The conservation activity led by the UÑU Innovation and Sustainability Laboratory had the purpose of reforesting the degraded native forest in order to restore the ecosystems. During 3 days, educational and recreational activities and a day of community planting were carried out together with volunteers from all over Chile.
Andrea Riquelme, Journalist.- A successful balance of 10,000 trees planted and more than 300 participating volunteers registered the third edition of the Pala en Mano Festival, organized by the UÑU Innovation and Sustainability Laboratory, in Chiloé. The initiative had the support of the Municipality of Ancud, representatives of academia, industry and civil society, all with the collective purpose of contributing to the Chilote native forest.
During 3 days between April 6 and 8, educational talks on the environment were held, international category documentaries were shown, and the task of reforesting degraded land was completed, reaching the goal of reforestation with a combination of species such as coihue, canelo, ulmo , notro, myrtle, luma, meli, olivillo, mañío, maqui, trevo and tiaca.
Javier García, founding member of UÑU, pointed out: «The Pala en Mano Festival is consecrating itself as an action activity for the climate, accompanied by environmental content through talks and documentaries. We are very satisfied with the great call and the goal achieved of more than 10,000 new native trees for Chiloé. Working collaboratively is the indicated path to achieve transitions towards more virtuous models, where companies and institutions can generate a contribution to the environment”.
In this context, Reinhard Fitzek, Head of Restoration UÑU and Magister in Forest Sciences, explained that “in recent times, we have witnessed an unfortunate phenomenon with a high environmental impact, such as the movement of earth, which is no longer limited to the opening of public and private roads, but rather facilitates the leveling of construction sites. , both for residences and for larger building complexes. We are seeing how the organic forms of the well-known “soft hills” of the Chilote rural world present more and more wounds in the form of cuts and artificial slopes. Ecological restoration seeks to rebuild ecosystems as close to those that existed in places prior to human intervention. In this sense, the academic is committed to a collaboration with UÑU to advance in incorporating this perspective in the Shovel in Hand initiative for the coming years.
For her part, the Dr. Milen Duarte Muñoz, Academic of the Faculty of Forest Sciences and Natural Resources of the Austral University of Chile and the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversitypointed out in his talk Co-production of knowledge for ecological restoration, the importance of valuing both local and ecological knowledge for restoration, “Regarding peat bogs, Chiloé has gone through a process of significant alteration, which is why today a process of territorial planning and restoration is urgently required, and in this sense it is necessary to create spaces where traditional and ancestral knowledge dialogue with scientific knowledge for its restoration”.
Finally, Hermes Vera, owner of the Púlpito Peatlands located in the Chonchi commune and member of the Chiloé Peatlands Network, analyzed the current water crisis and specified: «Today we have the need to work on the conservation at the local level of the ecosystems called peat bogs or pomponales, which are our only water reservoirs in Patagonia, southern Chile (Patagonia) and especially for Chiloé Island, which lacks mountain ranges, this ecosystem being the only water reservoir for its inhabitants. Currently, one of the damages to these ecosystems is the exploitation of the native forest, accompanied by a weak legislative framework that does not achieve adequate care for nature and protection of priority ecosystems, such as peat bogs. For the Chiloé Peatlands Network, one of the relevant actions for their ecological restoration is reforestation with native species typical of these ecosystems, which were initially found in the affected area today, restoring its water retention capacity, contributing biodiversity ecology, making it possible for us to have endemic flora and fauna again, which has been affected and diminished by the advance and human migration into the interior of the island.
The Pala en Mano Festival returns next winter with new challenges aimed at restoring the native Chilote forest. For now, its organizers are already working with some companies to bring Shovel in Hand to regions and summon new communities committed to caring for nature. www.unulab.cl