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You can contribute to the preservation of this property by staying with us at the Walker Family Nature Sanctuary (Santuário da Natureza Família Walker) in one of our lovely bungalows. Click on the pictures below to see more details. or, when you stay with us at one of our apartments in downtown Curitiba when you need to go into town. Click on the pictures below to see more details.
These are some of the people and organizations who support us emotionally and strategically and provide us with information we need to ever improve our efforts.
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How It All BeganGary Walker, Renata Notari and Robson Walker trying to make this shack livable in 1992. It was the only structure on the property at that time. A small group of acquaintances acquired Salto e Melança in 1991 with the initial intention of extending the boundaries of the state park adjacent to it on two sides; a private sector endeavor to conserve this land and protect it from being parceled up and sold to the highest bidder. The basic strategy, at that point, was to sit on the land and hope for the best. No one was making much more than a subsistence income at the time, but, we thought that being owners would do the job. Good intentions, but, so naive. Our families were smaller then and the economy was …well, different. Salto e Melança was so far away from the encroaching urban sprawl at that time; roads were often impassable.
The original constellation pivoted on its axis. The ownership configuration of Salto e Melança changed not so many years after the initial project was defined. Some of the initial owners sold to members of the Walker family and others just abandoned the project because families grew, economies weakened and subsistence goals became more complicated. Throughout the years, the members of the Walker family have kept everything going by residing on the property, paying for its maintenance, slowly building, expanding, improving and preparing for the day when they could make the property self-sustaining, get it properly documented and turn it into a permanently protected area for which Brazilian law provides. From the beginning, the Walker family felt they needed to make things happen on the property in order to guarantee its protection and preservation. Initial planning included the idea that partnerships were to be formed and self-sustaining projects developed, which would ideally have an educational component for the purpose of generating information and hands-on experience for visitors, volunteers and researchers from Brazil, South America and the rest of the world.
The family has also invested in the development of visitor and volunteer activities on the property, which include walking trails for strolling in the richly complex forest air, sometimes known as forest therapy or Shinrin-yoku (森林浴), which literally means forest bathing. The Walkers have also compiled a list of daily chores and short-term and long-term projects, which they feel would benefit the progressive development of a full and secure preservation project.
The Walkers started becoming concerned. What if the property heirs are not interested in preservation? What if they start needing money and sell to people who want to raise cows, grow corn or create subdivisions?
This project needs your help in order to eliminate the possibility of future development and to secure the future of this property against the whims of future generations. Help find ways for YOU to help!
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The "Melança Mountains" Community and the Walker Family Nature Sanctuary project are making progress.Slowly, a few local landowners in the Melança Mountains community have brought in surveyors to measure their properties on their own. Some have gotten legal guidance and funding to start the process towards the legal registration of these properties. An overloaded court system and an uninformed, overwhelmed and partially disinterested local government often, however, holds all this up. This slowing down of this process ignores and frustrates the opportunities that property owners would have once they acquire legal, definitive documentation for their properties. Active, competent environmental institutions providing resources, funds, guidelines and technical support already exist on the federal and state levels in Brazil, as well as, in the international community, waiting for property owners to qualify for their services. The Walker Family Nature Sanctuary and APAVE Núcleo Piraquara, through their persistent involvement in political meetings, conference attendance and the forming of partnerships with other strong environmental associations and entities have recently obtained help from the public sector in 2018 through the then Secretary of Environment of the State of Paraná, Antônio Carlos Bonetti. Bonetti heard our plea that people who are helping the government preserve its water resources should have the same support as the agriculture and meat production communities who benefit immeasurably from these preservation efforts. He understood that frustrating the access of property owners to resources that would help them participate more effectively in the economic growth of the State of Paraná was counter productive. He articulated the inclusion of one-hundred property owners around the oldest, most well-preserved lake in our region into a program whose goal is to award legal documentation to owners who can prove their rights. The measurement of one-hundred properties in the first phase of this program should be completed by June 2019. There are other phases of the program which must be negotiated and completed before the final phase of taking everything to the local judge for ratification and the granting of proper documentation. The Walker Family Nature Sanctuary and its partner APAVE will continue accompanying this process and persist in its efforts to awaken the public sector to this most important reality. Among its other activities, the Walker Family Nature Sanctuary is creating a stronger voice of influence in the mayor's and governor's offices. It is a long process and involves parallel efforts of many individuals from many aspects of our local community coming forth, starting to talk to each other and beginning to understand and deal effectively with the dynamics, problems and politics involved. The Walker Family Nature Sanctuary is associating with strong conservationist not-for-profit groups (NGO's) and associations who can guide and support with legal advice and common-sense hands-on experience. Through these efforts, the Walker family Nature Sanctuary now receives funding through its partner organizations by paying a small administration fee. This is a huge step forward. What we need now!
We need partners, who have eco-sustainable projects, that could be inserted into the humidity and coolness of a southerly-situated coastal rainforest. These projects need to be staffed for success and generate resources. Ideally, they would include an educational component, as well, which would inform and support local residents and visitors from Brazil and the rest of the world. We need individuals and institutions, who would invest in and man: research installations, like, labs, classrooms, meeting rooms, workshop space, etc.: sustainable residency and instructional programs in the areas of art, music and commercially viable/eco-sustainable craftsmanship: eco-sustainable agricultural projects appropriate to the forest environment, such as, permaculture, managed foraging, bee-keeping, animal husbandry, greenhouse activities, seedling production, exotic and native species production, seed preservation and sales, hydroponics, etc.; sustainable community relations projects and community education programs. We need individuals and institutions who build alternative housing and who would come and offer on-hand workshops on the property leaving behind, as a result, units representative of various concepts of sustainable construction, which could immediately be used to house eco-tourists and the curious, thereby, generating a financially-sustainable structure for the project as a whole. We need individuals and institutions who would create exchange programs or provide onsite instruction in various aspects of eco-tourism, rainforest preservation, animal habitat preservation, administration, etc. for the local members of the community, thereby, creating a need for preservation in the pockets and hearts of those who have unconsciously favored the preservation of this land for centuries… including the indigenous community, and, the skills to go forward favoring the local community and their children. We need individuals and institutions who would come in and map the property, create and maintain trails, identify, photograph, create displays and label the flora and fauna habitats onsite. We need individuals and institutions that would set up and staff proper facilities for the reintegration of forest animals, victims of contraband and captured by local authorities. These are some of the ideas we at the Walker Family Nature Sanctuary think about. Maybe you have some of your own. We would love to talk to you about your ideas. We are open to take this project in any direction which would preserve this forest, protect this water.
Participate.Let’s make this happen!
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