Forests4Water Brazil: Community Climate Action

Dear [first name]  

We hope you are doing well? Here, to make you smile, is this week's installment of the Adventures of the Iracambi Tree Planters.

And there wouldn´t be any adventures if it weren´t for the support of wonderful donors like you. So thank you, thank you! 

So today we want to give a shoutout to our four footed friends, who come to the rescue when we need help with transportation.  Local kids prefer motorbikes to horses, but when push comes to shove, four feet are better than two wheels, right? 

We´ve been having some crazy weather this end – short sharp rains (which lead to flooding) wind gusts, high humidity and burning hot sun. (Old timers say that when the sun is burning hot it’s going to rain – and they’re usually right!)

All the more reason for keeping up with the planting – particularly on the steep slopes under brachiaria grass which is great pasture for cattle but has such a dense root mat that the rain washes off, chokes the rivers and damages the bridges. Check out the picture. We’ve heard of water under the bridge – how about this for water over the bridge?

But, mud and rain apart, there’s lots of good news this week. One of our partners is challenging us to do trial planting on 35 hectares – using different techniques: direct planting, natural regeneration, enrichment planting (in areas that are already regenerating) and agroforestry planting (mixing tree and food species.) We've already got a lot of experience in each of these, but it will be super helpful to collect some solid data on the different techniques.  

We’re also part of a great group of practitioners and finance people looking into the best ways of blended financing for ecorestoration, as well as networking. It's always encouraging to touch base and trade tips with others facing the same challenges. 

 And there’s an increasing demand from local farmers for our help with reforesting their land.

Exciting times down in the rainforest, and thank you for making this all possible! 

Stay tuned for the next adventure, and please look after yourself!

with love from the Iracambi Foresters

Dear wonderful donors across the world,  

We hope you are doing well, and that you share our joy in the fact that it's raining nicely and the planting team is working hard to get this season´s trees into the ground!

We've been planting as fast as we can, as well as checking on the trees we planted a few months back. As you can see, if we don´t keep on top of things, there´s a real danger that our baby trees will get suffocated by the healthy growth of grass on all sides. 

This week's good news is that we are hosting a professional photographer on site who is out in the field capturing images of life at Iracambi. We've also recently welcomed a new communications director - Juliana - and she is busily transforming our data and pictures into stories. And we just came off one of our bimonthly zoom meetings with Iracambi International mentors from across the world, where we discussed the importance of good data collection, good reporting and good stories. So everything is coming together on the reporting front, in parallel to the hard work of the planting team. 

Oh and did we tell you that we are partnering with a company in the US that is building a climate data model and plans to use our data and experiences as they refine their model? 

Exciting times down in the rainforest, and thank you for making this all possible. As one of our mentors today said "We need to think big. Aim high and we'll get there." 

Stay tuned for the next adventure, and please look after yourselves!

with love and thanks from Luiz and the foresters (as well as all the members of the Iracambi team)