Editor’s note: In April 2025, after this story, the project described was in this story won the 2025 Environmental Finance Award for loan of the year of sustainability link of the year, in recognition of the innovative financing model of projects and its environmental results. Conservation International one of the three Implementation Ories was honored. You can find more details about the award here.
Brazil is home to a fixed tropical savannah, but overlooked, called closed.
This extensive open Tassland mosaic and scattered forests covers almost a quarter of the country, an area approximately the size of Greenland, providing habitat for 1,200 mammals, birds and reptiles and approximately 12,000 species of plants. Among its notable wildlife are the giant anteataros, the wolves of the man, the armadillos and the bright colors.
But today, more than half of the original closed has been clear for livestock and soy agriculture, which makes it one of the most fast disappearance ecosystems on earth. And only a fraction of the closing closed is protected by the Brazilian government, around 8 percent.
In a corner of southwest Brazil, a project designed by a sustainable wood operator, BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group (TIG), and backed by Conservation International, which breathes a new life that is the savannah.
What was once a fixed stretch of grasslands relegated only one year ago is rapidly transforming into tree farms and 2,500 hectares (6,000 acres) or newly restored natural forests. While the main purpose of the project is to store climate carbon, it is also designed to protect biodiversity.
As the natural forest has returned, so has wildlife.
A giant bear walks along the edge of the forest.
“Our goal always was that the restoration area followed the basin,” said Mark Wishnie, Tig’s sustainability director. “We imagine it as a wild life corridor that connects existing pates of protected closed forest.”
But even Wishnie, who had great hope for the corridor, was amazed by the wide range of species that returned to mass property. Through careful monitoring and chamber traps, TIG has documented a total of 319 animal species and 65 species of plants in property 17 of those species are in danger of extinction, threatened or almost Threeated by the IUCN red list.
“When we started this association, many of the species we are seeing lived in a small patch of ownership forest on property,” said Miguel Calmon, a scientist at Conservation International. “Now they are also beginning to move to the restored areas. That is a great victory.”
You can see the giant history that crawls between the rows of the imposing eucalyptus and the giant-giant ostrich birds, or pasta in the forest stripes.
But the most elusive species inhabit the weeds, where native plants are slowly recovering the earth. The tires, with their long and trunk snouts, carve paths through dense vegetation while looking for fruits and leaves. For the water, Capybaras, the largest rodents in the world, gather in herds, their attentive eyes scanning the surroundings while passing through streams or rest on the banks of the rivers. Closer to the ground, the armadillos are sneaky through the sand for the leaf, digging for insects.
And from the treetops to the Sotobosque, the birds of all forms and sizes are going back to the property. Tig has documented 188 species of birds, from colorful and hummingbirds to powerful hawks, hawks and the non -flying series and sparkling legs.
Birds of all shapes and sizes are finding habitat in the newly restored forest.
Protection and production
The presence of so many species comes from an unlikely association between conservationists and wood operators.
Tig came up with an innovative approach, using his business model not only for wood, but to restore the conservation of the land and funds. Half of the project area is dedicated to conserving and restoring native species, while the other half is planted with the forest administration, the eucalyptus trees hired for the production of sustainable wood.
This innovative approach has attracted important investors to the project, allowing TIG to move quickly and a large scale. Until now, Conservation International and Tig have protected and begun to restore an almost double area of Manhattan’s size, which puts it on the way to be the largest closed restoration in history.
But Calmon emphasized that the restoration is a continuous process, one that will require operating in an entire landscape and approximately decades: establish native plants in the right place, work with local communities, carefully monitor the conditions and aggressive eliminating the Dave the Dave the Dave the Dave the Rave Thehatative Thefnessive the Dave.
“The good news is that as more wildlife returns, they can help accelerate restoration,” he said.
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Species like TIRS are using the newly restored wildlife corridor.
Birds and herbivores, such as the tapirs, spread seeds, promoting the growth and diversity of plants, while animals such as armadillos and wild pigs disturb the ground while looking for, creating micrabitats so that plants are rooted. This natural rotation helps diversify plant life, building a more resistant ecosystem.
With the abundant dam, predators are also returning. Ocelots: Elegant and stained wild cats on the double size of a house in the house, now they silently walked through the trees, hunting small mammals. In an exciting development, one of the project traps of the project captured a strange image of a lonely jaguar stalking through the forest, pointing out a new chapter for the restoration team.
“Occupy jaguars and other great predators such as Pumas in the area is a powerful indicator that the ecosystem is in repair. Its presence means that the food chain is recovering and the landscape is becoming balanced enough to support,” said Saiders’ thesis, “” “
Wild life is also helping to improve the ability of the forest to absorb and store climate carbon, a critical part of Tig’s objectives for property. In June 2024, TIG announced a milestone for the project: they will provide Microsoft 8 million carbon credits based on nature, the largest carbon dioxide elimination agreement of all time. In September, Meta announced that they will buy 1.3 million credits of the project.
“Living beings make carbon storage possible,” Calmon said. “Or of course, plants do heavy work: it absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and locate it in their roots so that it cannot contribute to climate change. But for plants continue doing their job, they need a healthy ecosystem.”
This project is only the beginning of Tig’s ambition. Around the next five years, they plan to reserve half of the investments of their restoration strategy in Brazil, Uruguay and Chile for conservation, protecting and restoring 135,000 hectares (300,000 acres) or degraded to Pastureland back to natural vegetation.
Together with other closed restoration efforts backed by Conservation International, TIG is making a dent in the restoration of large savanna strips that have been overloaded, Barrun with invasive pastures.
“This is just the beginning,” Wishnie said. “Our goal is not only to restore the country, but to establish a new standard for what is possible in sustainable forestry, which shows that nature and economic production can prosper, for the benefit of people, climate and wildlife.”
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Capibaras are known as “Ecosystem Engineers”, which shape habitats when grazing and clearing channels along the river banks.
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Will McCarry is the Conservation International content director. Why read more stories like this? Register to obtain updates by email. In addition, please support our critical work.
