Page 27 - 2020 Sustainability Report - Gran Tierra Energy

NaturAmazonas
NaturAmazonas, GTE’s flagship voluntary environmental program in partnership with the non-profit Conservation International, continued to exceed its original objectives. The project is focused on combating deforestation in Colombia’s Amazonia region where the Amazon rainforest connects with the foothills
of the Andes mountain range, home to
one of the most sensitive and biodiverse ecosystems in the world. Gran Tierra
will have contributed USD $13 million to NaturAmazonas over its eight-year lifecycle. The project is being implemented in close cooperation with the Colombian Ministry of Environment and Sustainability, regional authority Corpoamazonia and local communities in the Putumayo Department. NaturAmazonas also makes a significant contribution towards the 2030 emissions reduction and carbon sequestration targets established by the national government and the Ministry of Mines and Energy.
NaturAmazonas has encouraged a cultural shift towards sustainability and fostered knowledge growth, conservation and technical training.
naturAmazonas’ accomplishments: nurseries
• Opened Sacha Wasi, the program’s third forestry centre
• Incorporated GTE’s Costayaco Forestry Centre and Corpoamazonia’s Centro Experimental Amazónico into the Agroforestry Station Network
• Producednearly1millionseedlings of shade and productive trees
• Built capacity to produce up to several million seedlings every year
Restoration
• Restored a total of 708 hectares of forest in Putumayo, Cauca and Caquetá
• Planted 72 species of trees
• Will sequester ~8.7 million tonnes
of CO2 through reforestation and conservation over the project’s lifetime
» Equivalent to the emissions from 215 billion passenger miles driven or the energy use of
10 million homes for one year
Guardians of Botanical Knowledge
• Hired 132 local people who collected 28,000 samples of flora
• Catalogued1,400species
• Discovered 11 new species in Colombia, three of which are new to science
• CreatedColombia’sonlyethno- botanical herbal collection housed at the Putumayo Institute of Technology
Amazon’s Honey
• Supportsreforestationand protects botanical health through increased bee pollination
• Converts the resulting honey into a sustainable commercial commodity for nearly 500 local farmers
• Won first place at the 2020 Latin America Green Awards in the “Fauna” category
Sustainable food Projects
• Provides farmers access to a successful living without turning forests into fields
• Promotes the combination of forest and agronomic species of plants to improve soil sustainability, conserve water, optimize and diversify productivity
• 720 hectares of cacao, banana and rice crops have been added to the agroforestry system to date
• 264 family farms in 22 villages were built and are now operational
Sovereign Harvesting
• Helped 300 participants strengthen their families’ capacity for food production by teaching agro-ecological techniques for native plants
enVIROnMenTAL STeWARDSHIP
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