How to farm in a desert: Poject Manchay Verde
1500 trees were planted in an area where it never rains.
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By Elisa Calliari, Paula Nishizima, Reynaldo Azevedo e Silvia Debiasi
They planted trees, learned the specifics of the community of Manchay and saw how small actions can have large impacts. Today Elisa Calliari, Paula Nishizima, Reynaldo Azevedo and Silvia Debiasi, visited the project that has been realized in the outskirts of Lima, Manchay Verde (Green Manchay).
The experts who accompanied the four young declare themselves aware and proud to work for the people of Manchay.
The main topics they afford are the water cycle, recycling, ecology, care of the environment and sustainable development, and in this case they have proposed a simple model of waste water treatment.
Through a system which uses a simple technology they also solve the problem of indiscriminate urbanization of Manchay.
Manchay is a center on the outskirts of Lima, which has about 80 000 inhabitants, arrived in recent decades from the surrounding provinces, driven by poverty and criminal groups.
The urbanization has never been managed by appropriate methods, and the result is that 80% of the population has no access to clean water and more than a half do not have adequate sewer infrastructure. Therefore Manchay Verde project aims to curb the problem of uncontrolled urbanization through cultivation of plants in the surrounding hills.
Uprooting a tree is considered a crime in Peru, therefore the presence of plants should address the illegal buildings to shift on land more suitable and not at risk of pollution.
This project, however, solves many other problems, first of all the waste water treatment and their return into the ground, given the absence of a proper sewage system. Until now 1500 trees have been planted, and yesterday five more, planted by the members of Youth Press Agency.
The project was carried out with care, in fact planted trees are the ones that are best suited to the soil and climate condition and they can also suffer of lack of water for limited periods of time. Tubes start from the top of the hill and going down along rows of trees, dropping a bit of water at each one.
“The goal of Manchay Verde is also to say that you can treat the water and sewerage avoiding it enters into the soil with the danger of contamination. Hopefully people of Manchay will contribute to the continuity of this project” says one of the project’s technical, Emmanuel Verlinden.
Given the extreme climatic conditions of total absence of rains during the year, the local population is suffering from a lack of water and constantly needs of reinventing itself.
The project Manchay Green is therefore the possibility of a new possibilities of life for the population.
