My name is Alan Portocarrero and I was born in the amazon of Peru. The reason why I fight against environmental problems, such as climate change, pollution of all kinds and ecosystem degradation, and thus animals extinction   is because, nature has been and still is part of myself. My existence is shaped by animals and plants, where they are part of my beliefs, of my history background and part of my cosmovision. Then, it is my duty to fight to preserve nature and biodiversity because my culture relies on it.  So, I can claim that the relation between environment and I is about personal and cultural identity. That way, I have a duty to protect our mother earth. During this year, I have been doing many green activities, for instance, I joined recently to a youth ONG called Yara Iquitos to work in projects to  create environmental awareness.  Besides, all Saturdays I volunteer to clean polluted areas with plastics.

Our project consists to build up  various pet houses for homeless animals, with ecological bricks. In this case we are using  bottles to turn them into bricks. How? Well, the bottle is filled up with simple plastic material, for example, snacks wrap, cookies wrap, small plastic bags and other plastic materials, instead of putting it into the waste can, we are going to recycle them to make our ecological bricks, in order to build a home for a homeless pet. That way, we are going to promote environmental awareness and we are going to save lives.

On the other hand, every Saturday I volunteer in Yara to clean Rivershore, streets and other areas frequently polluted. I do this activity because the Earth needs us right now to reverse the destruction of our environment and our ecosystems. I do it in this moment and I will do it  in onward times, because it is my duty to want a life for me and my generation in the future.