Manizales

In the beautiful mountain city of Manizales,
eco-tourism is gaining a foothold along with coffee growing.

However, the recent trend
of cutting trees
from fragile and too-steep slopes
of the mountains
is creating serious erosion problems
in the area,
resulting in loss of land and lives
due to over 40 landslides
in the past year alone.

With the cutting of these higher altitude forests important wildlife habitat,
and corridors connecting habitat patches, are also lost.
We will raise awareness regarding the overly deforested vegetation removal on steep hills,
helping people learn to identify “the angle of repose”
to indicate slopes too steep to cut and in need of conservation or restoration.
Artists will design devices to measure this angle,
both serious and comedic and satirical devices,
some of which will be easily accessible to residents of the area.

Other current research is on
whether funding is available
for reforestation through carbon offset monies
and helping farmers with replanting trees.

We will also assist the development
of tourism services,
with badly needed
infrastructure and interpretation,
in ecoparques Recinte and Alcazares,
via artworks.