Global IssuesBRAZIL: Building a 'Reforestation Economy' in the Mata Atlântica
In one of the most environmentally damaged areas of Brazil's Mata Atlântica forest, work is under way to reforest a watershed that supplies Rio de Janeiro, while also establishing a 'reforestation' market that stimulates local job creation and local consumption.
Gilberto Pereira, executive director of the non-governmental Terra Institute for Environmental Preservation (ITPA), told IPS that the initiative taking place in south-central Rio de Janeiro state, northwest of the city of Rio, began with a dual mission: to achieve regional importance and to generate income.
The Santana River Environmental Protection Area was chosen because the river is one of the main tributaries of the Guandú River, which supplies water to 80 percent of the Rio metropolitan area, home to 10 million people.
Progressive deforestation is compromising both the quality and the production of water, because just 30 percent of the original forest cover remains intact.
This part of Rio de Janeiro state is also an economically stagnant area. In the past, the forest was cleared to create pasture for cattle, which was then supposed to drive economic development. But currently, said Pereira, 'we have an economy that has stalled.'
That is why by creating a reforestation market, 'in addition to reforesting the most devastated areas, we can generate employment and water supplies,' he said.
The strategy was to hire local workers -- many who otherwise had unstable jobs or were unemployed.
The 35 women and men now have a formal job contract and benefits, earning much more than the minimum wage, and they don't have to travel long distances to their worksites.
'Reforester' Eurilene Martín embodies all of the project's objectives.
She defines herself as 'mother and father at the same time' because she is raising her children on her own; she used to work as a domestic employee in the city, which meant long hours of commuting; and she lost her own home on the banks of the Santana River due to the effects of deforestation.
'I knew that without the protection of the trees, the ravine would give way as it rained. And that's what happened: the soil came crashing down onto my house like an avalanche,' she told IPS.
Now Martín is working to make sure that doesn't happen again. She earns a good salary and is doing something that 'makes me feel very happy.' As she prepared to join other workers in loading native tree seedlings to take to the deforested areas of the Mata Atlântica, she made her position clear: 'This isn't work, it's a lifelong project.'
The tree nursery is located on land belonging to the rail worker and telephone worker unions, which provided the site as their contribution to the reforestation initiative.
Marilene Ramos, environment secretary of Rio de Janeiro state, underscored that the rural landowners are also doing their part by allowing the seedling to be planted on their land and making a commitment to keep the forests standing.
The Guandú River watershed is home to the pilot programme of payments for ecosystem services. 'The landowners who give over an area for reforestation, who reforest what they have or preserve remnant forests, receive money twice a year for that preservation,' Ramos explained to IPS.
To contribute to the creation of the ecological market that Pereira mentions, the project is also utilising the local workforce for planting and collection of seeds.
The effort is producing results. In just three months, the reforesters planted about 100,000 native trees, among them is the species that was named Brazil's national tree in 1978: the Brazilwood, or Pau-Brasil (caesalpinia echinata).
It is an endangered species. Some historians say the tree was originally utilised to extract a colouring used in red dyes for textiles or paint, known as brazilin -- the Portuguese' first exploitation of natural resources when they reached these lands in the 16th century.
'I had seen something on TV about the Pau-Brasil tree and wanted to know what it was like. And now I am the one who is planting it and caring for it. I'm on the other side of the television,' laughed Martín, proud of her work.
The tree seedlings reach their destination on the upper slopes of deforested hills. After travelling by truck, they are transferred to horseback for stretches inaccessible to vehicles.
The mud from recent rains slowed the trek up the hill on the day IPS accompanied the workers. But on the barren hillsides that once were part of the Mata Atlântica, one of the world's richest biomes, the reforesters tirelessly set to work -- a seemingly archaeological effort to recuperate the biodiversity of the past.
They unload the seedlings from the horses, dig a small hole, and carefully plant what Martín says is the future: 'Each tree is the hope that someday everything will be better.'
LIFE STARTS WITH WATER
The reforestation work means preventing soil erosion, and therefore preventing landslides along the river. It will also keep water sources like smaller tributaries from drying up and will improve the quality of water consumed by the people living in Rio de Janeiro.
ITPA has calculated that what the Rio water treatment plant spends in three months to remove impurities would be enough for a year of payments to all of the rural landowners in the Guandú watershed for preserving their forests and maintaining the associated 'environmental services.'
'Today the river has very serious erosion and landslide problems. The riverbank vegetation helps reduce that problem of sedimentation, of erosion of the watershed,' explained Ramos.
ITPA holds up the initiative as an example that environmental preservation and social development don't have to be contradictory efforts.
While reforestation improves soil quality, stabilises the regional microclimate, fights global warming by capturing carbon, and improves potable water quality, it also 'provides a greater monthly income for dozens of families,' states the institute in several of its documents.
It is a change that also spurs activity in the local market, building an economy that will help prevent the usual country-to-city migration by those desperate for jobs, according to ITPA.
This is what ITPA director Mauricio Ruiz defines as 'a beginning of an ecological economy, a one-way journey,' in a similar vein to what Martín had summed up as 'planting the future.'
© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service