The watershed in Sous Cataj is completely deforested, and the mountains are devoid of trees from clear-cutting in the last 50 years. To change that, this month, a lot of our community discussions have been centered on reversing this phenomenon. We know the first step is to protect the land from grazing animals with fencing. When we receive donations that go beyond our nursery budget, we’re going to invest in watershed protection by purchasing the barbed wire in exchange for labor and posts from the community.
As you walk around the water spring and into the mountain, you easily see the deforestation. For each $300 we spend on fencing, we are able to fence in and protect enough mountainside for about fruit and forest 2,500 trees. We’re hoping by the end of 2022 we will have started a forest on several hectares of watershed here.
