A government program for tree seedbeds, with community participation, began last week in Mochima National Park and the coast and islets of northern Venezuela. The goal is to restore an extensive area devastated by fires during the dry season of late 2009 and first months of 2010.

“Every Tuesday in May in the populated areas of the park, 10 or 12 communal councils, with some 500 young people, take part in workshops for creating the seedbeds, the use of organic fertilizer, family gardens, and planting autochthonous tree species, to recover the physical spaces and to raise environmental awareness,” Luis Marín, in charge of the National Institute of Parks for the zone, told Tierramérica.

Groups of schoolchildren were also involved in other parks of the northern coastal region – in gathering seeds. Meanwhile, they are awaiting the rainy season, expected to begin in late May, to began reforestation of the areas hardest hit by the fires.