CREES Foundation
Manu Biosphere Reserve (RBM) is located in southern Peruvian Amazon, is a Natural Heritage, recognized by UNESCO, protects native, colonized, and uncontacted communities, whose survival and economic resources depend on the exploitation of their natural resources.
Sustainable Manu, focuses on 3 strategic lines:
* Gender.- involves the empowerment of women as the main leader in the construction, maintenance, use of family or community bio-gardens, which self-supply them with vegetables, and sustainable production to improve the family diet, and have a small economic income and eradicate machismo.
* Interculturality.- Respect for the cultural practices of the population, the recovery and enhancement of ancestral knowledge, native food products, and natural medicine to facilitate the implementation of local ventures.
* Horizontality.- involves the active and constant cooperative participation in which we all respect everyone's opinions and positions.
The communities in the Manu, live on the exploitation of natural resources and activities that are not unsustainable, also have problems such as poverty, the lack of fresh vegetables for the nutrition of children, not woman inclusion, and unsustainable agriculture that affects forests and biodiversity of this place.
CREES Foundation seeks to work for a "Sustainable Manu", in this project we have identified and worked with potential community leaders, we promote community participation in the development of local workshops related to sustainable land management for the use of forests and the importance of forest regeneration. In recent years, we have implemented 36 family bio gardens led by mothers. Between 2016-2018 we have promoted communal and integrative work, for 2019-2020, we have developed work with bio gardens, holding workshops, environmental education, and outreach activities, focusing on working with schools, health centers, and soup kitchens in 4 communities in the Manu Biosphere Reserve.
Sustainable Manu seeks to support native communities that living in the Manu Biosphere Reserve, establish workshops on conservation, sustainability to identify community leaders. Manu is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, as well as being an area that has high poverty rates.
Community work thoghts education helps developed sustainable practices that allow conserve and improve the quality of life of people,
Within the project we work on 3 main axes:
1) Development of training and environmental education workshops where children and young students are included. We connect education with the importance of forests and people's health.
2) Implementation and work of family bio gardens, which are led by mothers allow an economic income for families and improve families' diet due to fresh vegetables
3. We identify alternative products and some economic activities to promote local ventures with the population and improve the local economy
4. We promote community work because we seek to improve relationships and support the organization of populations.
Our scope of work is the populations of the Manu Biosphere Reserve, we currently work with 4 localities: Salvación, Mansilla, Gamitana and Shintuya, with whom we have developed local workshops and where we have implemented family and community bio-gardens.
Starting by understanding the importance of the forest and biodiversity and especially the importance and great value of the place where they live, Manu.
For this reason, the implementation of bio-gardens is an alternative income for families and also allows them to grow their own fresh vegetables.
Through this alternative, we have supported organizing communities, working with them and improving their local farming practices
- Improve supply chain practices to reduce food loss, scale new business models for producer-market connections, and create low-carbon cold chains
- Growth: An organization with an established product, service, or business model rolled out in one or, ideally, several communities, which is poised for further growth
- Nonprofit
CREES Foundation:
It is a Peruvian organization, dedicated to supporting a sustainable Amazon primarily through understanding the value of the rainforest, to share this knowledge with the local population, so that it is used in a responsible and sustainable manner. What is not known is not loved. For this reason, our mission is to implement processes that promote the conservation and responsible and sustainable development of the Biosphere Reserve and the Manu National Park, considering its sociocultural context, based on Education.