Native floral bands: Women lead the Toltén wetlands protection and restoration project

Between October 2022 and January of this year, the project “Local biocultural knowledge at the service of wetland restoration and its contributions”, one of the winning projects of the FMA 2022 Fund, was carried out. The objective of this project was to strengthen the leadership skills of the women of the Toltén community by teaching agroecological techniques related to the care of wetlands, to reduce the various threats that these ecosystems present due to the change in land use and the use of agrochemicals.

The project, that was developed by Corporación Capital Biodiversidad, and led by its director, Alejandra Figueroa, the environmental manager, Solange Daroch, and Daniela Tapia, the Corporation’s scientific project coordinator, lasted 7 months. In its development, 5 capacity building and learning workshops were implemented for the development of “floral bands with native species” in order to recover these ecosystems by attracting pollinators in the crop area and testing different recovery techniques for native species, among other initiatives. The workshop “Replication of species collected in natural areas”, and reproduction by cuttings “Esquejeando” were also implemented.

Through these activities and field work, participatory exercises were carried out on the recognition, collection and reproduction of native plants in wetland areas, including the workshop “Agroecological Bands for family gardens”, led by Claudia Ríos, an agronomist engineer and specialist in native flora. In an interview shared on Corporación Capital Biodiversidad’s social networks, Claudia Ríos stated that “by using native flora in the orchards we are conserving pollinators within spaces that are managed by people, so that we will have more fruits in them in the future.”

Regarding the same experience, Práxedes Zapata, a member of the Toltén Rural Women Roundtable, a native of the Chanquin sector, commented that the lessons learned in the workshops “has allowed us to recognize a large part of our native flora, some of which we did not know, to conserve the species that are still found on our Araucanía coast”.

Using the “learning by doing” and “peer learning” methodology, the experts from Capital Biodiversidad together with a group of women toured the ecosystems present in this coastal area, identifying species to be used on the native floral islands as an agroecological technique to reduce the various threats posed on these ecosystems.

Likewise, the workshops were designed so that the participants can replicate this knowledge in their different communities and local contexts, in order to promote local knowledge, through collaborative spaces. Proof of this was the “replica” workshop given in January 2023 by Práxedes Zapata and Pamela Chávez, members of the rural board, who, by consolidating their learning, were able to transmit it to the community, amplifying this knowledge in the territory. Another 10 women from the territory participated in this workshop.

The project ended in January 2023, with a workshop where various local actors were invited, among them the mayor of the Toltén commune, and professionals from the La Moneda Cultural Center and the conservation area of Fundación Mar Adentro.

Tolten Wetlands Exhibition

Corporación Capital Biodiversidad in collaboration with Centro Cultural La Moneda, together with the community of Toltén, has inaugurated an exhibition with the result of this experience and the result of other conservation and local governance projects developed in the territory, called “Toltén wetlands: nature, culture and art”, an exhibition that seeks to make visible the biocultural heritage and the current situation of the aquatic ecosystems of the Toltén commune, through artistic creations, which represent the historical and ancestral identity of this area.

The works that make up this exhibition are the result of five instances of collaborative art organized by both institutions and with the participation of the artists: Gina Negroni, Daniel Lagos, Elizabeth Rodríguez, Jorge Olave and Gonzalo Castro-Colimil, the anthropologist Javiera Delgado and the communities of the Araucanía Region: Escuela Frutillar 144 School Community, Juan de la Cruz de Pinchumilla Community, Luis Ñancucheo Community 1, Luis Ñancucheo Community 2, Mozo Marileo Community, Rural Women’s Table, Women from the Native Floral Bands Workshop in orchards, and the fishing syndicate of the La Barra cove, who are also co-curators of this exhibition and co-creators of the exhibited works.

Study of wetlands in the commune of Toltén

According to a report prepared by Corporación Capital Biodiversidad, between 2001 and 2021, there was a 31% reduction in the surface area of wetlands in this sector of the Araucanía region.

According to this study, the increasing change in land use in recent decades and the regular use of agrochemicals – a common practice in the area – have impacted the Toltén wetlands, which has resulted in a significant decline in their surface. This despite being an ecological space that is used by the community in multiple areas: agriculture, water for human consumption and recreational spaces, among others.

This diagnosis was the initial emphasis to develop joint work with the community to expand knowledge about restoration and protection of biodiversity in wetlands.