A group of local volunteers are urging Herefordshire business owners and residents to sponsor their favourite parts of the county in a scheme to preserve an area of the Amazon Rainforest.

The campaign, the Size of Herefordshire, strives to protect an area of the rainforest in Peru, equivalent to the same size as the county, from big logging companies, oil corporations or gold mining outfits.

The indigenous people, the Wampis, who have lived in the Amazon Rainforest for hundreds of years are seeing the forest destroyed in front of their eyes, an area which they depend on for their livelihood and their homes.

The Size of Herefordshire campaign is using an online map (pictured below), which links land in Herefordshire with parts of the rainforest. Anyone can sponsor a 10 hectare land parcel for £5 per square. This protects the equivalent land in Peru.

Susie de Labillière, who is a member of the Size of Herefordshire’s fundraising group, told the Ross Gazette that the group aims to get the whole online map sponsored.

Jeremy Bugler, the group’s co-ordinator said: “A few squares in Ross-on-wye have already been sponsored, but there is a long way to go to get the map filled, so we are appealing to local people to get involved in this fantastic project and help protect the Size of Herefordshire for the next generation.”

He added: “All the money the Size of Herefordshire raises goes directly to a charity, The Forest People’s Programme, who are helping the local indigenous people battle the invaders.

“We are appealing to the farmers of the county to sponsor their farms, in whole or in part, and also to industries, schools or even parishes. But the campaign is very much directed to the man and the woman in the Herefordshire streets.”

The money is used to hire lawyers, to obtain legal title ownership of the land on behalf of the Wampis, who are otherwise known as the Forest People.

This means that when the land is threatened, the Wampis are able to produce the paperwork to prove that the land is theirs, and those threatening to exploit it are stopped in their tracks.

To find out more about the Size of Herefordshire, or to sponsor a square of land on the online map, please visit www.sizeofherefordshire.org.

If you do decide to sponsor a square, please let us know. Call 01989 562007 or email [email protected]

To read the full, unabridged article, see this week’s edition of the Ross Gazette.