Sipirra Restoration and Conservation Project

At Sipirra Project, our mission is to repare the Earth for future generations by promoting sustainable practices and environmental restoration and conservation. We do this by engaging with local communities, championing green initiatives, using recycling of organic materials as a tool to restore land that was injured by deforastion, human induced fires and unsuitable agricultural practices of the past.

Our team of passionate environmentalists is committed to preserving our planet for future generations. With expertise in conservation, policy, and advocacy, we work tirelessly to promote sustainability and green initiatives in out country and hopefully around the world. Join us today and make a difference in the fight to save our planet.

The Sipirra Restoration and Conservation Project is a local project in Villa de Leyva, Colombia, led by indigenous Embera Rosa Lía Largo Hernández. After two decades of successfully restoring and conserving (and through their own resources) an Andean mountainous area affected by reforestation with non-native trees such as pines, eucalyptus and acacias and suffering from chronic fires (which have stopped thanks to their restoration and monitoring work), we now aspire to expand the project with the creation of a Botanical Garden/School and an educational component, in order to share and implement this experience in different parts of Colombia and the world.

This is a unique project in Colombia because long before the dangers of climate change were seen, the Sipirra Project was already addressing them with the conservation and preservation of highly fire-sensitive lands that people saw as unchangeable and that would only get worse with time. Given the peculiar geology of Villa de Leyva and its history, from being an indigenous population with native forests, sustainable agriculture and abundant water, as land use changed with the arrival of the colonizers, the land began to gradually transform, with forests disappearing, initiating a process of erosion whose results we see clearly today in the mountains around Villa de Leyva.

In addition, we have identified the complex relationships between the preservation of water, plants, and traditional methods of conservation and soil restoration that have been practiced in what is now Colombia since ancient times. Thanks to this ancestral knowledge, fire hazards have been eliminated and something out of a children's fairy tale fantasy has been achieved: Rosa Lía has literally planted water in a parched place, using a technique inherited from the Nasa community of the Department of Cauca, to create a water source that now attracts insects, birds and mammals which in turn have helped to plant more plants making the new habitat grow in large proportions.

Taking into account all these achievements and this experience accumulated for centuries, we have set ourselves an even greater challenge: To expand their project, but not in any way, but with a Botanical Garden/School, which would be unique in the world and would surely bring a real practical and cognitive revolution to begin to close the scars of the planet and sow hope in thousands of places in the world that may be affected by similar situations. Colombia is the second most biodiverse country on the planet and the first in biodiversity per square kilometer, we have a whole world with great diversity of plants and animals to thrive in our Botanical Garden/School!

This is an overview of what the new Project would look like:

1-Creation of a Botanical/School Garden.

Why a botanical garden/school: Colombia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, practically a living laboratory that has a great variety of habitats ranging from the tropical rainforest, to the páramos*, unique ecosystems in the world that produce water in heights between 3100 and 5000 meters for much of the country- In Colombia there is no experiential school that brings together the ancestral knowledge to transmit the living legacy, learned and transmitted for centuries informally and now we want to carry out in a systematic and documented way.

Components

A-Environmental: Restore a piece of land that consists of two zones: 1-An area that for more than 50 years has been a place of pasture for raising sheep and goats, 2-Another mountainous area reforested with eucalyptus and pine trees in which there have been fires in the past and where a volunteer of the Colombian Civil Defense died fighting a fire on September 24, 2009. For the restoration we will use the organic matter to make compost and show people how to use it productively instead of ending up contaminating landfills. We will also carry out a process of assisted natural restoration in the reforested area with pine and eucalyptus trees and we will have an educational component for fire prevention. The land we intend to acquire for the project consists of 66.7 hectares, of which approximately 75% is mountainous terrain.

B-Social: This component will facilitate community participation in the botanical garden project, through their donations of plants, knowledge, work time, organic waste, etc., which will give the community a sense of belonging to the project.

C-Cultural: This is proposed as a meeting place for the community with environmental, cultural, social themes, it will be an interactive project with continuous educational projects about nature.

D-Educational: This will be a place for people of all ages to learn about plants, their care, organic agriculture, soil restoration, etc. In addition, we will develop alliances of mutual convenience with universities, so that we will have experts to make and disseminate studies of birds, soils, methods of restoration and conservation, etc.

E-Recreational: This will be a time for people to have recreational activities in a restored and conserved space, a model of the nature we want to conserve, so that people can compare how a place like this maintains biodiversity, understanding how to coexist with nature without harming it.

F-Economic: Over time, we want this project to be self-sustainable. We will need a large initial investment to acquire a piece of land that we have identified, adjacent to our restoration area where we have been working for years. This land will serve us to expand the project and will also serve to preserve it, since if it were sold to private individuals, this ecological zone would probably be destined for commercial purposes without protecting the environment. It is urgent that this area that is now pastureland and has two water springs can be acquired and preserved.

In summary:

The Sipirra Restoration and Conservation Project plans its expansion with a Botanical Garden/School, which requires purchasing the land adjacent to the restoration/conservation land we have been working on. The land we are working on is owned by the municipality, the land we want to purchase is privately owned.

We also plan to establish an educational component there, where soil restoration and conservation and fire prevention techniques will be shared and where the great biodiversity of native species of flora and fauna of the Andean forest can be appreciated, learned and studied, rescuing and transmitting ancestral knowledge in this process.

For this we plan to count on the economic help of foundations and international organizations and internally with the contribution of knowledge of ancestral and academic wisdom, creating links with universities and entities responsible for the protection of nature in Colombia and internationally.

To carry out this project, we are seeking to raise $10 million to purchase the land, establish the botanical garden, create the educational component of the project, which will have a maloca-style building (made with sustainable materials) and pay salaries, maintenance, utensils, etc. for 5 years, and then become self-sustainable.

*Paramos: Páramos are unique ecosystems found in high-altitude regions, typically above the tree line and below the permanent snow line. These moorlands are characterized by wet, boggy terrain, and are often home to a variety of endemic species. Páramos play a crucial role in regulating water supply and are important for biodiversity and carbon sequestration.

“The páramos are strategic global ecosystems where the fresh water that millions of people drink is born. It is a natural repository that supports the control of carbon dioxide as it retains it in its subsoil, helping to prevent global warming. They are also part of the natural reserve of a diversity of fauna and flora endemic to this ecosystem. They are the habitat of thousands of species, provide water for fertile soils, regulate the climate and prevent landslides

and floods.”

Source: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/506d5e4778384c79a564ebc3ed93df09