A new project seeks to start a rebirth for the largest tropical jungle in the world planting new trees, dozens of millions of themes.
The project, announced on Friday at the “Rock in Rio” Music Fest in Brazil, aims to restore 73 million trees in the Brazilian Amazon by 2023.
“This is an impressive bold project,” said M. Sanjayan, CEO of Conservation International (CI), one of the partners behind the effort. “The fate of the Amazon depends on doing this correct, as well as the 25 million residents of the region, its innumerable species and the climate of our planet.”
The Amazon Forest is the home of the richest biodiversity of any ecosystem on the planet, a recent report described about 400 new species discovered in the Amazon between 2014 and 2015 alone, but is quickly disappearing with a growing global demand for resources. The economy, essentially focused on the exploitation of natural, mineral and agribusiness resources, has already led to approximately 15 percent of the original forest coverage being replaced by pastures and agricultural crops, without ensuring the well -being of the local population. The reforestation project fills an urgent need to develop the economy of the region without destroying their forests and guaranteeing the well -being of its people.
“A new chapter for the Brazilian Amazon is being written with this initiative,” said Rodrigo Measureos, vice president of the CEI Brazil Office. “Protecting the Amazon is not something we should think about the future, we have to do it now.”
The project is an association between Conservation International, the Brazilian Ministry of Environment, the Global Environment Installation (GMEF), the World Bank, the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund (Funbio) and Rock in the environmental arm of Río “Amazonia Live”.
The reforestation effort is part of a broader regional initiative, the Amazonian sustainable landscape project. This project aims to increase the area of forest ecosystems, promote the connectivity of protected areas within the Amazon and develop even more local productive activities and value chains derived from sustainable use or plates.
Priority areas for restoration effort include southern Amazonas, Rondônia, Acr, Paraá and the Xingu basin. Restoration activities will include the enrichment of existing secondary forest areas, the sowing of selected native species and, when necessary, the direct planting of native species, said Meiros.
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Bruno Vander Velde is the editorial director of CI. Why read more stories like this? Register to obtain updates by email. In addition, please support our critical work.
