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Project News

2008-12-12

Creating Environmental Awareness among Farmers

Creating environmental awareness among farmers is an activity that is just as important as giving environmental education to students.  Alhajuela Project has the double goal of conserving the Alhajuela Lake watershed (especially the forests, soil and water source) and achieving rural development.  Therefore, we are disseminating environment-friendly farming techniques to inhabitants, however, without having a clear understanding of what watershed conservation is there is the possibility that we might be seen as just a project for improving their quality of life.

With this in mind, we invited 19 members from the 7 farmer groups that began their activities this year (2008) to participate in a seminar for increasing their awareness in watershed conservation (photos 1 & 2). The seminar's main topics were as follows:

[Session I] • Explanation of the concept of a watershed; n Importance of Alhajuela Lake; • Significance of Chagres National Park; • Reality of the degradation of nature; • Advantages and disadvantages of slash-and-burn farming; • Examples of watershed destruction in Panama; • Compatibility of development and conservation.

[Session II] • Negative effects brought about by watershed degradation (deforestation, soil erosion and sedimentation, water pollution and change in river flow, forest fires, effects on the community, etc.); • Measures for reducing slash-and-burn areas and pastureland (intensive and conservationist farming methods, their advantages and disadvantages, the importance of the farmland use plan, alternative income sources, reforestation, etc.); • Division of responsibilities between inhabitants and the government (for example, ANAM).

Photo

Photo

(Photo 1: left) Explaining the relationship between Alhajuela Lake and Panama Canal (October 20, 2008)
(Photo 2: right) One of slides used in the presentation; it reads "Conserve the watershed starting with your farm." (October 23, 2008)

Each farmer carries out his farming activities under different social and economic circumstances, and their impact on the environment also varies. The seminar did not take the position of presenting an ideal form of watershed conservation, rather it emphasized the importance of thinking together with farmers on what concrete methods could be taken to improve their daily activities.

The following comments were heard from among the seminar participants:
"For the first time, I understood the importance of Alhajuela Lake and Chagres National Park."
"I understood that there are advantages and disadvantages to slash-and-burn farming and also to modern farming using agrochemicals."
"What can small-scale farmers like us do in face of large-scale farmers who have a lot of cattle and extensive pastures?"

Our future plan is to expand the awareness creation activities to each community, and to develop more effective methods for raising the environmental awareness of adults and then to transfer this knowledge to the C/P, ANAM personnel and park rangers.

(Mr. Taku MORI, Environmental Education / Farmland Use Plan)

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