Therapy for the spine of South America

It is restoration day in a village high in the Andes and the mood is festive. 

After limbering up with a traditional dance, dozens of volunteers each grab an armful of bushy green saplings. Then they clamber onto pickup trucks, motorbikes and horses and stream up a treeless mountainside to plant them. 

Grassroots reforestation efforts like this one in Ecuador’s Chimborazo Province are the hallmark of Acción Andina, a multi-country initiative to restore native forests along the mountainous 700-kilometer spine of South America. 

As well as reviving unique mountain landscapes and biodiversity, it is an attempt to work along Indigenous communities to protect their livelihoods and culture from the ravages of climate change – and to slow its progression. Many in the Andes are particularly worried about water security. 

“Our children, my children, will grow up and have families of their own here,” says Laura Punina, a Kichwa community leader in Chomborazo, which is named for one of the snow-capped volcanoes that dominate the skyline. “I think about that when I am planting. I hope that these trees will someday become a forest and generate more water.” 

A winning approach 

Acción Andina was founded in 2018 by the United States of America-based Global Forest Generation and Peruvian non-profit Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos (ECOAN) to spur large-scale community-led restoration right across the high Andes. 

The initiative has supported 22 projects in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru, and has plans to expand to Colombia and Venezuela. It has engaged about 25,000 people to restore nearly 5,000 hectares of forest and protect more than 11,250 hectares of existing tree cover. 

In recognition of its approach, impact and ambition, Acción Andina has been named as a United Nations World Restoration Flagship. The award is part of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, led by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO). It aims to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems on every continent and in every ocean. 

Globally, countries have committed to restoring 1 billion hectares, an area larger than China. 

“It may take a single chainsaw to cut down a forest, but it takes a community to restore and sustain it,” says Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP. “By bringing people together, and using both Indigenous values and scientific methods, Acción Andina is helping to revive natural water sources, create jobs and help communities to grow even stronger.”   

The world’s highest forest 

For Acción Andina, restoration means protecting and reviving forests of Polylepis, a genus of trees and shrubs unique to the Andes. Dense evergreens with hardy, gnarled bark, the trees can grow at altitudes of over 5,000 metres in the world’s highest forests. 

But many decades of overgrazing, clearance for pasture and harvesting for timber and fuel means only fragments of the original forests remain. This is eroding a mainstay of Indigenous culture and pushing species such as the black-breasted puffleg – a hummingbird – and the Andean mountain cat toward extinction. 

In the Andes, as well as many mountain ranges worldwide, climate change is threatening more severe rainstorms, intensifying droughts, and shrinking the glaciers that feed springs and streams. That is combining with a lack of forests, which store water, feed wetlands and control runoff, to leave communities exposed to floods and landslides as well as water scarcity. 

Water supplies to cities in the lowlands, including the Ecuadorian capital Quito, are also threatened. 

“The immediate solution is to take huge action to harvest water, increase restoration, and increase the management of watersheds and lakes,” ECOAN founder Constantino Aucca Chutas says. “It is the only way we are going to do something positive.” 

Collective efforts 

To generate that action, Acción Andina and its partners work with Andean communities to raise their awareness of the importance of healthy ecosystems and identify areas where forests could be revived. They are also tapping the ancient Inca principles of ayni and minka, which embody a profound commitment to work together for a common good. 

On the recent “restoration day” in Chombarazo, volunteers armed with mud-caked hoes and buckets of water planted hundreds of saplings in the tussocky grasslands. The eight-month-old trees had been nurtured in a nursery established with assistance from Acción Andina. 

Punina, the Kichwa leader, says community members had agreed to limit grazing in the area, including around a spring, to reduce contamination and allow the forest to regenerate. Reforested areas also sometimes needed fencing to keep hungry livestock at bay, Aucca says. 

Ambitious vision 

On 5 June, Saudi Arabia will host World Environment Day 2024, an annual celebration of the planet which this year focuses on desertification, drought resilience and land degradation.    

Deforestation is one of the most common causes of land degradation. Every year, the Earth loses 10 million hectares of tree cover, an area equivalent to the size of Portugal. The disappearance of these forests speeds climate change, fuels species loss and deepens poverty in rural areas. 

Through its projects, Acción Andina says more than 200 local communities have benefited from economic opportunities generated by reforestation. Community members have opened tree nurseries, ecotourism ventures and craft shops, among other businesses. The initiative also supports the establishment of more protected areas and helps communities obtain secure title to their land. 

But this is just a beginning. 

The UN World Restoration Flagship award means Acción Andina is now eligible for technical and financial UN support. And it could help it find new supporters to realize their grand vision. 

The initiative hopes to raise US$117 million by 2030 – the sum required to protect and restore 1 million hectares, an area 15 times the size of Santiago, Chile’s capital.  

“Acción Andina will plant millions of native trees along the Andes to secure water, landscapes and protect ecosystems, biodiversity and culture,” says Aucca, whose restoration efforts saw him recognized in 2022 as a UNEP Champion of the Earth. “Local and native communities demand it, and the planet deserves it.” 

World Environment Day on 5 June is the biggest international day for the environment. Led by UNEP and held annually since 1973, the event has grown to be the largest global platform for environmental outreach, with millions of people from across the world engaging to protect the planet. This year, World Environment Day focuses on land restoration, desertification and drought resilience.    

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030 led by the United Nations Environment Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and partners covers terrestrial as well as coastal and marine ecosystems. A global call to action, it will draw together political support, scientific research and financial muscle to massively scale up restoration.