This is the story of Reynaldo Ochoa, who works with the Crees Foundation to educate communities and plant trees in Manu National Park.
Reynaldo Ochoa remembers that, when he first moved to the Manu region, he cut down trees in order to create farming land. Like him, many migrants came to the area to start a new life and build a home. When the land wouldn’t produce the necessary food Ochoa’s family needed, he’d move on and cut down more trees, a method called slash-and-burn agriculture. “It was clear we needed to change our way of life,” he says in this short film.
The film highlights the life of Ochoa, who for more than twenty years has practiced and preached a new way of coexisting with the forest around him. He is dedicated to reforesting the area and teaching communities throughout the Manu region with the Crees Foundation, a research and educational hub in Manu. Watch the film below:
Cover photo: Daniela Gygax/Flickr
