Bioparque Móncora
A Community Forest and Beacon of Hope
The Story
Bioparque Móncora is a powerful symbol of peace for this region whose history of violence is a constant reminder that regeneration begins with culture and moves from there into the land.
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It is roughly 6 hectares of land owned by Associación Aquileo Parra -- with 40 members of this non-profit organization, all of whom reside in the local community. The founders of this beautiful project are Camila Encinales and Vicky Camacho. They started planting trees in 2009 in the desolation that remained after half a century of monoculture crops.
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Now the bioparque is a gathering place for youth from local schools to learn the native ecology of the tropical dry forest. It is on its way toward flourishing as a seed bank and gathering place to learn how forests grow in this unique landscape.
A Syntropic Agroforestry Field Site was created during a workshop in April 2022. Following the strategy "dense, denser, the densest" once more we created several rows with local water capturing succulent species, seed-bombs including nitrogen-fixing legumes, local fruit trees and shrubs, and various plants planted directly through branches.
It has become a primary learning space for community members about how to restore soils, water, and forest canopy within a productive agroforestry system that does not require irrigation or any chemical inputs.
