Puentes is currently a part of the following initiatives:

Moche Wild Animal Refuge

Peru is a site that can truly take a claim to being an environmental wonder. Home to glaciers, jungle, desert, and mountain forest the country posses in its borders a rare mix of flora and fauna the extent of which is still not known. However this diversity is lost on many of the country’s own residents. In addition rapid environmental degradation is threatening nearly every area of Peru.
The Moche Wild Animal Refuge is unique in Peru in its focus on fun environmental education. Located in the historic region of La Campina de Moche the refuge offers a one-stop site to explore this diversity. With a display featured donated injured animals that cannot survive in the wild the facility guides visitors, mostly school tours, through a mini exhibit of Peru’s wildlife all the while stressing basic environmental practices that everyone can and ought to do.
The facility’s demand and residents have outgrown its current location. Puentes is overseeing the relocation of the facility to a new site. We are working in partnership with various foreign and Peruvian interests. Moche Animal Refuge is under the direction of the Association Santaurio, a nonprofit based in Moche.

Huaranchal: Campaign against Uta

Uta is a sand fly transmitted disease that infects thousands of people in rural Peru. Uta is instantly recognizable for the large skin lesions it creates. It is a slow moving disease however with time proves fatal. A lack of education, quality medical care and the endemic poverty of these regions often impede effective treatment. In November Puentes, in conjunction with the Marinistas of Otuzco, is carrying out a medical campaign to confront and hopefully eradicate Uta in the area of Huaranchal. The campaign consists in educational sessions and bringing the much needed medicine directly to the sick, many of whom live over three hours from the nearest medical facility. This program represents a pilot project. Cases of Uta number in the thousands in the highlands of Peru and long term Puentes will continue to play a role in educational and medicinal campaigns. In addition Puentes is working with local authorities in Huaranchal to craft programs that will benefit health and educational infrastructure in the long term.

Cachil Forest

The Cachil forest is a unique micro-environmental zone: a tropical forest tucked in the dry highlands of northern Peru. Home to a variety of animal and plant species, including four recently discovered plants, the area is ripe with scientific and tourist possibilities. It is already the site of much local interest. In addition the Cascas River begins deep within the forest and provides water to over 20,000 people and their fields.
The forest is currently under dire threat from the very people that live in it’s surroundings. This population, for lack of another viable way to make a living, cuts the forest to sell the wood. Puentes is in contact with a variety of local authorities and activists to provide various sustainable economic activities to these residents. We are also actively promoting the forest and reviewing possible projects of sustainable tourism and environmental education. The focus of all work is not only the protection of the forest but also the involvement of the people that live in it’s surroundings. They are the direct beneficiaries of our work and play a dynamic role in every project that is carried out. By the time we finish work we will not only have saved this environmental wonder and its supply of water but will have also improved the lives of the hundreds that live in the area.