Forests4Water Brazil: Community Climate Action

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

Dear donors, 

I hope you are doing well, and we want to send you all a big thank you for your support of our programs and take you backstage and show you a little of the nuts and bolts of our reforestry program!

You’re probably already familiar with our frontline activities - Alfredo and his team visiting the farms, checking on the baby trees, weeding and strimming the grass that threatens to choke them, or giving them a dose of fertilizer to help them face the end of the rainy season.

Plus what Deivid is up to in the nursery – making new seedling tables, filling the bags with the perfect mixture of soil and compost, germinating the seeds he has collected in the forest, watering the seedlings, and checking on the ten community nurseries – whose owners are inordinately proud of them! 

In this letter, we´d like to give you an idea of how we are using your donations – for which we are extremely grateful!

First, let us explain that the biggest project expense is labor. Land preparation, planting and maintenance requires lots of hard work and sweat equity, and everyone who works with us comes from the local community so your donations, as well as helping us reforest, are providing plenty of employment! 

And, even better, our peak season will begin in August when we start visiting the planting sites and doing the preliminary clearing and hole digging. This coincides nicely with the end of the coffee harvest, when local farmers will be glad of extra employment. Another important point is that in our annual reforestry budgeting we include labor costs for two years, since every tree planted will require two years maintenance.  

In the first quarter of this year we received in GlobalGiving donations a total of R$255,315 or USD$48, 533. Total project expenses were R$43,000 or USD 8,174. This left us with a quarterly balance of USD$40,359. Project expenses will increase from July when we shall be hiring a second project manager, and even more sharply from August when we shall be using casual labor to start preparing for the planting season.

One of our main upcoming expenses will be acquiring a suitable used vehicle to transport equipment and people. Up to now we`ve been using whatever transport is available, but we really need to have a pickup truck. Vehicles in Brazil are expensive, and we estimate this will cost us around $15,000.  So we are budgeting carefully to ensure that funds will be available at the right time!  

So, dear donors, thank you for coming backstage with us, and thank you even more for your generous support. We`re on a long term commitment together, caring for the trees you have helped us plant, making seedlings to plant later in the year, and planning for the future.  

As the Chinese proverb says, "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

Be safe, friends, and we´ll talk again soon,

with love from Alredo, Deivid and the Iracambi team

.. 

Links:

• F4W expenses Jan - March 2021