A large, new nursery has been established high up in the Cangrejal catchment at Rio Viejo. This is close to the point where the track for the communities of the Los Limpios sub-catchment joins the main dirt road in the Cangrejal valley. It has irrigation and a capacity of about 100,000 tree seedlings.
Counted together with the nursery capacity at Las Flores and including the small nurseries of each family, our seedling capacity is now at about 250,000 in total, making this program the biggest operation of its kind in Honduras; and possibly in Central America.
The showing of our teaching film at the community school in Los Limpios, in March 2017) resulted in most of the remaining families in the sub-catchment wishing to adopt the Guama Model. This follows the obvious success of the first few Inga alley plots in recapturing their sites, their being pruned and then supporting healthy maize.
We now estimate that the total number of trees, planted for all purposes in the Guama Model since 2012, is approaching 2 million. The total number of families recruited to the Model, and in various stages of adoption (from nursery trees to the point of cropping), is now approximately 220.
Many families, in both the Cangrejal and Cuero catchments have pruned and planted their Inga plots for the first time. The resulting huge maize crops have proven the soil regenerative power of the Inga, combined with mineral supplements. This is a new Green Revolution being enacted slowly and without fanfare. We are entering a most interesting phase of the Program as more families recruited during 2012-2014 start cropping for the first time.
We aquired a few more hectares of land adjoining the original farm at Las Flores. The intention is to plant a matrix of Inga (for seed) and to interplant Cacao and timber trees. The additional land will also secure our water supply for the farm and will prove invaluable during the next El Niño droughts. We will construct a small dam and tanks to hold clean water for ourselves and the nursery plants. There is space for an Arboretum of as many tree species of the rain forest as possible; these will include endangered or over-exploited species whenever we can acquire seed.