Welsh Government funding helps Peruvian Amazon nation to transition to using renewable energy
A group from a Peruvian Amazon nation has visited Wales this week to discuss their work to protect the Amazon rainforest and how Welsh Government funding is helping them to switch to renewable energy.
Organised by the charity Size of Wales as part of Wales Climate Week, Teófilo Kukush Pati, President of the Wampís Nation and Tsanim Wajai Asamat, a young Wampís leader spent the week in Wales attending events in the Senedd and Youth COP Cymru events in Cardiff and Wrexham.
Tropical forest
The Wampís Nation has a population of just 15,000 but their territory covers 1.3 million hectares of tropical forest and is extremely biodiverse. 98% of the forest remains intact, despite pressures from illegal logging, gold mining and oil exploration.
A study has estimated that their forests can store 145 million tonnes of carbon.
Size of Wales has been supporting the Wampís Nation since 2016.
Julie James, the then Minister for Climate Change, met representatives from the Wampís Nation at COP27 in Glasgow in 2021 and again at Biodiversity COP in Montreal in 2022.
As a result of these meetings, the Welsh Government – through Size of Wales – provided funding to support their goal of transitioning to 100% renewable energy and paying for the construction of a ten-seater solar powered boat – the first of its kind in Peru.
The boat is already providing an invaluable service by helping community members travel to health centres, go to school, transport harvest, carry out other daily activities and patrol the river.
Smaller boats
During their visit to Wales, the Deputy First Minister, Huw Irranca-Davies committed an additional £50,000 to help fund smaller boats to further support their transport system.
Barbara Davies-Quy, Deputy Director of Size of Wales said: “This is a powerful moment for Wales, welcoming Indigenous leaders who have travelled from the heart of the Amazon to share their knowledge and experience in environmental stewardship.
“Their courage and dedication in protecting their territory are inspirational, and their experiences are a powerful reminder of what can be achieved when we stand together across nations.”
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Size of Wales is the side-hussle of former Labour First Minister, Carwyn Jones. It gets a grant from the Welsh Government of £650k a year and spends £340k on staff costs. Perhaps this cash would be better spent tracking down environment polluters here in Wales, like the one who donated £200k to the Labour Party leadership campaign. No good preserving some of the rainforest in Peru if we cannot protect the Gwent levels.
Solar powered boats…are a great idea, I hope some boat builder in Cymru picks this up and Welsh Gov get behind them. The future for all inshore and lake small craft, this is a winner, grab it…
Julie ask Eluned to share some of her knowledge of India with that ignoramus and his Corkman in No 10…
Her knowledge of India is mostly about their grub, what to eat and what to avoid.
Said more in jest…
There is a vegetarian Indian restaurant called Diwali next door to Euston Station on Drummond St, it has been there for 50 years or so, the Masala Dosa are top…
Sree Krishna Tooting RIP…
I repeat to the Ignoramus and all at No 10, you constantly shame us just like the other lot…
The problem with solar powered boats is that it needs a backup for low light conditions, and nighttime. This is best provided by batteries or fossil fuel engines. The laws of physics, as Archimedes tells us, for a boat to make headway it needs to displace the mass of the water and this displacement is he same mass as the vessel. Until they develop a battery that has no mass solar powered boats provide no environmental advantage. Better to use bio-fuels, where the sunlight is pre-converted to an energy dense fuel.
Of course batteries…
I’m sure they use them on Traws lake…blue water thinking for the developing world…
I had in mind Africa etc not Lapland…