Palm Tree Conservation

While living in small communities in the Pacaya Samiria Reserve volunteers can participate in daily activities related to Palm Tree Conservation. The three varieties of Palm Trees with which local management groups work: Yarina (ya-reen-ah), Huasaí (wah-siy-e) and Aguaje (a-gwa-hay).

Yarina

The Yarina palm has various uses in the community. First, the palm leaves roof houses. Next, the thick skinned fruit is edible.The hard seeds (Tagua) of the fruit, when peeled and dried reveal a hard ivory colored nut that is then carved by local artisans. Rodents and other animals eat the meat of the fallen fruit exposing the seeds. The seeds are collected for sale and local carvers. The 'value chain' of potential volunteer involvement:

1. Palm leaves harvested for roofs. Machetes are used.
2. Fruit falls to ground when ripe. Gravity at work.
3. Rodents eat meat of fruit leaving hard seeds. Nature in action.
4. Tagua seeds collected. Volunteers, with local community members, find Yarina palms in the jungle, then collect and transport the seeds for further processing.
5. Seeds bagged and sold. There is an external market for the Tagua in this form.
6. Tagua peeled. Remaining seeds are prepared for the artisan to carve.
7. Tagua seeds carved. After learning the process and getting to know those involved, a volunteer might have new designs or suggestions for the carvings.
8. Tagua seeds sold. Finding new markets for the seeds and carvings is welcome.

Huasaí

The Huasaí palm also has a number of uses. One use is transforming the outer bark into strips that is used in construction of houses, floors and walls in the communities. Another use is the palm heart from the tree and suitable for consumption (primarily in salads) and as such, sale and exportation. By reforesting parcels close to the community this useful palm provides direct benefits for community members. Typical activities from July to November for volunteers:

1. Conversations stressing the importance of reforestation.
2. Evaluation and calculation of current number of trees in an area (current numbers, desired numbers) and registry in monitoring system.
3. Reforestation and use quotas – following a ' for every tree cut down, 3 planted in its place' standard
4. Planting and transplanting saplings
5. Evaluation of transplanted parcels

Aguaje

The Aguaje palm was traditionally cut down to harvest its edible fruits. Two tree climbing techniques introduced and promoted by ProNaturaleza have been implemented that allow fruit harvest without sacrificing the entire tree: the triangle technique and the “estrobos” technique. True to the adventure conservation name, a volunteer can learn and participate in the sustainable aguaje fruit harvest technique of palm tree climbing. Similar to the Huasaí reforestation effort, the aguaje palm is a desirable tree to have close to the community. For this reason, a volunteer can participate in the following activities:

1. Tree climbing technique training (July, August, September)
2. Evaluation and calculation of tree statistics in an area (current numbers, desired numbers). January and February are the primary months.
3. Reforestation and use quotas – based on the current number of trees, the number of trees to be planted is determined, in other words, the amount of fruit taken from the area is monitored. This is a year round process.
4. Harvest – climbing the trees to harvest aguaje fruit usually takes place between March and June.