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By Megan Fetzer Sheehan
The Parana River system provides drinking water to South America’s largest city — Sao Paulo.
But deforestation has left standing only 7 percent of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil — the source of the Parana River — which has led to murky waters, polluted with sediment that flows unfiltered into the river system.
In an effort to improve water quality for more than 9 million people in the Sao Paulo metropolitan area — and to protect the diversity of plants and animals in the Atlantic Forest — The Nature Conservancy is working with partners in Brazil to reforest lands around streams and headwaters of the Parana River system.
Collect a Fee, Plant a Tree
The Piracicaba-Capivari-Jundai (PCJ) watershed — through which the Parana River flows — is the source of 50 percent of Sao Paulo’s water supply.
But the watershed lacks forest cover around the river's edge — the riparian zone — leading to river sedimentation and contamination as well as soil degradation and erosion.
So, in an innovative method known as the Water Producer Program, the Conservancy's partners are paying landowners to reforest and conserve key areas of their properties within this important watershed.
The Conservancy and partners have identified priority areas — owned by local landowners — within the PCJ Watershed that directly affect water quality and quantity.
“To be part of the Water Producer Program, landowners in these priority areas have to agree to reforest key sections of their land that are critical to river health to receive any funding,” says Claudia Picone, information resource coordinator for the Conservancy’s Atlantic Forest program.
“And for those participating landowners who have forest still standing in these areas, they will receive the same amount to maintain them, since both maintaining standing forest and replanting previously forested land are key to the health of this river system.”
Landowners will also receive technical assistance with reforestation, soil conservation and erosion prevention from the Conservancy and partners.
And the effort uses fees collected from major water users such as water supply companies and major industries as an important source of funding — thus placing a value on water production and protection.
Restored Habitat, Improved Water Quality, and Jobs
The Conservancy hopes that the Water Producer Program will produce the following conservation and economic outcomes:
- Improved habitat for native plants and animals;
- Reforestation of 900 acres of riparian zones and hill tops;
- Best management practices for soil conservation employed on 10,000 acres;
- The creation of new local jobs to assist in reforestation efforts; and
- Improved water quality in the PCJ watershed over time.
The first trees in the Water Producer Program were planted in March of 2007, and the Conservancy hopes to continue this program indefinitely.
“Our aim is that the PCJ watershed committee will realize the importance of diverting part of the water-user fees to the reforestation of the watershed, to define a percentage that would be used for reforestation in perpetuity, and then to replicate it in other major watersheds in the country,” said Picone.
The Conservancy plans to implement similar programs throughout the Atlantic Forest and around the world, as results from this Water Producer Program are established.
Megan Sheehan is a marketing specialist with The Nature Conservancy.
(March 2008)
Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Scott Warren (wetlands); Photo © Scott Warren (seedlings).
