Forests4Water Brazil: Community Climate Action

Well, lovely donors, 

You're not going to believe this but I had jjust finished writing this quarterly report to you when some gremlin got into the site or my fingers or somewhere and seized up the site and my report VANISHED into thin air! 

But down in the forest we are made of stern stuff, so here it comes again. 

And the main thing we want to do is give you guys a big shoutout for your amazing support over the last quarter, which has averaged almost $500 a month. You are the best! 

You support comes at the perfect moment, because we're in the thick of the planting season. And as we've probably told you, work in forest restoration goes on year round. Sure, there are quieter times and busier times and this has certainly been one of the busier times. 

It's not unexpected - after all we are in the midst of rainy season, and that's when we normally do the planting. But before we tell you of our adventures, let's give you a quick rundown of some of the activities that your generous donations are supporting. 

• Finding, cleaning and preparing the seeds (from the forest)
• Identifying and sorting them 
• Making compost to enrich the soil (forest soils are not very fertile) 
• Planting the seeds in the seed bed and waiting for them to germinate: 3 - 6 weeks
• Transplanting them into plastic sacks
• Watering, weeding and dosing with organic fertilizer as required
• When coffee harvest is over (July, August) visiting participating farms to locate priority areas for reforestation 
• Taking soil and water samples and selecting the best mix of species depending on the farm topography
• Visting the farms before planting to check that the area is fenced and weeded and everything is in place 
• Digging the holes and applying organic fertilizer 
• Mobilizing as many volunteers as possible to help with the planting 
• Returning to the farms to monitor the growth of the young forests

This year things weren't entirely straightforward - and the title of this project may have given you a hint. Due to very heavy rains we had to cope with flooding, landslides and impassable dirt roads which slowed us down a lot. So we're currently 60% of the way towards making our goal of 7,000 trees planted, and we'll keep going as and how we can. Next year we're raising our target to 10,000 trees.

There's one good thing about extreme weather events. They focus the mind wonderfully. And every tree that you help us plant and maintain will help stabilize the soils, increase rainwater infiltration and avoid runoff and play an important role in flood control. 

Thank you, dear donors, for your support. Please stay with us as together we restore the forests on which we all depend. Please consider, if you can, becoming a regular donor. Please share our project link with your friends and colleagues and ask them to join you in supporting the work we are doing together.  

muddy but happy hugs from the rainforest, 

Arielle and the Forests4Water team

Links:

• Iracambi site
• Planting the trees for Iracambi

Greetings to you all from the rainforest! 

I bet you want to know what’s happening in the forest, now that the rains are here? 

Let’s start with results of the monitoring of the 2018 planting – survival rates of the trees are around nearly 70%. Survival rates vary a lot between different farmers -  in some cases nearly 100%, in others considerably less. When we analyzed these results, we came to the conclusion that the greater part of losses was due to lack of maintenance. Not weeding around the seedlings, attacks from leaf-cutting ants, cattle breaking down the fences in the dry season, and so on. 

This is a huge challenge! We know that a farmer’s life is tough and it’s hard for them to take time out from planting, fertilizing and harvesting their crops and devote time to their reforestry areas – where they don’t anticipate any financial return.  

But the good news is that it’s raining hard here – in contrast to the water crisis that we had in 2014 and 2016. 

Of course people have very short memories, and forget that during the water crisis they had no water for drinking, cooking and bathing, and they lost a lot of their crops - so we’re working hard to help them understand the simple equation: without trees there is no water, and without water there is no life. 

It’s more than simply a question of springs drying up, it’s also a question of agroforestry. We’re already doing that by interplanting fruit trees with our native trees, encouraging the farmers to take better care of their reforestry plots, so that they can harvest the fruits for themselves (as well as the birds!)   

Agroforestry clearly shows that it’s possible to grow food crops in the forest: shade coffee has the advantage of attracting birds and pollinators, helping fix nitrogen in the soil and even producing natural fertilizers.  As you know, agroforestry uses organic and natural pesticides, herbicides – but hat conerns us is that we’ve even seen farmers using glyphosate (Roundup) around their springs. 

BEWARE! 

Do they have any idea what they are doing? Or what the consequences will be? Things are much more serious than we thought. These chemicals are banned in many countries.   

Glyphosate controls weeds and it saves farmers a lot of time, so they love it. What they don’t know is that studies show that it can affect food, soils and water, can affect human health and has been linked to cancer, obesity, diabetes, heart problems, infertility, gluten intolerance and more. 

So, in addition to reforesting with 50 different species (we want to increase biodiversity!) and in addition to planting new forests and restoring springs, we’re also bringing as much information as we can to the farm families who don’t have access to facts like these. 

Now – are you keen to hear about this year’s planting? 

Come with us, let’s roll up our sleeves and get muddy! 

This year our financing comes from YOU, our wonderful supporters who have been with us since 2015.  And we’re also working with a company in Hong Kong, which is very exciting! So we’re extremely grateful to our donors and cannot begin to express how happy we are that you are by our sides doing this amazing work.  We hope that some of you may be able to see it for yourselves one day!

Remember I told you we had a reasonable rate of survival and, in the areas that weren’t well cared for, we’re returning to help out, explaining more about maintenance, about the importance of water, and other environmental questions. 

We have a great team working with us, Mateus, Hercules, Deivid the nursery manager, Mauricio, Derli, Fagner (our former nursery manage – remember him?) And these guys have cleared, weeded, dug the holes and fertilized the soil.

And now we come to the exciting part: delivering the seedlings and planting!

It’s been raining like crazy so we’re planting in the rain. After delivering the seedlings we’re adding more fertilizer (cow manure) and getting our hands dirty. Literally! 

We look forward to telling you more about the planting, about what we’re learning, about the wildlife we’ve seen, about the farmer’s stories, but all this will have to wait for the next report. STAY TUNED!  

But, before we go, we have another novelty to tell you. We’ve made some changes in the nursery. We’ve enlarged the composting area, we’ve made a roof over it so it won’t get wet and we won’t have to use tarpaulins. We’ve also fixed up the fence – sometimes dogs have been getting in and trampling the seed beds which drives our nursery manager to distraction! 

The seedlings are more than 50 cm tall, and very well developed and strong. Deivid has sprayed them with the organic fertilizer we talked about in our last report. We’re also moving the seedlings from the tables onto the ground so that can harden off before being planted out. We’re watering them less, since once they’re planted they’ll rely on the rain for watering! This technique has been very successful for producing really healthy seedlings.

So, as you can see, there’s a lot going on and we’re not stopping here. If it wasn’t for you, this project wouldn’t exist. So we’d love to ask for your help once again.

Giving Tuesday  (December 3rd) brings people together to give something back. Every little gesture helps to change the world. It’s a call to action to encourage people to give!  Time, energy, cash, whatever you can! 

So please join us in saving more forests and changing more lives. 

December 3 is the biggest day of the year in terms of solidarity. Please mobilize your family, colleagues and friends to join us! Share, donate, spread the word. If everyone does their bit, we can do MUCH more together! 

In twenty years with lots of hard work and lots of help from friends and supporters here’s what we’ve done: 

• 1200 acres of forests protected forever.
• 12,500 acres of Environmental Protection Areas
• 130,000 native forest trees planted 
• 650 farm families through our programs  
• 2000 students, researchers and volunteers welcomed from 65 countries 
• 150,000 people impacted in the nine counties of the Serra do Brigadeiro 

Between us, with few resources, we’ve done a LOT! And there’s a lot more to do. There’s still the question of bauxite mining in the area, threatening the livelihoods of dozens of farm families and the water supply of thousands of people downriver. 

Please join us and be a part of this great family of people who fight every day to save more forests and change more lives.  May we count on you? . 

A great big thank you from all of us for what you’ve done, what you do, and what we hope you’ll continue to do! 

And hugs from the Forests 4 Water team – muddy but happy!

Links:

• Project Page