Acción Serrana
🌐Acción Serrana focuses on biocultural restoration, reforestation, community organizing, and building long-term ecological and cultural resilience in mountainous regions as part of the larger Acción Andina coalition.
Bioregional Context
The Sierras Grandes of Córdoba are part of the Andes' southernmost reaches, a vital source of freshwater and biodiversity. This region is threatened by deforestation, desertification, and climate change, strongly impacting indigenous and gaucho communities who rely on its ecological health.
- Network Affiliation
- BioFi Project
Background
In the heart of Argentina, the Sierras Grandes of Córdoba represent the southernmost extension of the Andean mountain system. This high-altitude landscape shelters the Polylepis australis forest—known locally as "tabaquillo"—the highest-growing native trees in the region, forming the highest forest on Earth. These forests are critically important: they protect watershed headwaters, improve soil quality through fallen leaves and root systems, retain soil against erosion, and provide habitat for many endemic species adapted to the harsh mountain environment.
Yet these forests face severe threats: overgrazing by cattle and other animals, forest fires, and accelerating soil erosion. For generations, this ecosystem has provided water for the province of Córdoba and supported indigenous and gaucho communities who rely on its ecological integrity. The Sierras Grandes encompass 155,000 hectares of provincial water reserve and 37,000 hectares of national park—the Quebrada del Condorito National Park and the Pampa de Achala provincial water reserve—a territory where restoration work must balance ecological recovery with cultural continuity.
Origins and Network
Acción Serrana operates as a fractal of the larger Acción Andina alliance, a large-scale multinational initiative to restore high-altitude Polylepis ecosystems across the Andean region. Founded in 2018, Acción Andina aims to restore 1 million hectares) over the next 25 years. This network operates across six countries: Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina. Together, the alliance has planted more than 12.5 million trees, representing a coordinated effort to restore ecosystems that are critical water sources for major South American rivers.
Activities
Participatory Forest Restoration
Acción Serrana has developed a sophisticated restoration infrastructure which includes maintenance of protective fencing, seed collection, nursery construction and operation, seedling germination and transplantation, and strategic underplanting during the rainy season. They run more than 26 nurseries producing Polylepis trees across 12 operational areas, creating a supply chain for high-altitude reforestation. The work spans over 70 consecutive campaigns, resulting in more than 876,000 native trees planted across more than 290 hectares of degraded mountain landscapes. Each restoration campaign involves an extensive collaboration network: over 25 organizations including NGOs, government institutes, and businesses working together. The campaigns employ 65 permanent staff and mobilize more than 1,300 annual volunteers.
Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning
A robust monitoring system ensures transparency and scientific rigor across all restoration work. Acción Serrana maintains permanent ecological plots in 12 reforestation areas, with university-led citizen science programs tracking restoration progress. The system includes more than 8 years of technical reporting, monitoring tree growth and survival rates over five-year periods after planting. Current measurements show approximately 70% tree survival rates—a significant achievement in high-altitude environments with challenging growing conditions. The monitoring system tracks multiple indicators: hectares restored, tree survival and growth, employment generation, staff involvement, and landscape-scale ecological changes. This comprehensive approach enables adaptive management, replicability across sites, and accountability to local communities, funders, and the scientific community.
Culture and Employment
Beyond ecological goals, the restoration work focuses on promoting visibility of local gaucho and indigenous communities, creating green employment opportunities for youth in restoration, mountain guiding, and forest ranger positions. This dual approach addresses both ecosystem degradation and the need for sustainable livelihoods that keep young people connected to mountain communities.
Academia Biosférica
The Academia Biosférica program represents an intergenerational training initiative developed in partnership with institutions across Latin America. This academy will integrate ecosystem restoration education, mountain ecology, and regenerative culture practices, combining scientific knowledge with ancestral wisdom and youth leadership training. The program aims to generate ecological, economic, social, and cultural sustainability through the social inclusion of young people in ecological restoration and environmental education.
Governance and Values
Acción Serrana operates through a four-tiered governance model that reflects the bioregion's nested social and ecological systems: 1. At the most local level, community-led watershed councils organize activities across more than five basins, representing different communities and landscapes. 2. These councils feed into an intergenerational advisory board composed of local organizations, ensuring that wisdom from elders and innovation from youth both inform decision-making. 3. This local structure is articulated through the national Foundation of Biospheric Activities, which provides administrative and legal infrastructure. 4. Finally, international sponsors including the Triangle Foundation, Global Forest Generation, and others provide financial and technical support. The governance model embodies Acción Serrana's core values: ecological integrity, cultural resilience, youth inclusion, and reciprocity with nature. As one leader explains, these values are "very basic but really guiding the heterogeneity and diversity of our groups in the different basins."
Capital Allocation and Financial Strategy
Currently, approximately 70% of funding comes through Acción Andina's international network, with 30% from matching grants and public-private partnerships. The organization is actively transitioning toward more diversified blended finance mechanisms to reduce dependence on any single funding source. Grants flow to infrastructure development (nurseries, fencing), direct reforestation activities, youth employment programs, and capacity building. Sub-funds support microgrants for community initiatives, citizen science monitoring programs, and branding support for regenerative products. The allocation model ensures that decision-making power remains with local communities while accessing resources from international allies.
Regenerative Products & Services Portfolio
A developing line of bioregionally-rooted products including herbal tea blends from native species, guided eco-tourism experiences to restoration sites, and local food products. The products are developed through participatory design processes that integrate community knowledge, ecological criteria, and market opportunities. By creating value chains that circulate benefits within the bioregion, Acción Serrana reduces dependence on external funding while strengthening connections between local communities, ecosystems, and economic opportunities.
Vision and Legacy
By 2025, the organization expects to reach the milestone of 1 million trees planted in the Sierras Grandes. But the deeper impact extends beyond tree counts: the initiative has restored forests where all the water for the province of Córdoba originates, while simultaneously contributing to Acción Andina's work restoring ecosystems that feed major South American rivers. The project aims to offer a replicable approach to high-altitude forest restoration that can inform work across Andean landscapes and beyond.