Faced with decreasing productivity and an increasing population, farmers in the district of San Luis in Peru decided to participate in the Ministry of Agriculture’s National Soil Conservation programme. The programme began by setting up a number of “conservation committees” based in the villages. After some years’ progress, San Luis was chosen as a pilot area for a new project with the objective of “developing a participatory approach to natural resource management”. This project built on the existing local and district committees to form a district association, which, despite some initial difficulties, has seen concrete results such as securing funding for a reforestation project, as well as small scale production projects. This has recently motivated the association to move in other directions.
