With support from October Hill Foundation, in January, 2009, a review of LCHPP’s then 12 years of reforesting mountainsides in Michoacan was undertaken. The goal was to assess the program’s strengths and weaknesses in order to provide a guide for the program’s future development. Methods included field counts, measurements and interviews with participants. Plantings were sampled from across the entire 12 year history of the project.
Highlights of this report:
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Tree survival rate at our farmland conversion reforestation sites averages 71%.
- Excellent innovative nursery practices produce uniformly excellent trees.
- The successful conversion of farmland and eroded sites to forests of native pine and oyamel, particularly those adjacent to the monarch reserves, has an obvious benefit to the monarchs.
- The reforested land will have an enormous benefit to watershed protection.
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The amount of forest cover throughout the region – not just the immediate vicinity of the reserves – affects the climate and perhaps rainfall within the reserves.
- Carbon Sequestration: The new forests that result from this project benefit the health of our planet through carbon sequestration, an important aspect of the project.
- In the words of one participant, “these (reforestation) efforts are helping to change the people from a consciousness of destruction to one of conservation.”
