The Venezuelan government, through the Misión Árbol (Mission Tree), a program created to recover green and wooded areas in Venezuela, is reforesting areas where water basins are located, informed the Vice-Minister of Environmental Conservation of the Ministry of People’s Power for the Environment, Jesús Alexander Cegarra.

The minister said that beyond the planting efforts taking place across the country, the government has focused on hydrographic regions “because they have a high impact on human consumption, agricultural irrigation, [and] industrial use. Communities are actively participating in this reforestation process.”

Among the regions benefiting from the project are Alto Apure in the southwestern part of Venezuela, the central west region (which includes Lake Maracaibo and the Gulf of Venezuela), and the country’s eastern regions.

Virginia Medina, a member of a conservationist committee in El Junquito, one of the parishes of Caracas, claimed that her group had planted about 2,700 plants along the highway that leads to that area as part of the projects developed by Misión Árbol.

Communities in Venezuela are actively involved in Misión Árbol for the recoverery, conservation and sustainable use of the Venezuelan forests.

There are currently 35,000 conservation committees in Venezuela, and the Venezuelan government expects to incorporate 1,721 more in 2010.

Ministry of People’s Power for the Environment/ Press and Communications Office of the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the United States / August 7, 2010