Gustavo, age 10, is happy to join his classmates in moving a hundred young cachama fish (Colossoma macropomum) to a pond in the Francisco de Mirando Park in the Venezuelan capital. “The rivers should be clean so that there are many more fish like these,” he said.

Since the second week of February “we have been accompanied by schoolchildren so that they are aware of the importance of preserving our rivers and watersheds; the effort will expand to other parks with ponds in various cities,” Juan Carlos Velásquez, director of the government's Institute of Parks, told Tierramérica.

The cachama is a fish typical of the rivers of the Venezuelan plains that flow to the giant Orinoco and the Amazon. They can be farmed to produce more than one kilogram of meat each, and are a good complement to the rural diet.