Conserving the Corridor: Agroforestry

The story of Wenceslau Vicaña Laso, a cacao farmer from Madre de Dios, Peru, who describes his experience as a participant in the Sustainable Livelihoods initiative with Conservación Amazónica (ACCA), in adopting methods of agroforestry. In this region, the particular approach to agroforestry is to cultivate cacao, a long-term crop, alongside bananas, papaya, and other short-term crops, within a forested plot.

This was a part of ACCA’s Manu-Tambopata Corridor project, a major effort to protect the rainforest in the area between Manu National Park and Tambopata National Reserve in Peru, an area heavily threatened by pollution and degradation from gold mining and other activities.