Reforestation

The trees, with their processes of growth, reproduction, and decomposition contribute towards ensuring biodiversity in the following ways:

• Trees promote the return of endangered species.
• Trees are our best mechanism for absorbing CO2.
• Trees, through photosynthesis, are primarily responsible for providing part of the oxygen we breathe and remove carbon dioxide, which causes global warming leading to the dreaded greenhouse effect.
• Each tree absorbs about 25 kg of carbon emissions each year.
• A tree absorbs around 1,000 kg of carbon dioxide over a period 40 years and can live more than 100 years.
• A fact proven by NASA shows that trees in tropical climates usually absorb three times more CO2.
• Trees protect the soil from erosion.
• Their branches and leaves stop the direct impact of water droplets. The water descends slower through the trunk or falls from the branches or leaves, so it gets more chance to infiltrate the soil. This ensures that a greater proportion of water is retained in the subsurface reserves and less water runs over the surface, reducing their erosive effect.
• The roots of the trees also form a network that holds the soil and helps protect it.
• In the woods, or in areas with vegetation, surface minerals are drawn to a much lesser extent than in bare lands. In areas with few trees, few shrubs or grass, little quantities of water can form large grooves on the earth and impoverish the land – turning it sterile. The current large deserts were great forests in the past. Trees also act as a shield against the wind, another important erosive factor.
• The trees stop the wind and keep it from dragging the materials to another place and push them hard against the very ground which favours its disintegration. The importance of wind on the landscape can be clearly seen in places bare of vegetation such as deserts, where the sand entrainment by wind changes the dunes constantly. In many cities next to deserts, trees are planted to prevent the advance of the desert.
• Forests also act positively against temperature changes, another soil destructive factor.
• The differences of heat and cold between day and night produce its disintegration and help accelerate the erosion process. The sun shines directly on the bare earth and increases the evaporation of water, drying the ground. In forest areas soil moisture is plentiful.
• Forests have also been seen to act as environmental moderators – maintaining an internal temperature that is less extreme than the outside of the forest. Forests provide more freshness in summer and are warmer in winter. The temperature differences between the inside of a forest and adjacent field areas can be 1-3 ° C.
• Trees have provided medicines for centuries, in particular against malaria, acidity, measles, lung diseases, rheumatism, influenza, and leprosy, among others.

Thanks to the contribution of USAID, managed by Patrimonio Natural within its Conservation Landscapes programme, a temporary greenhouse was built where more than 3,000 seedlings of native trees have been propagated. These seedlings have been planted within the Reserve and donated to the community.

Adopt a Tree

If you want to help to preserve the environment, if you want to leave your legacy on earth, if you want to celebrate your birthday or just give away a tree … Adopt a tree and support us!

Friends of our Reserve decide to plant trees to celebrate a birth, a birthday, in memory of a loved one or because they feel a commitment to future generations. We thank each and every one of them for supporting us in our goal to preserve, restore and increase the vegetation of our Reserve, an example of tropical dry forest and habitat for many species in critical danger of extinction.