Territorial Strategy Expands Sustainable Cattle Efforts in Pará and Mato Grosso

Conservation may lie in a simple but challenging proposition: aligning public policy, climate finance, traceability, and practical support for producers within the same territorial strategy. Done well, that alignment can help reduce deforestation, strengthen rural livelihoods, and create the conditions for a more resilient agricultural economy.

That is the premise behind the work underway in the Brazilian states of Pará and Mato Grosso, where The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Brazil is helping connect data, governance, and direct support for producers to strengthen supply chains and expand sustainable production. The effort is being carried out with support from organizations including Walmart Foundation, Zoetis Foundation, AGCO Foundation, Corteva, HSBC, Carrefour Foundation, Bank of America, and Bezos Earth Fund. The effort is rooted in a landscape approach, one that sees the territory not as a collection of isolated projects, but as an interconnected system shaped by land use, public institutions, markets, ecosystems, and communities. In practice, that means bringing together science, public policy, producer engagement, financial mechanisms, and nature-based solutions to support conservation, local development, and quality of life at once.

Linking production, climate, and governance

In both states, the strategy begins with a recognition that large-scale agricultural transition cannot be driven by farm-level interventions alone. It depends on territorial tools capable of linking climate commitments, environmental compliance, traceability, technical assistance, and productive inclusion.

At the center of that effort is the strengthening of Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification, or MRV, systems. These systems help organize and connect environmental, social, and production data so that governments and their partners can track progress, improve accountability, guide policy, and provide greater confidence to markets and investors. When those systems become more robust and transparent, they also help create the conditions for stronger deforestation-free supply chains, lower risk, and more strategic investment.

In Mato Grosso, the initiative also builds on a solid trajectory of support for public policies, this one aimed at reconciling production, conservation, and inclusion, including stronger monitoring systems tied to the cattle sector and to state programs already in place.

According to Julia Mangueira, Cerrado Director, TNC Brazil, “This initiative is grounded in the understanding that there is no large-scale sustainable transition without connecting data, governance, financing, and direct support for producers. By integrating these elements across the territory, we can create more concrete conditions to reduce deforestation and conversion, expand supply chain transparency, and strengthen opportunities for rural producers.”

Bringing support closer to producers

One of the project’s central components is the creation and consolidation of Producer Service Hubs, known in Portuguese as Núcleos de Atendimento aos Produtores (NAPs). These hubs are designed to serve as practical entry points for producers seeking to transition toward more sustainable practices.

On the ground, that means support with environmental compliance, traceability, technical assistance, and access to public programs and incentives.

In Pará, there are already three NAPs in priority cattle-producing regions, Novo Repartimento, Altamira and São Félix do Xingu, with the potential to reach up to 3,000 producers. In Mato Grosso, the focus is on consolidating an institutional model for continuous technical assistance, with lessons learned from the direct support for 120 producers over the past three years, in coordination with public- and private-sector partners, in order to test, validate and scale this model. The aim is to reach 5.000 producers in 2030, so the processes and models need to be adjusted so such goal is achievable.

The model is meant to address one of the most persistent bottlenecks in rural transition: the gap between high-level commitments and practical, accessible, coordinated services in the territory itself. The goal is not to create parallel structures, but to make existing solutions more reachable, and to lower the barriers that keep producers from adopting practices tied to productivity gains, environmental compliance, and traceability.

Connection with jurisdictional approaches

Landscape approaches strengthen essential ecosystem services that support well-being, economic activity, and sustainability. They enable effective, context-specific implementation of Nature-based Solutions (NbS), broadening impact and improving integration, while promoting ecological balance through government collaboration, monitoring, and alignment with local conditions. The full implementation of jurisdictional approaches in the states of Pará and Mato Grosso can lead to transformative reductions in emissions in the Amazon and the Cerrado.  From a performance standpoint, the sustained reduction in deforestation and conversion will allow both jurisdictions to generate carbon credits and unlock climate finance, bringing new resources to support a large-scale and sustainable economic transition in the next five years.

In this context, in Pará, TNC Brazil has been supporting the state in the development of its jurisdictional REDD+ system, with a focus on social and environmental safeguards and institutional arrangements designed to value standing forests, support emissions reductions, and help ensure that climate finance reaches the territory with integrity and long-term impact. Pará is carrying out a Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) process with Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities. A grant from Walmart Foundation is supporting the ongoing FPIC process with Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities — critical for JREDD readiness – to help improve JREDD communication strategy, focusing on benefit sharing, and on the evaluation of the benefit-sharing process and promote recommendations to maximize long-term conservation impacts and support zero-conversion transitions.

Results expected at scale

Over time, TNC’s broader territorial strategy in Pará and Mato Grosso is intended to help advance more sustainable management practices across approximately 266,874 acres, including 118,611 acres in Pará and 148,263 acres in Mato Grosso. Within that larger effort, support from Walmart Foundation is helping strengthen key enabling conditions needed to move that transition forward, including improved jurisdictional monitoring, stronger producer support systems, and greater integration of data and governance tools in priority areas.

Other expected outcomes include advances in cattle traceability and environmental compliance, as well as direct support for producers in priority territories. The Walmart Foundation-supported project is designed to contribute to a broader territorial strategy aimed at reducing deforestation, restoring productive areas, and strengthening the systems needed for the states to demonstrate progress over time. For that, the project supports tools and institutional arrangements that can improve transparency, guide implementation, and help create the conditions for additional investment aligned with sustainable production and climate goals.

A partnership built for the long term

The effort is being carried out in coordination with state governments, local partners, civil society organizations, and actors across the cattle value chain. Within that broader coalition, TNC Brazil serves as a technical partner helping connect public policy, data, governance, and territorial solutions.

This new phase is supported by Walmart Foundation as part of a broader effort to strengthen jurisdictional approaches and sustainable development in key territories across the Amazon and the Cerrado.