In
times gone by the coastal region of Southern Peru was an oasis in the
ever-expanding Atacama Desert. By 2007 and this fragile ecosystem has become the
casualty of wide-spread deforestation. The native dry forests have been cleared not only to accommodate the
intensive asparagus plantations and ‘polle’ (chicken) farms but also to provide fuel for growing population. As a result the biodiversity falls whilst the
list of endangered species rises.
In
his book ‘The Wilderness Letters’, Wallace Stegner wrote; “something will have
gone out of us as people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be
destroyed”. It was with this idea in
mind that myself and three undergraduates from Newcastle University set up a
combined research and conservation expedition to Ica in Southern Peru.
The
aims of the expedition were to:-
The
intention of collecting this data was to promote conservation by highlighting
the importance of local native plants as a source of medicine. Furthermore, the work was to feed into an
established long-term conservation project set up in 2004 by Royal Botanical
Gardens (Kew).
What
followed was a hectic 7 months of co-ordinating approvals, permits, logistics
and funding. Nonetheless, with these
initial hurdle crossed, a very excited team left Newcastle in June with the
blessings of Newcastle University and The Royal Geographical Society to live
amongst the sand dunes of Ica for the next 3 months.
Whilst
in Peru the majority of in-field time was spent travelling across the district
of Ica to interview the locals in order to ascertain what plants were utilised,
their preparation and application. The
response we received was fantastic and we frequently found ourselves carried by
the enthusiasm of the village healer to a hot stove to sample some freshly
brewed herbal tea.
Despite
a slight pause in the expedition following the August earthquake we collected
over 250 plant remedies – and an interesting assortment of animal blood and
washing powder related concoctions.
Conservation
is useless without getting the local people involved and an equal amount of
effort was spent in schools and orphanages teaching the children about the
native plants. A similar programme of
habitat restoration was also set up in one of the asparagus farms and it didn’t
take long to realise reforestation is not as easy as geography lessons make
out!
A
sincere thank you to the Somerset Gardens Trust for their support and
contribution towards the project. Our
time in Peru was both fascinating and illuminating. Returning to the UK and readjusting to
Somerset in early autumn was a welcome shock to the system. After the barren expanses of the Atacama
Desert, the abundance of greenery here serves as a small reminder to value and
protect our own fragile environment.
Rebecca Leung. December 2007.