We already know that thousands of rural producers, business initiatives, civil society organizations, Governments and research institutions are restoring degraded areas and forests, promoting ecological restoration, forestry and reforestation of native and exotic species for wood production, paper, cellulose, environmental services and many other non-timber products. These actors play a key role in accelerating and scaling up the recovery of our ecosystems, enabling Brazil to fulfill its national and international forest restoration commitments.
Despite this great effort, there is still little recognition in Brazil and in the world of the results already achieved. It is necessary to give visibility to these initiatives and projects, presenting the results systematically, transparent and trustworthy.
To meet this need, Coalition Brasil Clima, Forests and Agriculture, with the support of WRI Brasil, Amazon Institute of Man and Environment (Imazon), Pact for the Restoration of the Atlantic Forest (Covenant) e The Nature Conservancy (TNC), launch the Restoration and Reforestation Observatory this week. This is a pioneering and unprecedented initiative to combine data from ongoing restoration initiatives and projects in Brazil with satellite monitoring data.
See the Observatory launch webinar, with presentation about the tool, contextualization of data and mapped numbers:https://www.youtube.com/embed/LQCGTbrBhqM
How the Observatory works Brazil
The platform has two main interfaces. The first, geared towards a more technical audience, presents the data on a map of Brazil and provides tools for users to perform spatial analysis with the information. This is crucial to provide transparency and help account for progress in national and international restoration commitments..
The second interface consolidates the numbers and presents the main platform data in a simple way. It can be an important decision-making tool when measuring the progress of restoration and reforestation in the country for the first time..
Public managers, be federal, state and municipal, can identify the location of areas undergoing restoration and reforestation. This can be crucial to monitor the permanence and success of investments in these areas, as well as planning new restoration programs and projects.. Private companies can also monitor their restoration areas for environmental compliance purposes., track your forest product chains, or verify compliance with its sustainability policies. Just as the financial industry and the market can monitor your ESG goals (Environmental, Social and Governance).
The numbers already mapped - and what lies ahead Brazil
Before presenting the numbers already mapped by the Observatory, It is important to emphasize that this is an ongoing process of seeking information from restoration initiatives.. The platform presents the data that is already available, publicly accessible and shared at the time of release. It is known that many important initiatives and projects are still unaccounted for., but the Observatory invites everyone – producers, Business, civil society, research institutions and governments - to contact you to make your data available, in a continuous process of improvement and monitoring of areas undergoing restoration in Brazil.
To better present the collected data, the Observatory divided them into three categories.: restoration, natural regeneration and reforestation. It is not recommended to add data from the three categories, that could present a different picture of what is actually found. Here are the data identified in each of them:
- Restoration: The platform considers the recovery of environmental services in an area as restoration, through projects that recover native vegetation, make active interventions for restoration or use productive systems integrated with trees (ex.: Agroforestry Systems). In this category have been identified so far 79 thousand hectares restoration throughout Brazil.
- natural regeneration: In this category we consider the areas that have been abandoned and are in the process of restoration. have been identified 10 million hectares. Importantly, the natural regeneration data are based on satellite mappings made by MapBiomas and Imazon's FloreSer Platform. Considering the intentionality in regeneration and working to establish incentives for this is crucial so that it can be considered in the fulfillment of Brazil's goals and commitments in the international spheres, as in the Paris Agreement.
- Reforestation: Planting trees for economic purposes, whether native or exotic, in monoculture or polyculture, is part of this category. For example, reforestation for the production of native wood or paper or cellulose using exotic species (ex.: pine and eucalyptus). in this category, were identified 9 million hectares of reforestation. This number is very close to the estimate made by IBÁ.
Visibility for whoever is making it happen
One of the most important features of the Restoration and Reforestation Observatory is to give visibility to producers and organizations that are restoring at the cutting edge. This visibility is crucial to provide transparency and recognize the important work developed by rural producers who are making restoration a reality. Facilitating this recognition can improve access to the resources and financing needed to accelerate and scale up restoration.
The role of restoration movements, producers, Business, governments, civil society organizations and research institutions engaged in restoration was crucial in making the data available to the Observatory.. For example, the Observatory has data from the Pact and the Alliance for Restoration in the Amazon. No Covenant, are more than 300 member organizations restoring the Atlantic Forest, the most threatened biome in Brazil, resulting in environmental and economic gains. in the alliance, although not all areas are already totaled on the platform, we know there are about 2,7 a thousand restoration initiatives that show great opportunities to accelerate and scale up. They include ecological restoration projects, Agroforestry Systems (SAFs) and Crop-Livestock-Forest Integration (iLPF).
It is also important to give visibility to public policies that promote and encourage restoration. The Observatory allows the user to search by municipality, making it possible to see where the restoration is taking place, such as the work of the city of Extrema (MG) and the Conservador da Mantiqueira program. At the state level, two important databases have already been included.: those in the states of São Paulo and Espírito Santo. Public managers from other states are encouraged to make their numbers available and disseminate their good government practices.
A live and dynamic observatory
The restoration of landscapes and forests has been highlighted in the public and private debate in Brazil and in the world for being one of the best solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and, thus, fight climate change. At the same time, restoration generates employment and income and ensures more resilient and sustainable agriculture. It is not by chance that the United Nations defined the period of 2021 a 2030 as the Decade of Ecosystem Restoration. So that the benefits of restoration are disseminated and perceived by society, it is crucial to gather and update restoration and reforestation initiatives and present them with transparency and reliability to society, both in Brazil and abroad.
The Restoration and Reforestation Observatory is taking a first step in this direction. For that, it needs to be a live and dynamic platform, always adding new data and updating the information to reliably portray the Brazilian restoration scenario. WRI Brasil, Imazon, TNC and Pact, together with Coalition Brazil and partners, invites rural producers, public managers, project managers and companies and civil society engaged in the restoration agenda to make available and share their data, showing the world that Brazil is the country of restoration.
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