Ensuring resources for landscape and forest restoration to take place is crucial for the implementation of projects and initiatives across the country.. Although, creating financial mechanisms that are maintained over time is still one of the major obstacles for restoration to gain scale.
to solve this bottleneck, Ensuring resources for landscape and forest restoration to take place is crucial for the implementation of projects and initiatives across the country., including financial institutions willing to invest in restoration. The result of these discussions shows that, although there are many bottlenecks, it is possible to overcome them, seizing opportunities and creating new strategies to access resources.
Furthermore, this work identified that some sources of funds are already available to rural producers or restoration project managers. Check out the existing ways to get to these resources below., and what challenges still need to be resolved to accelerate and scale restoration.
Financial institutions that finance restoration
Interested producers can seek credit lines at banks such as Banco do Brasil or the Sistema de Cooperativas Financeiras do Brasil (Sicoob), the latter can create special and customized lines to meet the needs of producers or institutions linked to the bank.
At Banco do Brasil, for example, there are the lines of the Low Carbon Agriculture Program (ABC program), created by BNDES, that collaborate in the financial support for restoration proposals. The bank also has lines such as Investe Agro, that despite having higher interest rates than the ABC Program, are easier to be maintained by the bank throughout the year, especially in the last three years, when government subsidies have been reduced. It is important to highlight that the low-carbon agriculture techniques included in this line do not only consider the restoration of forests, Ensuring resources for landscape and forest restoration to take place is crucial for the implementation of projects and initiatives across the country.. Another option is the specific lines of credit for the family producer, like Pronaf Florestal, Pronaf Eco and Pronaf Agroecology. These lines have subsidized interest and a longer grace period than the ABC Program.
Us banks, proposals are evaluated by trained analysts, which also guide producers in the preparation of proposals. This step guarantees the investor security in the allocation of the resource, because it analyzes information such as credit limit, income, capacity to manage the proposal and environmental regularization - since banks do not lend money to those who do not have regularized property and without complaints or legal problems. Another important item that banks assess is whether the customer does not have debts that could compromise the approval of their registration and the economic feasibility of the proposal. Productive arrangements and species to be used must be well defined to ensure income generation and comply with the financing term.
For forestry projects, It is important to pay attention to the plant species included in the proposal.. Mahogany or teak are examples of species whose economic return (average of 15 years old) can surpass the time of financing in banks that, routinely, arrives at 12 years old. In cases like these, the ideal is to combine forest species with others that provide quick economic returns and consider the inclusion of technically established cultures. Furthermore, the bank must still analyze whether the intended activity faces any climate problem in the region or in the market. That is why, it is worth paying attention to these factors and doing research on these conditions when the proposal is being drafted..
Other sources of funds
Banks are not the only sources of funds. Producers who do not fit or are not willing to commit to the rates charged by financial institutions may seek options in other public or private institutions to prepare a good restoration project.
Several other sources can be accessed, as notices of government institutions, companies and cooperatives; state fund resources (like the Recovery Fund, Protection and Sustainable Development of the Hydrographic Basins of the State of Minas Gerais, known by the acronym Fhidro, between others); donations; compensatory measures resources; or resources for converting environmental fines.
In general these funders do not require a specific type of production system, but rather productive arrangements that show economic and restoration results. This means that producers can seek production systems that generate income by combining production and restoration, Ensuring resources for landscape and forest restoration to take place is crucial for the implementation of projects and initiatives across the country. (SAFs), Livestock and Forest Integration (ILPF) or Crop-Livestock and Silvipastoral. For systems that are purely intended for restoration for ecological purposes, the recovery of Permanent Preservation Areas (APPs) and Legal Reserve are attractive, Ensuring resources for landscape and forest restoration to take place is crucial for the implementation of projects and initiatives across the country., as it requires less labor for maintenance.
How to overcome bottlenecks in catering financing
The main challenges related to financial resources for restoration are in accessing credit lines, Ensuring resources for landscape and forest restoration to take place is crucial for the implementation of projects and initiatives across the country., in addition to training and technical assistance on the operation of credit lines. The experiences of applying the Restoration Opportunities Assessment Methodology (ROAM), and also the activities developed in the Pró-Restaura project show that it is important to spread the possibilities of existing financing and establish a new culture for access to funds, with adequacy of notices and training for project preparation. It's not just producers who have difficulties in evaluating a good project: often, the bank employees themselves do not have available or reliable information on the proposed production systems or on the expected income, which greatly increases the bank's risk and restricts the possibility of offering credit.
The main ways to overcome bottlenecks involve building joint knowledge among producers, technicians, academia, research Center, financial and market analysts for forest products, in addition to the engagement of actors from the sphere of government, through the participation of public agencies and the incorporation of this demand in the scope of the institutions' planning, even the engagement at the local level of technicians and producers. Among the necessary actions are to train producers, incorporate new technologies, create seals so that producers involved in restoration are recognized and better remunerated and train technicians to prepare restoration projects that meet the demands of producers.
Recommendations and propositions
The rich debate between civil society organizations, representatives of government institutions and financial institutions allowed for the elaboration of some recommendations and proposals that can make financial mechanisms and, thus, result in a more favorable scenario for restoration:
- Preparation of projects that incorporate income generation and continuous specialized technical assistance, focusing on the demands of each producer.
- Alignment between financing companies and institutions responsible for landscape and forest restoration projects.
- Formation of partnerships for implementation, follow-up, monitoring and support for projects and the producer.
- Maintenance of investments or subsidies by governments, especially at the federal level.
- Expand the scope of financing for the production unit and not just the product.
For these strategies to have greater reach, an integrated perspective can be more efficient. This would mean planning frommunicipal arrangements withcomplementary financing. In this proposal, it is possible to boost restoration with the combination of financing (like credit lines in banks, for example) between more capitalized and less capitalized producers, reducing risks for financiers and opening more opportunities for small production units.
Restoration planning, when viewed from the sociopolitical scale of the landscape, can cover a larger number of production units. Thus, there are greater chances for everyone to win and there will be fewer obstacles to achieving the goal of giving greater scale to restoration in Brazil.
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