A fantastic morning trip today up to the hills saw 40 of our ARC+ participants plant over 100 new trees on the hillside. The World Cruising Club have had a relationship with Foresta to help rebuild the forest on Gran Canaria for the past 10 years. It is particularly important this year as only in August there were terrible forest fires, losing 10,000 hectares of forest.
It was great credit to our participants that such a range of ages jumped on the coach this morning - from our youngest at 7 years old up to skippers and crew in their 60s’. As we turned off the highway, the roads narrowed and we started winding up the increasingly green hillside. A little chicken sneaked out and literally tried to cross the road. (You’ll be glad to hear he scurried away upon seeing the approaching coach and lived to tell the tale… )
Whilst at the site participants made their way past the cows and horse on the nearby finca (farm), it was near impossible to drag the kids away…
A visit to the greenhouses saw where the first seedlings are planted. After two weeks they grow from muddy brown rectangular pots with submerged seeds to become covered in green, then the plants start to grow nice and tall. At which point, they are planted on the hillside.
After exploring the greenhouses, a 20 minute walk up the hill took us to a snack break amongst the tree plantation, then a lesson from our tree Guru on how to use the hoe and plant the trees ourselves. Today we were planting brezos (heather) and faya (fire) trees. Everyone split off into pairs and set about digging the holes for our lovely trees. It was certainly hard work doing the digging, but everyone really got stuck in. Two of our kids managed to plant 8 trees in total!
After putting in a bit of elbow grease, a well-deserved lunch break was had on the hillside, accompanied by a great gymnastics performance by one of the boys!
Thanks to our participants for taking part – great to have you as part of the ARC+ and ARC tree planting legacy!
