The mountains are crying in the Andes.

The name of the glacier on the mountain Puma Huanca is called Sotuq,(sue-tuck) in Quechua it means drip or tear drop, since it looks like two tear drops falling down a face.

In Peru the word "Apu" refers to the powerful spirit of each mountain which is like a god. In every snow capped peak, to smaller hills, there is an Apu. Each Apu is different, with individual characteristics and personalities. From them emerge the life giving waters of springs, lakes and rivers, as well as the forests and creatures that dwell in them.
Eco Valles Civil association of Urubamba Peru hears the Cry of help from the mountain Apu´s . We are making this Pilot re-forestation project to show that seed balls are a simple economical and easy way to re-forest and slow down the effects of Global warming, to slow down the rapid melting of our majestic glaciers. Working with many local and international enthusiastic collaborators; Local Quechua farming communities, Irrigation association, local high school students, local Urubamba municipality authorities, privet business, and concerned Tourist business.
Our plan is in two phases.
“Phase One” is our pilot re-forestation project. Mobilizing our collaborators to all pull together to make a great success. Local Urubamba high school students will be making the seed balls at our Eco Valles Association meeting center in Urubamba. The farming communities and irrigation association members dressed in very colorful authentic traditional high Andean dress, will be broadcasting the seed balls on the upper sides of the mountain Puma Huanca. This event will be a very colorful visual presentation to the world media channels. The event will include traditional dances performed by local schools as well as Andean music when the seed balls are being broadcasted. Here we will announce to the world press and media, a to call for help in the way of funding for our “Phase Two”.
Phase two is to incorporate the seed balls in a large scale re-forestation crusade in the Andes. Using the same method as successfully used in Greece, Japan and New Zealand; broadcasting seed balls "Nendo Dango" from cargo aircraft over thousands of Hectors of the high Andes to re forest as much area as possable.

All persons interesting in helping out in any way on this project please write to eco valles at this address; info@eco-valles.org

si estas interesado en colaborar con esta proyecto por favor escríbenos a este mail; info@eco-valles.org

-Glaciers are disappearing in the Andes-

Many thanks to this man, and his documentary "The inconvenient truth” .

Ex Vice President of USA, Mr Al Gore
"Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced."

Here in Peru

Jacabamba Glacier, Peru.

On the left, a photograph taken in 1980. On the right, the same view in 2002.

At 17,000 feet in the northern Andes, the glacier which covers famed Pastoruri has shrunk at a rate of 62 feet every year since 1980. Today it covers a surface area of 0.7 square miles, about 25 percent less than a quarter of a century ago.
Pastoruri is one of 18 glacier-capped mountains in Peru suffering the effects of climate change, according Peru's National Environment Council, CONAM.
Peru has the most tropical glaciers in Latin America and has already lost 20 percent of the 1,615 miles of glaciers running through its central and southern Andes in the past 30 years, according to CONAM.
Climate change, caused by greenhouses gases such as carbon dioxide, is considered one of the biggest longer term threats to mankind and could bring higher sea levels, devastating floods and droughts.
In southern Peru the rate of melting of the Qori Kalis glacier during the 8 year period 1983 to 1991 was 3 times the pace of the previous 20 years, 1963 to 1983. "By the time we probably know what they are doing, it will be far too late to worry about it because they are going to be like galloping glaciers," says Ellen Mosley Thompson, climate expert at Ohio State University. The Qori Kalis is receding at about two feet per day. Sitting beside the glacier, one could witness the melting hour by hour.

Marco Zapata, head of the Institute of Natural Resources glaciology unit, told local media last week that Peru has lost 22 per cent of its glaciers since the 1970s.
"Peru is one of the most affected countries in the world due to global warming," he said, adding that tropical mountain ranges — which endure longer hours of sunshine and hence higher temperatures — are especially vulnerable to global warming.
Zapata said that glaciers above 5,500 metres — which account for almost all of Peru's glaciers — will be gone by 2015.

A seed ball that has sproted.

Scientists have long argued that planting and preserving forests helps reduce global warming because trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it to oxygen. Trees also absorb water from the ground, helping to form clouds that shield the earth from sunlight. Only tropical forests effectively cool the earth by absorbing carbon dioxide and creating clouds.

El nendo dango

"The key to success and balance is variety," Fukuoka has said.The clay pellets are formed in cement mixers, loaded into sacks and trucked to the sites where armies of volunteers fan out over the site to be sown, scattering pellets as they go.On larger-scale projects, pelleted seeds can be sown from airplanes; this has already been done in Greece, as well as abroad in Tanzania and India,among other places. The first large-scale aerial sowing of 10,000 hectares, led by Fukuoka, took place at Lake Vegoritis in northern Greece in 1998. European volunteers, several hundred pupils, students and farmers sowed 7 tons of seed pellets over 2,500 hectares.
The method consists of sowing clay pellets containing seeds of a variety of plants. No further action is needed and no water other than rainfall. In fact, it is one of the basic tenets of the method that first come plants and then rain. "If we manage to sow 10,000 hectares, we can call the rain..."says Fukuoka

Seeds falling from the sky to re forest the Andes.

El nendo dango es una imitación de la naturaleza. Cuando tiramos nendo dango, sembramos como Dios. Cuando hacemos nendo dango hay que sentir que somos Dios. Cuando se hacen los nendo dango estamos metiendo alma en la bolita de arcilla.El proceso de desertificación en el mundo es imparable: "hay que sembrar y sembrar si queremos poder ofrecer un futuro a nuestros descendientes", durante 60 años, Masanobu Fukuoka, ha desarrollado un método de agricultura natural, y ahora lo ha aplicado con éxito para frenar la desertificación. El método que propone Fukuoka para la reforestación (reverdecer) es la pildorización. Este sistema consiste en embadurnar semillas en una capa de arcilla, hacer bolas de arcilla de un grosor determinado dependiendo del tamaño de cada semilla. El fin es el de protegerla una vez depositada en el terreno y evitar que sea alimento de pájaros, roedores y otros animales. Las semillas están así protegidas a la espera de la época lluviosa, en ese momento la arcilla absorbe el agua y la semilla la utiliza para poder germinar. Este sistema es mucho más eficiente, según Fukuoka, que los métodos tradicionales de reforestación (aproximadamente hay un 2% de éxitos de germinación con el método de pildorización frente al 0,2% de otros sistemas) Un sistema sencillo pero que requiere especialización a la hora de realizar las bolitas de arcilla o "nendo dango". Existen dos métodos de pildorización: uno manual y otro mecánico: Sistema Manual. Hay que hacer la selección de las semillas, para ello hay que hacer una selección de 100 semillas. Tenemos que sembrar 100 variedades como mínimo para poder ofrecerle a la naturaleza la posibilidad de crear su propio equilibrio. Según Fukuoka un paisaje de rocas y pinos es un paisaje desequilibrado y a un paso de la desertificación total. No se puede llamar bosque a un desierto, y el desierto no es sólo dunas. La mezcla de semillas está compuesta por:
50 variedades de frutales y forestales
30 variedades de hortalizas
10 variedades de cereales
10 plantas para mejorar el suelo (leguminosas) Se hace la mezcla de semillas y se mezcla con arcilla cribada y agua, el resultado final o sea que germinen las semillas dependen de muchos factores: la elección de la arcilla, la climatología, etc. Después de amasar la mezcla se hacen las bolitas de arcilla una a una. Este es un proceso lento pero que cumple una labor social importante al reunir a un numeroso grupo alrededor de un mismo fin: se charla, se ríe y se hacen bolitas. Una vez se secan a la sombra las bolitas son esparcidas por el suelo. El Sistema Mecánico es indispensable a la hora de reverdecer grandes zonas (podemos hablar de terrenos de 10.000 H. o más. También es un sistema muy depurado que se debe practicar bastante antes de adquirir cierta maestría. La elección de semillas y arcilla es el mismo que en el proceso manual. Consiste en hacer la mezcla de semillas y arcilla en una hormigonera convencional, tan solo hay que retirarle las aspas. Es un proceso lento en el que se va añadiendo poco a poco arcilla y agua (también se le puede añadir papel triturado o algodón a la mezcla para darle más plasticidad a las bolitas en caso que se tenga que realizar una reforestación desde aviones o helicópteros), con este sistema cada bolita suele tener solo una semilla. Combinando los dos métodos es factible con un grupo de 50 personas y 6 hormigoneras trabajando 8 horas hacer 3 toneladas de bolitas.Su idea es la de hacer una Olimpiada Verde, una campaña de repoblación forestal por el Mediterráneo. España padece un problema grave de desertizacion y por eso quiere empezar por aquí. En Grecia Fukuoka ha llevado a cabo un proyecto de reverdecer una extensa zona de 10.000 hectáreas desérticas con la ayuda de 500 voluntarios y esparciendo por doquier bolitas de arcilla. Se utilizaron 70 toneladas de arcilla y 12 toneladas de semillas, 5 toneladas de algodón y 3 toneladas de papel de periódicos. Todo el mundo ha colaborado, por eso no es necesario dinero, ni organización. Yo les decía a los jóvenes: tenéis que sembrar las bolitas con alma para que crezcan mejor.

Cuando sembráis, sois como Dios.

Toni Marin, GEA España

Masanobu Fukuoka

This is the wonderful man from Japan that gave us the means to take action on Global Warming in the Andes of Peru. The Pacha Mama and Apu´s thank you.

Masanobu Fukuoka

In Japan there is a farmer by the name of Masanobu Fukuoka who practices what he calls the "no-plowing, no-fertilizing, no-weeding, no-pesticides, do-nothing method of natural farming". To him the idea that people can grow crops is ego-centric. Ultimately it is nature that grows crops. He sees modern agriculture as doing-this and doing-that to grow crops, but it is meaningless work. With his do-nothing method he is able to get yields in his rice fields that are equal to the highest yields attained with chemical, do-something agriculture.What he does do, at least by my translation, is manipulate habitat to favor the crops he wants to grow. He works within the laws of ecology to tilt the ecosystem in favor of the plants he wants. Then his crops virtually invade and grow like weeds. Fukuoka was born in 1914 and schooled in the Western sciences of microbiology and plant pathology. He worked as an agricultural customs inspector in Japan until he became gravely ill at the age of twenty-five. After his sickness he was "reborn", realizing that "human knowledge was meaningless".