The Wildlife Corridors Program

This year, Brazil is experiencing a severe climate situation. Temperatures in August 2024 reached alarming levels, with some regions reporting highs above 40°C (104°F). From January to September 2024, over 109,000 fire outbreaks were recorded nationwide. In the state of São Paulo, where our Brazil projects are located, 7800 outbreaks were detected, representing a nearly 200% increase compared to the previous year. 

The impact of these wildfires is exacerbated by a severe drought influenced by El Niño, which has led to critically low river levels. Many residents are forced to walk long distances along dried riverbeds to access towns, which hampers their ability to sell goods and obtain supplies. 

Despite these challenges, our projects are still on track. In Brazil’s Pontal do Paranapanema, we’re working with IPÊ to restore the forest, bring back wildlife and support communities to make a living from restoring and protecting it. The project is completing ten years of implementation in 2024, and we’re in the process of assessing its impact. In the 2024-2025 planting season which begins in October, 14.7 ha will be planted to bring the project to its overall target of 1319 ha.

At the Tietê river, WeForest and AES Brasil are working to restore the forest on the riverbanks with native species, as well as running an agroforestry programme for smallholder farmers to increase their crop yields while natural resources such as soil and water are improved. These amazing drone pictures were taken by our restoration partner Ceiba and really show our progress: they were taken just two years apart! This restoration site was planted in 2021.

In the 2023/2024 planting season, 8.35 ha of riverside planting took place in Reunidas, a rural settlement; 4.25 ha was planted in the Dandara rural settlement where the agroforestry farmers live; 40 ha was planted on AES landholdings; and a 1.36 ha silvipastoral system was started in Dandara as a pilot. All these new areas are flourishing. Looking ahead, the final 0.5 hectares of the planned 14 hectares of agroforestry will be planted in November or December, coinciding with the start of the rainy season. As for the upcoming 2024/2025 planting season, plans are still being finalized, but it's estimated that 45 to 50 hectares will be planted.

In MIsiones, Argentina, where our restoration with Fundación Vida Silvestre is engaging smallholder farmers to restore farmland into forest patches, all activities are proceeding according to plan. We’ve exceeded our original target to engage 49 farmers, and the new group of 31 farmers is now fully set up. Like the first cohort of 24 farmers recruited in 2022, they’ll devote around 4 ha of farmland each to agroforestry systems to grow a popular cash crop, yerba mate, and the restoration of forest patches.

Two training sessions were provided, one on yerba mate management and harvesting, and the other on soil preparation (below). At the end of July yerba mate planting began, with the field team providing technical support, and in late August and early September the native trees were planted, both for agroforestry and full restoration planting. The team is paying close attention to the weather, as there is potential for frosts during these months.

Thank you for helping to make all this possible!

This is the first update since we transformed our individual projects on GlobalGiving into Programmes, meaning that while your donations are continuing to protect and restore forests in your original projects, they’re also supporting new projects that use the same restoration techniques. As our ‘Earth Allies’, you’ll be supporting us to restore more land, grow more trees, and boost forest-friendly incomes for more families than ever before.

The images above show Estrela farm in the Pontal project’s north corridor, where 138 hectares of tree planting took place in May 2022 (the area on the left) and February 2023 (on the right). The top picture shows the view in early 2023, just after the area on the right was planted, and the bottom is the same view in January 2024. The results speak for themselves! 

When we visited our Tietê Forests project with AES in April, students from Instituto Terra presented some great results from their monitoring of the Dandara agroforestry project. All of the farmers are happy with the project, and three-quarters of them are even applying agroforestry techniques in other parts of their farms! The survey found that before starting the project, the farmers' main motivations in joining were economic and well-being; after their agroforestry plots had been established, they also appreciated the added benefits of agroforestry systems: the importance of growing agro-ecological food in the rural settlement, and how collective activities during setup and maintenance strengthen the community.

Six of the 2022 agroforestry plots have started vegetable production, with an estimated 7 tons of produce harvested, mainly lemons, eggplants, scarlet eggplants and around 17 other species of vegetable. The farmers raised more than BRL 43,000 ($7800) from vegetable sales, with Rose and Donizete’s produce alone raising an astonishing BRL 28,164! 

As for the Misiones project in Argentina, our partner FVS recently produced two great 20-minute videos that really give a feel for the landscape and the lives of the people living there. 

In “STORIES OF RESTORATION - Water and dignity”, some of the farmers in San Pedro municipality who are working with FVS and WeForest talk about how the improved water supplies provided by the project have boosted their yields of yerba mate, as well as supporting the restoration of their farmland into forest patches. Watch it here. https://youtu.be/Lxq_9Ox068Y?si=_9BzNJLTbgbMbOMb

“STORIES OF RESTORATION - The entrepreneurs from Alegría Colony” tells the story of a group of women producers who set up a nursery to supply the project’s participating farmers with native tree seedlings for their agroforestry plots. Watch it here. https://youtu.be/k9WkobO9Jms?si=zQHbWE9dOGTh-p1h

Thank you for helping to make all this possible!