It’s a long flight from Turkey to Chile. Routing through Sao Paulo you are a minimum 20 hours travelling or if you get it wrong 30 hours. Yet this is a country I have always wanted to visit.

The land of Isabella Allende, the Andes, Chilean Patagonia and the Atacama Desert. How can a country 4270 km long and averaging 177km wide not inspire interest.

If my next UN sustainable goal is to be climate action where better to go than the continent with the Amazon Rainforest in a year where COP30 is, significantly, being held in Brazil. Saving this rainforest is as important as it gets.

Now that I have two projects under my belt I am thinking to change it up. Rather than joining a foreign group of volunteers, I want to see if I can join a group of local volunteers. Local people investing in local projects. This is where the project Fundacion Reforestemos hopefully comes in. I will need me to plan my own accomodation, food and local transport. Maybe doable?

Chile is one of the few countries well placed to meet its net zero targets. It will close four coal fired powerstations and build huge solar farms across the Atacama and wind farms in the south. They have a perfect climate to make this a reality.

Maybe after my Madagascar experience I need a morale booster….

Foundation Reforestemos is, as its name implies, reforesting areas all across Chile. It has three approaches : look for partners with small plots of land interested in replanting, take donations for trees and thirdly, recruit the volunteers for planting.

If my idea comes to fruition, I am thinking to ‘tap up’ my blog readers for the cost of tree saplings. I will then buy and plant a tree for you in Chile. Tag it with your name and photograph. How wonderful. You will, sort of, own a little bit of land in South America.

Better start brushing up on my Spangles…