Trees and Education Protect Rainforest in Brazil

Dear donors and project friends, I am glad to say that project “Trees and Education Protect Rainforest in Brazil” continues well and its sub projects and programs are in full expansion. As you know, we take School groups to visit the Concordia Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary regularly to follow the environmental education course “A Day in the Forest”. You will see some photos of the last two groups. It is always a blessing and pleasure for us to be able to do this kind of programming and to have this wonderful possibility of taking these students to the forest and the agroforestry demonstration areas. You can see through their faces that it is delight for them. The new SALVEASERRA CARAVAN project has started its mission of taking information and to bring knowledge directly to the fields, upcountry to farmers, families and communities. We do presentations also for non rural groups. We are now in the middle of the planting season and we have already planted some 800 seedlings of many different species of trees, fruit trees and palm trees. We have also bought 1200 other saplings with some donations money and some more will still be acquired this year. I want to communicate to donors that I was invited to participate, now in December, of the second series of documentaries on sustainable development called "Architects of change", and produced by a Canadian-French team. http://www.pvp.ca/. Each series will feature 3 "Architects of change" from different cultures and economic sectors from all over the world and the aim of the series is to explain and highlight solutions to environmental and social issues, presented through people who already apply sustainable development principles in their daily lives and work. This documentary series will be broadcaster worldwide. Of course that I am very much honored and proud to be among one of the "Architects of change" and I hope that the examples of what we are doing here in Valença, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil, can show that it is possible to change the ways of dealing, caring and treating our planet Earth, and mainly to encourage other people to do their own changes and have their own projects to improve their lives, communities, countries, all over the World. I will show then what we do here: 1. the 3 agroforestry systems experimental areas and the coffee under shade plantations, 2. the "Day in the Forest" ecological guided tour we offer to municipal public school students, 3. the irrigated organic vegetable gardens donation project, Project Oasis, 4. the SALVEASERRA Caravan Project meant to bring information and to take knowledge to rural and urban communities, and two of the training courses we offer to local communities, in this case, one of how to make a good vegetable garden a another one on banana plant fiber handcrafting. Thank you all those contribute to make this project possible and please see bellow the invitation letter and some links to documentary trailers. Roberto Lamego, director.

Documentary on sustainable development Dear Mr. Roberto Lamego, I am writing you today to find out if you would be interested and available to participate in a documentary series on sustainable development. Last year, the French TV producer Lato Sensu and the Productions Vic Pelletier from Canada, co-produced a documentary series entitled "Architects of change". And we now currently working on the second season. The documentary series consists of 10 X 52 minutes episodes, each featuring 3 "Architects of change" from different cultures and economic sectors all over the world. Again, the series will be broadcasted in France (TV5-Monde, Ushuaia TV) and Canada (Radio-Canada and TFO). Talks are under way with Discovery Channel and NHK Japan as well and UNESCO is one of our partners. The aim of the series is to explain and highlight solutions to environmental and social issues, presented through people who already apply sustainable development principles in their daily lives. We discovered your work as the founder of SALVEASERRA and would be honored to count you among our "Architects of change". Individuals such as you give hope for the future and encourage people to do something of their own. Please let me know if you are interested in participating in this series. We plan to film between November 2009 and April 2010. You can go on this site so you will have a better idea of our project: http://www.filmsdocumentaires.com/portail/artisans.html And on our site, you will see who have accepted our invitation last year: http://artisansduchangement.latosensu.tv/ All the best, Geneviève Bougie Scénariste-Writer Les Artisans du changement (Architects of change) Les Productions Vic Pelletier inc. Pleae see also at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMvbh8D8aeo http://www1.radio-canada.ca/emissions/les_artisans_du_changement/

Marisa Glassman is GlobalGiving's Business Development Manager. She recently traveled throughout Brazil and visited a number of GlobalGiving projects. On May 4th she visited "Trees and Education Protect Rainforest in Brazil." When asked what she would tell her friends about this project, Marisa said: "Great: They are making a difference."

"With just a short time in as large a country as Brazil, I was afraid I wouldn´t be able to see enough of the country. And while I´ll almost certainly never be able to see as much as I´d like to, today´s visit to Roberto Lamego´s forest in Valença gave me a welcome complement to all of the city-based work I´ve seen. Now I can leave Brazil happy. While finding a way to get there was tricky to say the least, I can´t imagine this trip being complete had I not been able to go. The forest I visited was a two-hour drive outside of Rio de Janeiro city, where most of the land is now rolling hills where vast forests once stood. When man cleared the land to plant coffee trees and other produce, the forests were decimated. And although the crops thrived for a short time, they eventually disappeared because the land could not maintain them without the cover and moisture the forest had provided. Left with almost nothing, most local residents turned to other uses for their land, such as cow farming. With many animals throughout the area, the forests have not been able to grow back.

"On a plot of this land, Roberto Lamego´s family had a farm. The land was eventually abandoned while Roberto was living abroad, but he decided to return to Brazil to try and salvage it. Since 1993, Roberto has planted hundreds of thousands of trees and other crops on his family´s land, and his forest now thrives among the surrounding barren hills. With proper care and attention, he and his dedicated staff, who live on the forest grounds Monday through Friday, have grown a forest which not only houses tall trees such as palm trees, which will no longer grow on their own in most of the surrounding area, but also houses crops such as passion fruit, mangoes, limes, coffee, and various other fruits I wish I could spell in English - some of which I tasted right off the trees.

"Once or twice every month, Roberto brings a school bus full of local children to the forest to learn about the landscape and work he and his coworkers have done. He realizes the community´s immediate need for income, and thus conveys the message that, not only does his forest help preserve the land, but provides a sustainable way to produce crops for many years by giving them the environment they need to thrive. It is often an uphill battle against a government that does not share his goals and local community members whose immediate financial needs make it difficult to maintain the long-term outlook necessary to follow Roberto´s methodology. But Roberto´s will and conviction make his efforts less of a choice than a natural path. I am so thankful I was able to visit the forest with a diverse group of local students who were also visiting for the first time. Their enthusiasm and curiosity were wonderful to see, and although the language barrier between us didn´t allow us to communicate fully, we did manage to find the one thing that saved us all from some unnecessary itching: the citronella plant Roberto showed us, which luckily is the same word in English and Portuguese."