ArBo Real

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Thanks to all our fantastic supporters for helping us pass our £50,000 "Basic Target" in our first week!!

Of course, our efforts don't stop there....

Next on our Christmas list of vital equipment to help us develop a forestry business to improve the of forest whilst also reducing the need for clearing the forest for is a truck:

The one we have now (below), serves our original project areas in the and Province near Cruz. It has an integrated grabber for loading logs and can be adapted for other uses, such as bringing seedlings to our partner families and taking their farm produce to market.

However we desperately need another one to serve our own around and San Borja. Thinning in these departments ( Paz and ) had already been delayed due to complications with felling licences, which are granted at department level. These problems have now been resolved so the only thing stopping us now is that we don't have a truck to take our wood to market!

We could of course hire a transport company to do that for us - but it is not only expensive but also very unreliable.

With our own truck we have much more control and we can plan and operate far more efficiently in a market where profit margins are extremely tight and any delays can make all the difference.

We can also use our truck for:

transporting seedlings to farmers for planting
transporting cash crops such as and
providing an efficient and reliable transport service to local communities

Please help us reach our extended target at

https://bit.ly/ArBo-Real

CUTTING DOWN TREES TO SAVE THE RAINFOREST.
Yes, in this case it's true -
If we are to save the Amazon rainforest then we have to incentivize the forest communities that have settled there to use their existing land more productively rather than clearing more forest every year for crops. Permanently managed tree lots, which can also be combined with other cash crops like coffee and cocoa, are an essential part of this strategy.
However, tree lots have to be pruned and "thinned" on a regular basis to produce high quality timber. Thinning involves cutting down and removing about 20-25% of the least healthy standing trees every 5- 7 years in order to give the most promising specimens access to the maximum amount of light, water and soil nutrients.
We urgently need to replace old chainsaws and buy more as well, to cope with the increasing number of ArBolivia's tree lots that are now ready for their second thinning (i.e. around 12 years old).
On Friday 27th November we are launching a Crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to buy essential new equipment, including chainsaws, to help us provide a decent living for our partner families and protect the natural forest.

Pre-launch Preview:
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/arbo-real?tk=817bc97e42465254a508122134d8e2f3d62210c3.

Post Launch:
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/arbo-real

ArBolivia | The ArBolivia project The main cause of deforestation in the Bolivian Amazon is poverty. This forces poor farmers to fell prime rainforest to survive. The ArBolivia Project provides a real alternative by offering a true partnership between social investors from the developed world and poor subsistence farmer and their fa...

Work has now started at the site in La Belgica to set up a biomass briquetting plant, utilising our sawmill waste. This is the new (refurbished!)flash dryer, recently delivered and now waiting to be sited permanently.