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Go DeeperWhat’s at Stake
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Enforcement of the Forest Code is patchy at best, say Conservancy officials. Throughout the Atlantic Forest region, major landowners, including soy producers, sugar cane growers and cattle companies, do not comply. In Extrema, only around one in 100 farmers is in compliance, according to an estimate by the town’s environment secretary and one of the program’s leaders, Paulo Henrique Pereira.
Although it might seem strange paying people to cede their land for reforestation—let alone pay those not in compliance with the law—Calmon calls the measures common sense and says that everyone benefits.
“We’re giving [people] incentives,” he says. “If someone is providing an environmental service that is good for society, then he should be recompensed.” Much of the pilot project’s initial success comes down to simple economics: The farmers in this area own mostly small parcels of land, and they scratch out a living raising cattle and selling the milk, cheese and “doce de leite” (a sweet candy made from condensed milk) that Minas Gerais is famous for. Now, Extrema is paying them to let trees be planted.
A Path to One Billion
Nevertheless, persuading farmers to get on board has been a long and tortuous process. The men here in cattle country had a tough time believing politicians and environmentalists who came by with offers to pay them precisely not to do the only thing they know how.
“The most difficult thing is trying to convince the farmers,” says Rosa Filho. “You have to go and visit them, sit down, drink coffee, eat cheese and talk about everything that’s not important until right at the end you eventually get to the point. It can take two weeks, a month, three months. That’s a whole load of cheese you have to eat.”
Rosa Filho, an agricultural engineer by training, knows the area’s landowners well, and he and his colleagues first made contact with those who own or work on farms high up the hills. That way, they could catch the water at its highest point. From there, they are working downhill and down river.
After striking a deal with a landowner, Rosa Filho consults maps of the property made with Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and the farmer’s own title deeds. He then decides which areas take priority and begins fencing them off.
A sturdy, energetic man who obviously loves the outdoors, Rosa Filho has been knocking on farmers’ doors for months now, trying to talk them into participating. Then he climbs hills and starts planting.
Here on one 60-acre piece of land stuck on a hillside a few miles from Extrema’s town center, Rosa Filho has chosen 11 micro-areas as needing urgent attention. Most are along streams or on steep slopes, and the water that runs through them flows into tributaries of the Jaguari River, the main river feeding the Jaguari reservoir. The reservoir provides drinking water to São Paulo and the neighboring city of Campinas.
Around 70 percent of the saplings Rosa Filho plants are fast-growing pioneer species, and the other 30 percent are slower-growing species. The pioneers provide shade for the slow growers, which will make up part of the reconstructed forest. The slow growers provide further conditions for a third group of species, to be planted later, that will eventually compose a large part of the finished forest.
It is a small start, and there is a long way to go. Rosa Filho and his team have planted some 50,000 trees since the program began in 2007. But while he can hardly bring himself to imagine 99,950,000 more, Conservancy officials are already exploring the partnerships with local, state and federal authorities that will make that goal feasible. And in a nation as big as Brazil, logistics are always an issue. Simply finding enough saplings is a real concern.
Fishbein and Calmon believe those obstacles are surmountable and are confident the pilot program will become far more influential and wide-reaching. With global warming a hot-button issue and environmental consciousness growing in Brazil, the window of opportunity is ajar.
“We need to start somewhere, and the time is now,” says Calmon. “Right now we have all the ingredients. It’s now or never.”
Nature picture credits (top to bottom): Photos © Frans Lanting/Minden Pictures; © Frans Lanting/Minden Pictures; © Scott Warren
