This once barren, drought-prone land in the Guatemalan highlands was rehabilitated in just over 5 years, between 1991 and 1996. Through soil and water conservation projects, the communities here were able to reforest the hillsides, on borrowed land. They were later able to purchase it with funds from their now productive fields. Carrots and veggies are now exported in the Central American market.
Mr Chico, one of the old project's leaders, said they worked 17 hrs a day for a private landowner, in the late 1980s. He said they had no shoes, no cars, and lived in mud huts.
Today, Chico runs a business, his daughter is a teacher and they are proud to call this: home.
That was almost 20 years ago. Mr. Chico is one of a group of farmers from a dozen communities that experimented with UN-backed conservation plans.
Terraces, irrigation structures, ponds, were some of the structures his community built.
The results were staggering just 5 years later: they tripled their production, water was flowing during the dry season, and they had enough savings to diversify away from maize. Today, the community's formerly barren hillsides are replaced by a towering canopy of trees. Upon entering the hilltop forest, the trickling flow of a spring gives way to several hectares of seedlings rising slowly to become the next batch of forest.
The water is back and it's here to stay.
Mr. Chico shows us the community's 15 year-old reforestation site. The areas was privately owned. A barren spot where only rocks grew.
Mr. Chico led a reforestation effort that seemed ludicrous at the time. When the land was producing about 300% more the community purchased the forest from a pleasantly surprised landowner.
Conservation efforts continue not far from Mr. Chico's success story. Another group of farmers recently launched an almost identical program hoping to see the same results in 5 years.
A team of soil and water conservation experts from the UN and the government launched a mission to recover degraded areas.
The team mapped out the area on foot, recording degradation, deforestation, unstable soils, and potential landscape solutions for the community's ecosystem. They were copying the same process implemented by farmers like Mr. Chico...
They found the usual suspects. Deforestation was rampant. Poorly managed hillside cultivation was destroying the land.
30 to 40 percent of the maize harvest was lost that year. But the long-term impact is in plain sight: Shaved patches of forest populate the hillsides, symptoms of a mass scale, human-induced disease.
As degradation continues to claw away at fertile land, communities burn through the forest to make room for new planting grounds. It's a vicious cycle that can be reversed with conservation practices, allowing communities to feed on the land, while increasing the vitality of the ecosystem.
Farmers begin the first day of the project. They will carve out terraces on the hillside, plant hundreds of trees and dig water ponds. The challenge is enormous. Conservation comes at a cost for these farmers as they need to spend most of their days working to earn enough to feed their families. Nonetheless, they're making a commitment. There is no other option anymore.
There is hope: A younger generation of farmers is joining the battle. They know that their land is their future and only they can bring it back from the brink.
They hope that one day, their lands will produce as much as this green onion field, part of the 1990s conservation project that Mr. Chico hopes is replicated throughout the country.
BEHIND THE SCENES