Story

We founded Planting Empowerment, S.A. (PE) upon the belief that there exists a viable alternative for Panama's rural poor to grow and prosper other than to deplete their natural resources.

PE’s four founders are former Peace Corps Volunteers who worked in Panama’s “last frontier” Darien province between 2002 and 2006. Throughout ten years of cumulative service we witnessed the vicious cycle of “slash-and-burn” agriculture practiced by subsistence farmers who depend on natural resources for their livelihood.

The scenario was acute in PE co-founder Andrew Parrucci's village, whose members cleared rainforest for wood and farming. "During my volunteer service I worked with gravity fed aqueduct systems, and forest cover is critical in maintaining watershed areas that supplied the community. I remember the conversations I would have with community members about the deforestation, and they all agreed that it was damaging, but something they depended on economically....no one ever showed them a better way."

Poor people's economic dependency on forest resources leads to soil degradation, loss of important biodiversity and eventually a devastating loss of long term income; but living with them also instilled in us an understanding of their immediate economic needs.

Is it fair to tell a poor man not to deforest when that is the only way to feed his family?

As our service wound down, we noticed that some of the more progressive farmers were renting portions of their land short-term to others for agriculture. After seeing the benefits of their increased income and better land stewardship practices, we thought that the land lease practice could be applied to forestry to produce long-term, steady income.

We discussed the idea with a number of local farmers, and each agreed that the idea could help them keep food on the table and introduce a more sustainable way to profit from their natural resources. The idea took root in the communities, and Planting Empowerment began to grow.