Soc’cha Alta Dry Forest needs preservation

A rural school highlights in science, looks for stopping deforestation.

 

By Nelson Peñaherrera Castillo. Photographs Courttesy Luis Cevallos Jiménez.

 

This place is 3½ hours from Piura City going up to the east.

 

CANCHAQUÉ, Peru – Maybe, it’s the last primal dry forest patch in Buitré Mount. Teacher Luis Cevallos Jiménez thinks it’s about 74 acres. According to Soc’cha Alta elders, it was larger, still. Among chamelicos, guayacans, and hualtacos, it was detected anteaters, armadillos, deers, ocelots, peccaries, Barnett's lanceheads, and blacktail cribos.

Soc’cha Alta is a village of Canchaqué District, Huancabamba Province, extending on a slope going from 2756 to2887 feet altitude. It’s part of Bigoté Sub-Basin, a Piura River’s tributary, and according to Mr Cevallos, it should be declared a protected area once it’s studied scientifically.

The also principal of 15458 elementary school, where other two colleagues work and 33 children study, already did some ecotouristic experiments, he thinks the best attraction is walking to Huámala Cascade, that if the satellite is not wrong, it could going down through a 1310-feet cliff.

 

A winning project

Within the 11 years Cevallos has worked as a teacher, at the moment of posting this story, he has dedicated five to Soc’cha Alta. He promotes eco Escuela  (Eco-School) Project, that wan the 4^th National Pageant of Educational Innovation Projects summoned by Peru’s National Fund for Education development .

It has four components: eco-Orchard that promotes the school & family orchards, Recycle School that pulls to make compost with organic residues, Fauna for learning, researching, and recovering the species of flora and fauna so protecting them, and Seed  that consists in visiting the forest, watching Nature, reforestting, promoting ecotourism, plus environmental accountability (care of water, air, and soil).

“We use Project-based Learning Methodology or PLM,” Cevallos explains – specific progressive goals building knowledge and identity: rather a school, it’s like a 1.2-acre-large field laboratory where the science and the tradition join in harmony.

 

The orchard has been the key

Teacher Ernesto Garcia, born in Pacaipampa District, knows about medicinal plants – his knowledge has been incorporated as part of the school’s legacy. At his side, Teacher Raúl Rivas performs like a cooker (he does it very good) combining the growth of the school’s orchard  and the food provided by the Peruvian Ministry of Social Inclusion and Development’s Qali Warma Programme. Who said doing science doesn’t let you hungry?

Qali Warma highlights everything has served the teachers for including the nutritional contribution in the educational contents, also promoting a healthy feeding, and the orchard has been the key for stimulating the scientific curiosity and the technologic development among the students, like the planters which putting some water on the upper level, the leaking feeds the lower ones – it’s called efficient use of water.

“We’re looking for funds to a nursery inside the Seed Project,” realizes Mr cevallos who was born in Santo Domingo District, and he thinks that influenced his interest in xoology and botanics. “Canchaqué District Municipality is understood, indeed, but it hasn’t answered us yet,” he adds.

Meanwhile, students continue walking across the forest of Soc’cha Alta with their tablets trying to taking a picture of some species wondering them, and the teachers think the school is called to a very much ambitious goal: stopping deforestation in Buitré Mount. If it’s necessary to advocate for a conservation area, that the right people guide them for making it.

Adding to species conservation, there is another powerful reason for its preservation: if it rains heavily,there is mudslides risk. And Canchaqué District has already proven it’s vulnerable to them.

 

This version: © 2022 Asociación Civil Factor Tierra. All Rights Reserved. Comment this in ththe box below or on our Facebook and Twitter acconts. Would you like to know the places featured in this entry? Write us at factortierra@gmail.com