Restoring Brazil's Atlantic Forest

Did you know that Brazil has a law, The Brazilian Forest Code, that requires that some landowners have 20% of their lands covered by forests. Nowadays, 21 million hectares officially fall under this law, and if they were actually all restored, an estimated 9 gigatons of CO2 would be sequestered from the atmosphere. This equals the total emissions from China over the entire last year!

The thought behind this law is that: even though riverbeds, freshwater springs and in general, ecologically sensitive areas are located within someone´s private land and this person is ´allowed´ to use it, the state considers them property of the state and of the society and therefore this land  area deserves to be protected or restored! 

Our restoration projects in Brazil are working to tie these individual pieces of land together, and this way create ´forest corridors',  which will make it easier for wildlife to roam around.

Read more about the Brazilian Forest Code in this blog

And last but not least: thanks for your support! 

Teaching a weekend course on Tropical Forest Restoration in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in exchange for trees being planted for WeForest’s Atlantic Forest Project, Ricardo Cesar, WeForest’s Brazil Country Representative, does not shy away from dedicating his free time to engage with over 20 graduate and undergraduate students, spark lively discussions and plant more trees!

The students had backgrounds in, amongst others, Environmental Engineering, Agronomy, Biology and even Economics and theoretical discussions on the history, practice and legislation of ecological restoration in Brazil then turned into real practical exercises.

Ricardo: ´In one of the exercises I simulated that I was a landowner. The students then had to propose a plan to improve the productivity and ecological benefits of my land. It was very constructive since we could see the conflict of views between students and landowners, and negotiate trade-offs. Besides being fun, it was the closest that many of them had ever been to talking with a ´real´ small farmer´.

Finally, the course ended by practicing using open-licence geoprocessing software to map areas required for restoration by the Brazilian law.

With this, Ricardo shows us that educating the local community literally helps plant trees.

Your support is protecting the endangered Black Lion Tamarin

The Brazilian Atlantic forest is one of the most biodiverse spots in the world, yet due to severe habitat destruction many species are under threat of extinction. The Black Lion Tamarin is one of such species: its population has been declining drastically and today only about 1500 individuals remain in the Pontal Do Panarapanema region.
This is where you make a difference: thanks to your support, several tree wildlife corridors have been planted. These connect remaining forest areas in the region and allow greater movement of individuals. Not only does this increase food security, the Tamarin’s chance of finding a suitable partner does too.

Joining the PACT for a bigger IMPACT

In  April  2018,  WeForest  joined  a  coalition  of  more  than  270  companies,  public  agencies,  research  centers  and  NGOs  called  the  Atlantic  Forest  Restoration  Pact.  With  more  than  2  million  hectares  deforested  in  the  last  decade,  the  Atlantic  Forest  is  highly  threatened.  The  Pact  aims  to  restore  15  million  hectares  of  the  Atlantic  Forest  by  2050.WeForest’s  forest  landscape  restoration  activities  directly  contribute  to  achieving  the  goal.  WeForest  also  shares  within  the  Pact  its  research  findings  and  collaborates  with  other  researchers  on  analysing  data  on  forest  growth  to  identify  areas  with  high  potential  for  forest  landscape  restoration.

In Brazil, WeForest and our partners are demonstrating that biodiversity friendly land use alternatives are possible. Through planting connecting corridors between patches of forest, we restore the Atlantic Forest, a highly threatened and biologically significant ecoregion stretching from northeast Brazil to Paraguay.

Meet Marcos, a 75 year-old farmer who was recently trained in agroforestry and organic farming. After moving around various parts of Brazil and cultivating land, Marcos settled in Paranapanema when he was already 50, attracted by the promise of land ownership by the government. After six years of waiting, he was finally able to acquire several hectares of land, and he has been actively cultivating them since.

Marcos took part in training on agroforestry and organic farming: to grow his income and to boost the productivity of his farm, tree species such as pineapple, orange and jackfruit were planted. The additional forest cover also helped animals return to the area. “Last week my son spotted a giant anteater while herding our cattle and I recently saw some foxes, coatis and agoutis”.

Thanks to your support, we can provide even more training to farmers like Marcos and keep adding to more than 1 million trees we have already planted in the Atlantic Forest. These trees directly restore more than 600 hectares of forest, which are estimated to positively impact 45 000 hectares of land, bringing benefits to people, ecosystems and climate.

To improve our project management and restoration methods, WeForest collaborates with a number of researchers and forest landscape restoration experts. Among them are two graduate students at the University of São Paulo - Carolina Giudice Badari and Loren Belei.

Over the past couple of months, Carolina and Loren have been examining the ecological and socio-economic benefits of agroforestry in Pontal do Paranapanema, the Brazilian region where our project is based. They observed that restoration using agroforestry systems often brought better ecological results than conventional restoration. In particular, areas restored using agroforestry systems showed higher forest canopy cover, diversity and density than conventional restoration areas of the same age.

From a socio-economic perspective, agroforestry systems seem to not only provide an additional source of income, but also to have an effect on how landowners view their land. Landowners appear to have gained a better understanding of how the small green areas of forest on their land benefit the wider landscape.

Carolina and Loren are continuing their research but their initial findings already suggest that interaction between man and nature has the potential to bring benefits both to the conservation of forests and to the landowners.

Community engagement, livelihood improvement and inclusiveness are part of WeForest’s restoration principles. Thanks to your support, we can continue Making Earth Cooler for people, planet and climate!