Forests4Water Brazil: Community Climate Action

Dear donors,

Greetings from the rainy rainforest, and here’s a big shoutout for your amazing support over this complicated year. 

And we’re happy to tell you that we are planting trees as we speak! 

This year, we’re planting 35,000 seedlings so we can hit our target of 55,000 trees by the end of the 2021-22 planting season!

And we need your help to move farther. Giving Tuesday is fast approaching and as you know it’s the biggest giving day of the year! 

We’re aiming to hit our goal of U$100,000 to be used to support all our programs, planting more trees, teaching more kids and running more workshops in the local communities. 

Please mark the date of November 29 on your calendar and join the movement that is changing the world!

With kind hugs and warm hearts.

The Iracambi Team.

Dear friends! 

We hope you are all doing really well, and we’re so happy to be able to send you an update from the rainforest, where things are going flat out. (And we wouldn’t have it any other way, of course!) 

We told you about the support that our partners from the University of Viçosa have been giving to us over the last couple of months by helping us improve our irrigation system, right? We needed to set up a new water intake for the whole campus - the plant nursery and all the buildings here at Iracambi. And our wonderful groundsman Deocar has been working hard to build the new system.  

Last time we wrote, we were coming out of the dry season, and the question of a reliable water supply was becoming crucially important. Now that the rains are here, there are a new series of challenges - mainly to do with keeping the water channels and pipes clear of leaves that can choke off the water supply. 

But our water sampling shows that the water quality is high, and we’re aiming to keep it that way!

And, another newsflash. Fran, our nursery manager has been hard at work collecting seeds. Different trees give seed at different times, and she needs to be ready to collect them on their time, not on hers!  Luckily it’s one of the things she really, really enjoys, and she can usually find a student or two to help her go off into the woods and collect the seeds. 

And finally, we’re looking forward to the visit of one of our sponsors from Europe. He is bringing a team, not only to pay a site visit, but also to roll up their sleeves and help out with the tree planting. Stand by for more news in our next letter! 

And THANKS once again for your amazing support. It means the world to us!  

with lots of rainy forest love from 

The Iracambi Foresters 

Dear donor,

Thank you so much for your ongoing support to our Forests for Water Program! 

We’re here today to show you a little bit more about our partnership with The Nature Conservancy, which is a non-profit organization that operates in more than 35 countries, whose mission is to “conserve the lands and waters on which life depends”. 

Their project “Restore Brazil” takes place throughout Brazil and contributes to reforestation through Agroforestry systems.  These are both environmentally and economically sustainable planting systems, which plant crops along with trees, thereby creating an economic return to landowners. 

Our team is researching Agroforestry Systems to discover what it takes to guarantee that the project works effectively for smallholders and family farmers of this region, because, in addition to planting trees and crops together we need to seed the idea of agroforestry in people’s minds!

We can say that the approach is based on the teachings of Paulo Freire:  rather than sharing  knowledge with farmers, we should exchange knowledge with them, (listening more than talking, and encouraging the farmers to participate actively.) 

This partnership with TNC has great potential for success, and will increase the impact of our work in the fight against climate change.

Increasing our scale and impact is good, but doing this with the right partners is better, and YOU ARE A BIG PART OF THIS JOURNEY

Dear nature-loving friends!

The organization for this year's planting has begun! Around here, we are receiving all the necessary inputs for planting, which is done in the most natural way possible, without pesticides and without components that can harm our small trees!

And our volunteer friends started arriving too!

We received people from all over the world for the start of the planting season: people from Belgium, from UK, from Egypt and so on!

Everyone wants to get their hands dirty while planting!

And your support is what moves us! So THANK YOU for that!

With lots of rainforest love and appreciation!

The Iracambi team.

Dear wonderful donors, 

You know that as a NGO, we’re always getting help from all sides.

This time, the staff of the Agricultural Engineering Department at the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV) are helping us to redesign our water harvesting system, which will improve the flow of water throughout the NGO.

This is very important as the planting season is approaching and we need to focus our efforts so that the tree seedlings are in good shape for planting!

The students are now carrying out a survey of the water offtake for our irrigation system, measuring distance, slope and angles. It is basically a mini topographical survey.  

This is all important because as the nursery grows, we really need to improve the irrigation system, and the students reckon we can create a more efficient  way of getting the water from the river and set up an automated irrigation system. Our nursery manager will be delighted, because watering is a really big job!  

So, keep reading, and we’ll tell you how it works out! 

And thank you for your support. We couldn’t do it without you! 

With lots of love,

The Iracambi team