The Wildlife Corridors Programme

In Brazil, WeForest and our partners are demonstrating that biodiversity friendly land use alternatives are possible. Through planting connecting corridors between patches of forest, we restore the Atlantic Forest, a highly threatened and biologically significant ecoregion stretching from northeast Brazil to Paraguay.

Meet Marcos, a 75 year-old farmer who was recently trained in agroforestry and organic farming. After moving around various parts of Brazil and cultivating land, Marcos settled in Paranapanema when he was already 50, attracted by the promise of land ownership by the government. After six years of waiting, he was finally able to acquire several hectares of land, and he has been actively cultivating them since.

Marcos took part in training on agroforestry and organic farming: to grow his income and to boost the productivity of his farm, tree species such as pineapple, orange and jackfruit were planted. The additional forest cover also helped animals return to the area. “Last week my son spotted a giant anteater while herding our cattle and I recently saw some foxes, coatis and agoutis”.

Thanks to your support, we can provide even more training to farmers like Marcos and keep adding to more than 1 million trees we have already planted in the Atlantic Forest. These trees directly restore more than 600 hectares of forest, which are estimated to positively impact 45 000 hectares of land, bringing benefits to people, ecosystems and climate.

To improve our project management and restoration methods, WeForest collaborates with a number of researchers and forest landscape restoration experts. Among them are two graduate students at the University of São Paulo - Carolina Giudice Badari and Loren Belei.

Over the past couple of months, Carolina and Loren have been examining the ecological and socio-economic benefits of agroforestry in Pontal do Paranapanema, the Brazilian region where our project is based. They observed that restoration using agroforestry systems often brought better ecological results than conventional restoration. In particular, areas restored using agroforestry systems showed higher forest canopy cover, diversity and density than conventional restoration areas of the same age.

From a socio-economic perspective, agroforestry systems seem to not only provide an additional source of income, but also to have an effect on how landowners view their land. Landowners appear to have gained a better understanding of how the small green areas of forest on their land benefit the wider landscape.

Carolina and Loren are continuing their research but their initial findings already suggest that interaction between man and nature has the potential to bring benefits both to the conservation of forests and to the landowners.

Community engagement, livelihood improvement and inclusiveness are part of WeForest’s restoration principles. Thanks to your support, we can continue Making Earth Cooler for people, planet and climate!