Operations

Planting Empowerment currently maintains ten hectares of timber plantations between two communities: the Latino village of Nuevo Paraiso and the indigenous Arimae/Embera Puru. The communities and individual landowners are remunerated through lease payments, a portion of the profits from future timber sales, and PE-funded community projects.

The two communities have embraced PE´s more beneficial leasing model and want to continue growing with Planting Empowerment. Each has signed on for another five-hectare project in 2008--Adelante. With our focus on community capacity building, Planting Empowerment employs only local community members to work on the projects. We have hired and trained one dynamic indigenous youth, Liriano Opua, to be the head foreman in charge of the pruning, cleaning, and maintenance of your trees.