Forests4Water Brazil: Community Climate Action

Dear donors, 

This week we want to introduce you to one of our local farmers Fagner – who is setting up an on-farm tree nursery under our Forests4Water program.

Fagner is one of the Iracambi family. His mother Carminha used to be the Iracambi Center cook until (with Iracambi encouragement, and with some trepidation on her part,) she branched out and opened her own restaurant. Today she runs a catering business, and even in the midst of covid, she supplies quality food to people in the neighborhood - anything from take out lunches to celebration birthday cakes and outdoor barbecues.  And, equally importantly, she models success to women in the local community.

Fagner is one of Carminha´s sons, and for a time he was in charge of the Iracambi forest nursery. But he really wanted to emulate his mother and set up his own business. So after working with Iracambi’s experimental coffee plot and learning techniques of producing quality coffee, he set up his own business and, as you can see, he made a go of it!

And now he's expanding his business to supply tree seedlings for reforestation, and this week our team worked with him to set up his tree nursery. And that was all in the family too – our Field Coordinator Alfredo is married to Fagner’s sister Thais.

That´s community engagement for you! Success breeds success, and as the word spreads, there´s increasing interest among some of the local farmers in incorporating a small tree nursery into the farm economy. And nursery manager Deivid has a waiting list of famers wanting us to help reforest on their properties.

Between us we really are saving forests and changing lives. Thank you for being such a valued part of it!

with love from Alfredo and the Iracambi team 

PS This week we'll start interviewing for our new Forestry Coordinator. Stay tuned! 

Good afternoon, dear donors, 

And we hope you are doing well?

In our last letter we took you behind the scenes to show you a little of the nuts and bolts of our forestry program. And today we'd like to tell you what's been happening as the Forests4Water team goes back to the classroom - for a few hours at least! 

Thanks to the generosity of all our wonderful donors, (including you,) as well as the wise counsel of our forestry mentor Venkat, the hard work of our forestry team here at Iracambi, and the opportunity to devote a few hours to expanding our knowledge, our program is growing and improving by leaps and bounds, and we are learning more every day.

As you know, our forestry program involves activities year-round, but from time to time it´s important for us to take time out from work in the nursery and in the field, trade tips and learn from our colleagues in the reforestry world. So yesterday we joined a super interesting workshop given the the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact on using GIS, drones and drone-mounted techniques for forest monitoring. We emerged with our heads spinning, and burning to try our hands at some of the techniques they shared with us. 

In parallel, and during a week when three of the world´s major oil companies have found themselves faced with the necessity of taking a serious stand in terms of curbing emissions, we´re learning all we can about the carbon market, under the guidance of a pro bono consultancy, along with a couple of long -time friends and mentors with vast experience in the field.

And just to complete our happiness, we are today starting a search for a new addition to our forestry team: specifically someone who can manage our data collection and analysis, assist our GIS manager in producing maps and reports, and collaborate with the team in the forest nursery and in the field.

So that´s the news from Iracambi, and we hope you are enjoying our updates on the amazing things that your support is making possible.

Thank you!

Look after yourselves, and we´ll talk soon,

with love from the soon-to-be-expanded forestry team at Iracambi!

Links:

• Carbon credits for beginners