to preserving the area’s ability to withstand climate change, water security, biodiversity, local economies, and indigenous culture, maintaining the ecosystem services provided by high Andean wetlands and Polylepis woods covering those areas.
Keeping rural forestry local – the conservation and restoration of mountain ecosystems by Indigenous communities
The Latin-led association’s results have been achieved thanks to the contribution of Acción Andina’s local partners working in the various Andean countries where the association operates, such as the Peruvian non-profit organization Conservación Amazónica (ACCA), which works with the Japu Native Community in the Q’ero landscape, and the Argentinian association Árbol y Vida.
Acción Andina helps the communities of the high Andes through its conservation partners to legally preserve their lands from exploitation by mining, oil, and lumber firms by obtaining title to their land and focusing on the ground, local action by empowering local leaders and communities and planting native tree species where their effects on the ecosystem will be most significant.
«All the great work to restore our lost forests is possible by practicing three Incan principles: The Ayni, the Minka and the Mita – a deep sense of working together. Today I will help you, and tomorrow you will help me. And not just person to person or community to community, it is among the entire people. These ancestral practices apply to all of us, not just those of us of Incan descent. We are convinced that only through large-scale reforestation campaigns of rural forestry, working closely together for the common good, can we fight the effects of Climate Change». Said Constantino Aucca, at the United Nations, on September 28, 2019.
The value of the forests in the Andes mountains and restoration projects
Acción Andina aims to restore 500,000 Ha of South America’s lost and degraded Polylepis forests and save the remaining 500,000 Ha of old-growth Polylepis forests. These arboraceous angiosperm forests are among the highest latitude ones in the globe. Their elevations reach above 5,000 meters above sea level over seven Andean countries covering 3,000 miles of mountainous land. These high-latitude forests once covered a substantial portion of the Andes. Now these forests fragmented due to excessive utilization of their wood and expansion of animal farming’s grazing areas.
Critical to the well-being of the Andean communities, the Polylepis forests capture the glacial melt that flows to them from the retreating glaciers of the Andes, slowly releasing it to the local communities, storing mist from the clouds in their trees’ roots even in the dry season, preventing soil erosion and flooding, and contributing to the water security of their regions. They also regulate temperature through evapotranspiration, in which water releases into the air through the plants.
The benefits of the conservation of Polylepis forests for Indigenous community
Maintaining the health of these forests through restoration projects could become even more crucial to maintaining the health of mountain communities as, according to an international study published earlier this year by Science, half of the globe’s mountain glaciers would disappear at 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming, while at 2 degrees about sixty percent of our glaciers would melt away.
The conservation of these areas allows Indigenous communities to maintain their culture and practices on their ancestral lands. This gives a home to considerable biodiversity. The Polylepis forests support disappearing and rare ecosystems. They are rich in wildlife with high levels of endemism. They hosting species such as the spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus). Also the Andean condor (Vultur gryphus), and the Critically Endangered black-breasted puffleg (Eriocnemis nigrivestis) in its Ecuador parts.
These vital forests are vulnerable to human disturbances and the effect of climate change. This makes their preservation through rural forestry essential for the communities that live in those areas.
Constantino Aucca
Constantino Aucca is the president and co-founder of Acción Andina. A UNSAAC biologist by the UNSAAC, a researcher associated with the ornithological department of the Museum of Natural History.
