Valle Sagrado Verde has spent six years building Sacred Valley conservation around the idea of protecting the forest. In the districts where it works, wildfires have dropped by almost 90%, according to program director Ana Luz Benítez.
The communities achieved that by organizing before fire season, through prevention, early warning, and regular pruning. Somos recently became an ally of the program, and for educators weighing impact travel in Peru, it is a clear and inspiring example of conservation led by the people who live on the land.
A park ranger’s daughter from Cusco
Ana Luz grew up in Cusco. Her father worked as a park ranger and talked at home about his love for animals and wild places. Her mother came from the countryside of Ayacucho and stayed close to the land her whole life. “That’s where my relationship with nature began,” Ana Luz says.
Before joining Valle Sagrado Verde, she worked in the environmental education program of the Municipality of Cusco’s environment department. Earlier, she was part of Kutimusunchis, a Cusco collective that ran environmental and cultural education campaigns and organized tree plantings in the city.
She met Joaquín Randall, the program’s director, when she interviewed him for a podcast she was producing. What drew her to the work was its structure. Communities organize around a shared task, and outside organizations join that work as partners who complement it.
Planting trees and protecting the land
Valle Sagrado Verde started in 2019 as a reforestation initiative. Within a few years, the team saw that planting alone could not keep up with what was destroying the forests, so they went after the causes. Today the program rests on two pillars: wildfire prevention and regeneration of natural areas. Reforestation continues as a complement to both.
“The work has to be complete,” Ana Luz says. “It can’t happen only in one season. We have to work on prevention, environmental education, regenerating our forests, and alongside that, reforestation.”
Wildfire prevention
The Sacred Valley is in the middle of a major fire season driven by El Niño. Ana Luz points out that most public attention goes to the response: large campaigns form once a fire is burning, while the prevention work that keeps fires from starting goes unseen.
Valle Sagrado Verde does that prevention work with communities and local municipalities, including early warning systems that communities run. The pressure is climbing. Water has grown scarce in recent years, and El Niño is expected to bring longer droughts to some parts of the region and huaicos, sudden mudslides, to others.
Regenerative pruning
The second pillar is regenerative pruning, which strengthens forests that human activity has damaged. The communities choose sites, starting with areas hurt by wildfires, agricultural burning, logging, or extensive cattle grazing.
According to Ana Luz, in Ollantaytambo, Calca, Huayopata, and Cusco, wildfires are down nearly 90% where the program works, women make up more than 70% of participants, and over 10,000 trees were pruned last year. The goal for this year is to surpass 30,000.
What students can learn from Sacred Valley conservation
A regeneration day starts with the community getting organized. The team gives a brief talk on pruning technique and then everyone works through the morning until midday. Afterward the team shares a meal of fresh cheese, cancha (toasted corn), mote (boiled corn), and dishes the families bring from home.
The forest that matters most is the one already standing, and the people best placed to protect it are the ones who live beside it.
Impact travel in Peru with Valle Sagrado Verde and Somos
Valle Sagrado Verde is a new partner of Somos, and we are committed to supporting the communities’ management of their territory. The partnership builds on Somos’ work in the Cusco region, including our programs with Valerio Sasari of Runa Ñan Travel and our first Amazon and Andes program. Learn more about the program at vallesagradoverde.org.
Somos Impact Travel runs programs in Peru in partnership with Valle Sagrado Verde and other community conservation organizations, connecting schools, corporate groups, Rotary clubs, and other donor groups with local NGO leaders. Visit somos.travel/contact to start planning your group’s expedition.