December Newsletter 2023

Increasing food sovereignty and income streams

**Claire Lannoye-Hall, Detroit Zoological Society Director of Education, with students in the community of Sapo Playa**

CONAPAC’s Sustainable Development program is rooted in agroforestry. Our aim is to provide beneficiary families, schools, and communities with Amazon fruit trees to increase food sovereignty and income streams.

Since 2018, CONAPAC has partnered with The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation (FTPF) to provide local fruit trees to motivated beneficiaries who grow and tend the trees and harvest their fruit. To date, 80,000 fruit trees have been planted!

FTPF funds the trees and their transportation; CONAPAC’s donors make up the rest. This includes capacity-building workshops with our Partner Agronomist Pedro Paurcarcaja. Pedro combines theory and practice to guide and mentor growers with best practices in pruning, treating problem pests and fungi, applying organic fermented-fruit fertilizer, grafting, and ground maintenance. With good care, the trees will begin to produce fruit in three to five years, some even sooner.

The first part of December is our traditional planting week–-full of dirty hands and celebratory dances!

**Local Agronomist Pedro Paucarcaja explains planting techniques**

Pedro and arborist Erik Wilson from FTPF starts each day by leading a planting workshop with the community, describing best practices for planting in tropical soils. We then put those practices to work, spreading out in the planting area and working side by side with community members. The entire community participates when we plant new trees!

The fruit trees in this program represent a kind of hope different from our other programs. Families receive their trees with much anticipation and tend them with care. The fruits are a source of nutrition for the families, and when the trees begin producing at higher volumes, they can also sell the fruits in local markets.

**FTPF Arborist Erik Wilson explains the importance of good soil mixing**

This year, we welcomed three volunteers from FTPF along with Erik, and we had four guests from our partners at the Detroit Zoo! Thank you so much, Mary Beth, Vince, Jacob, Mike, Mark, David, and Claire.

Our fruit tree initiative is supported by the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation. The funding for all other parts of the project comes from supporters like you. Thank you for helping us make this project a success!

To contribute to this project, select Sustainable Development from the drop-down menu on our donation page hosted by the Detroit Zoo. All donations received in December will be counted towards our end-of-year campaign. Every little bit helps!