Ancestral Communities Bringing Back Forests in Vilcanota
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Published 01. Dec 2019 by alexander in
Nursery Cancha Cancha
Nursery building and stocking, including supplies

To scale up restoration, existing nurseries have to be repaired and re-equipped, and new nurseries built. On-site nurseries are used to better acclimatize seedlings (resulting in survival rates as high as 85-90%), to reduce transportation and middlemen costs, and to give community members jobs and experience in propagating and growing native saplings. Funding and technical support are provided for building and nursery materials, in exchange for communities providing nursery sites close to water sources and helping to build the nurseries.
Seed and cutting collection occurs only from January through March and are collected from local, native trees. It is a time and labor-intensive operation involving large parts of the communities. Acción Andina only plants native trees, mainly Polylepis. Depending on the project area, other native species are also produced in the nurseries to complement production and satisfy diversified community needs.

As of 2019, Acción Andina supports ten nurseries with an average seedling capacity of 35,000 saplings each. To meet the 2020 goals, Acción Andina partners plan to scale up nursery capacities by expanding and building new nurseries with a capacity to grow 50,000 native saplings each, at an average building cost of $15,000 USD per nursery. To meet reforestation goals, over 40 new nurseries will be required in the next three years. Once built, minor repairs are needed annually and additionally nursery supplies (e.g. soil and fertilizers) costing on average $10,000 USD per nursery per year. Nursery production is contracted annually with each community. Construction, repairs, and preparing the beds must be completed in January.