ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Landowners Come to the Aid of Atlantic Forests

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava* - Tierramérica

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 19 2004 (IPS) - Some 360 private reserves have been created to protect the forests in the rich Brazilian Atlantic biome, one of the five most endangered in the world. The ‘Mata Atlantica’ has lost more than 90 percent of the area it covered when Europeans first came to the Americas.

The Mata Atlantica is "a bank of life", says Daise Moreira Paulo, a retired chemist who is fighting to "preserve and expand" these Brazilian forests. She has set aside for conservation 28 of the 48 hectares of a rural estate she owns in the area.

The land belonging to Moreira, president of an association of private nature reserve owners, RPPN, in Rio de Janeiro state, forms part of the patchwork of forests and related ecosystems along the Brazilian coast which have suffered even greater environmental devastation than the Amazon.

The destruction of the Mata Atlantica forests and their biodiversity has directly affected the lives of the 120 million Brazilians living in neighbouring ecosystems, representing two-thirds of the national population.

Agronomist Henrique Fragoso Berbert de Carvalho heads another association of privately run reserves, in the states of Bahia and Sergipe, in the Brazilian northeast. The ranch his family owns includes the Temoso Serra Nature Reserve, covering 200 hectares in Jussari, in southern Bahia.

Moreira and Berbert are part of a growing movement in Brazil, one of big landowners who are conscious of environmental problems and have taken the step of making some of their lands "untouchable", joining the government-led conservation effort.

They are an essential tool for protecting biodiversity, especially in the Mata Atlantica, where there are 360 private reserves totalling 83,000 hectares, Marcia Hirota, project director for the non-governmental foundation SOS Mata Atlantica, told Tierramérica.

In 1500, the Mata had an estimated 1.3 million square km of forests, of which just 7.8 percent remain intact today. The only area in the world suffering greater deforestation is Madagascar, where the forests of practically disappeared, said Wigold Schaffer, coordinator of the Brazilian Ministry of Environment’s Mata Atlantica office.

The destruction of the Mata continues – at a pace averaging 90,000 to 100,000 hectares a year, says Hirota.

The remaining forested area is very fragmented, and half is in private hands. That is why the RPPN play "a decisive role" in the recovery of the Mata, said Schaffer.

Only three percent of what remains of this unique biome is under state or private protection – ideally it should be 10 percent, he added.

The U.S.-based environmental group Conservation International includes the Mata Atlantica on a list of the world’s 25 biomes that are richest in biodiversity and also most endangered. The Mata is among the top five.

These forests extend through 17 of Brazil’s 26 states, from the northeast to the far southern regions of the country, along the coast, and reaching inland at various points.

These ecosystems are home to more than 20,000 plant species and 1.6 million animal species, including hundreds of mammals, birds and amphibians that are endemic, meaning they are found nowhere else. Half of the flora is autochthonous as well.

The Mata Atlantica’s biodiversity is proportionately much greater than the Amazon’s.

Conserving and expanding these forests means, among other things, protecting water resources and stabilising the climate. The deforestation that has occurred in watershed areas is one of the causes of water shortages suffered by the mega-city Sao Paulo.

It is also essential to save and restore nearly extinct forest ecosystems like those of the south, where the majestic Araucaria tree is among the standout species. In the state of Paraná, just 0.8 percent of the original forests remain, threatening species deprived of habitat, such as the grey-breasted jay (Aphelocoma ultramarina), said Schaffer.

To promote the creation of new private reserves and to consolidate the existing protected areas, the SOS Mata Atlantica and the Brazilian office of Conservation International have been involved in an alliance since 2002 to finance related projects.

The process is under way to select a third annual group of beneficiaries, with some 130,000 dollars to be distributed among the landowners who offer to set aside their lands as protected areas.

Agronomist Berbert, one of the first to receive this type of financing, developed an environmental training and education centre on his rural estate, which has conducted courses for forest rangers and about RPPN management. In this way he has been able to financially maintain the reserve he set up in 1997, representing 40 percent of his property.

Moreira chose to seek income through production of honey and "cachaça", a strong liquor made from sugarcane, and typical to Brazil. And, like others who run private reserves, she hopes to attract ecotourists.

The private reserves have some advantages over the state-run protected areas. They are more "agile", they have a broader diversity of activities, sometimes the protect ecosystems unique to the property, and can overcome their size limits by joining neighbouring areas, says Reuben Brandao, coordinator of conservation at the environment ministry’s executive agency, the Brazilian Institute of Environment (IBAMA).

(* Mario Osava is an IPS correspondent. Originally published May 15 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)