The Inter-Ethnic Association of the Peruvian Rain Forest (AIDESEP), an association of 28 federations of indigenous peoples from Peru, has launched a program to restore the productivity and diversity of degraded fields and forests in their ancestral domain.

The project site is near Pucalpa, which lies at the end of the Pucalpa-Lima highway, the only road linking the Amazon Basin to the rest of Peru.

Since the highway was built during the mid-1960s, waves of colonists and land speculators have cleared the forests for farming and cattle ranching. In the process, the local indigenous peoples lost access to their ancestral lands. In response, AIDESEP has launched a campaign to secure land titles for those still living in forested areas and to reclaim their ancestral domain, much of which is now a wasteland of abandoned farms and low-productivity cattle pastures.

In 1985, AIDESEP launched the HIFCO project to reclaim a 7.5-hectare parcel of abandoned cattle pasture--an experiment in wresting food crops from marginal lands. German ecologists provided technical assistance during the first year. Since then, HIFCO has been totally managed and developed by the indigenous community, with modest international financial support. The abandoned pasture has become an ecological "Garden of Eden" that enjoys year-round production. Acidic soils have been restored, and crop yields have increased each year, surpassing those of nearby farms employing "modern" non-organic agriculture.

The HIFCO farming system is best described as a "hybrid," built on a model of the forest canopy's strata, but also drawing on both modern and traditional agriculture. It focuses on improving soil structure and nutrient content through a system of raised beds and drainage canals. Rejecting the recommendation of extension agents from the Ministry of Agriculture to scrap the whole project, HIFCO began working organic matter--crop residue, leaf litter, and animal manure--into the planted beds. By 1990, farmers' experiments with different mixes of traditional and cash crops with trees had turned 4.5 hectares into productive agricultural land.

The species diversity of the beds is very rich, with a kaleidoscope of 42 annuals and perennials intercropped among trees. The system is laced with leguminous plants (e.g., various "pole" beans and pigeon-pea bushes) that serve as green mulches and soild enrichers. Trees in the system support "climber" crops (various beans), fix nitrogen, bear fruit, and provide timber and specialty products. By integrating trees into the system, especially as "live" posts, both vertical and horizontal spaces are optimized, so yields per hectare are high. The immediate area encircling the garden is being replanted with trees to mimic a natural forest. To date, 62 different tree species have been tried, most of them endemics from local forests.

A number of aromatic plants and species are cultivated among the food crops to repel insect pests, and the HIFCO staff also brews its own "agrochemical"--a reportedly effective fertilizer and pest repellent made from more than 14 local ingredients mixed together in precise ratios. Fish stocked in the water-filled ditches also help out by eating insect eggs.

Eighteen varieties of fish raised in ponds and ditches, along with a variety of domesticated animals, are also part of the HIFCO system. Guinea pigs, geese, ducks, pigeons, and guinea hens are raised in stalls. Residual food crops and aquatic plants provide fee for the animals, which in turn provide the manure that fertilizes the raised beds. (HIFCO has exiled cattle, pigs, goats, and chickens--all environmentally notorious--from this Eden.)

The project even has a crop-improvement program. Seeds are collected from the most promising crop varieties, dried in a solar oven, and stored in the project's seed bank for out-planting and field trials. They are sowed in germination flats and later transferred to raised nursery beds made of logs and located under the forest canopy or to containers fashioned out of cross-sections of hollow plantain stems, palm trunks, or bamboo. Once planted in the soil, the containers decompose quickly.

The HIFCO demonstration farm serves as a training center for AIDESEP's member federations. By 1990, four intensive training courses had been held for 36 families from 18 federations. The training program spans three months of classroom instruction, conducted entirely with graphic materials, and field practice. Entire families--mothers, fathers and children--participate in the course, residing on the HIFCO farm "dormitories." So far, graduates have launched five "mini-HIFCO" demonstration projects in their communities.

AIDESEP hopes eventually to do away with the centralized training center in Pucalpa, and instead help each federation to train its members locally. To this end, AIDESEP initiated a scholarship program in 1985: the 20 students currently enrolled are working toward degrees in agronomy, engineering, and law.

The mere fact that AIDESEP has been able to bring degraded lands back into agricultural production and maintain it has wide-ranging implications. Continuing high rates of tropical deforestation is producing an ever-increasing amount of degraded and unproductive land. Reclaiming these lands to feed a growing population and support biodiversity conservation presents a major global challenge. The HIFCO project appears to offer one creative and perhaps replicable solution.