One of the basic lessons I have learned about ecosystem restoration is that the model of land management needs to be compatible with the dynamic processes of regeneration involved in doing the work. A powerful example of this is what happens in Bioparque Móncora here in Barichara.
It is community-owned land. The owner is a non-profit organization called Associación Aquileo Parra with 40 members who all live here in the community. The land was donated into this structure as a gesture of peace after an extended period of violence that unfolded in the last century. Now it is "held in common" by this member-based organization to provide space for learning and ecological restoration.
I first came to Barichara in November 2019 because I had heard about the bioparque as a community reforestation project and potential home for creating a bioregional learning center. With six hectares of land, it is large enough to really demonstrate powerful approaches and also beautifully located at the top of the town with easy access for students of all ages to come and learn in the forest as it grows.
What you see in this image is an area within the bioparque where I have been growing native forest for the last three and a half years. When I started, it was mostly invasive grass with just a few trees. Now it is flourishing with bushes and shrubs, trees of various sizes, and a splended diversity of animal life with insects, spiders, birds, lizards, and small mammals making it their home.
I couldn't hold a process like this for extended periods of time without the ownership of the land corresponding with its use patterns. When I first arrived in Barichara, I made some minor improvements to road sides with water restoration interventions. Municipal workers and private land owners destroyed all of my work to build larger houses and engage in practices that had no concern for the flourishing of nature.
It wasn't until I established deep trust with the stewards of Bioparque Móncora that my deeper regenerative work on the land could begin. That process took almost two years. And now I am getting close to four years of reforestation work on this plot of land within the larger community forest.
In this photo, you can see the lines of an agroforestry system that is our first demonstration site for Syntropic Agriculture. It was established as a community workshop three years ago and is right next to the forest in the photo above. Again, this kind of long-term work requires that the way land is owned and managed needs to be aligned with the regenerative processes involved.
Here it is a matter of establishing a learning site for syntropic practices. Members of the community come out each week to do maintenance of the agroforestry system. People share what they are doing on their private land as it relates to the emerging processes here in the community forest.
As we practice designing reciprocity relationships for land stewards, these activities in the bioparque are very helpful and instructive. We continually find that the social arrangements among people are what make (or break) a regenerative project. This is deeply true and central for creating a community forest.
I hope this helps bring inspiration and more clarity to the work you do in the places where you live.
Onward, fellow humans.
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