Peru's Deforested San Martin - Gvn. Grants 267K Hectares - 1.6 Million H. Cleared In Past 50 Yrs

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LIMA, Jan 16, 2011 (Tierramérica) - San Martín is one of the three most deforested Amazon regions in Peru. But now local residents and non-governmental organisations have joined with local and regional authorities to defend the flora, fauna and water resources and halt the destruction of the rainforests.

As the region's rivers began drying up, the residents of San Martín, in the central Peruvian rainforest, were spurred to participate in a government programme that provides concessions over state-owned lands rich in biodiversity for the purposes of conservation. So far they have been granted four concessions, covering a total area of 267,133 hectares, while waiting for a reply on five other requests.

The Peruvian forestry law established private and community conservation and sustainable development projects in 2001, and civil society has become actively involved. Over the last 50 years, more than 1.6 million hectares of old-growth forests have been cleared in San Martín, an amount equivalent to 30 percent of the total area of the region, according to non-governmental environmental groups. In addition, there were 1,711 forest fires recorded in the country last year, compared to 968 the previous year.

"We live in a region where deforestation is already having an impact on access to and availability of environmental goods and services that are crucial for survival, especially water," Karina Pinasco, a representative of the non-governmental Association of Amazonians for the Amazon (AMPA), told Tierramérica.

Numerous cities in the region are only supplied with water two hours a day. The situation has been aggravated by the influx of people from the Andes region, oil and mining projects, and the impacts of climate change, Pinasco noted. "Changes in the climate are increasingly extreme," she said. Periods of drought, heavy rainfall and cold waves have intensified, she explained. The people of San Martín have become aware of the need to organise, said the activist, and now realise that "not everything can be left in the hands of the authorities."

EDIT

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