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Big Landowners Come to the Aid of Atlantic Forests |
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By Mario Osava*
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.
RIO DE JANEIRO - The Mata Atlantica is "a bank of life", according to Daise Moreira Paulo, a retired chemist who is fighting to "preserve and expand" these Brazilian forests. She has set aside 28 of the 48 hectares of a ranch she owns in the area for conservation.
The land belonging to Moreira, president of an association of private nature reserve owners, RPPN, in Rio de Janeiro state, form part of the Mata Atlantica, a patchwork of forests and related ecosystems along the Brazilian coast which have suffered even greater environmental devastation than the Amazon (see infograph).
The destruction of the Mata's forests and their biodiversity has directly affected the lives of the 120 million Brazilians living in neighboring 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 northeast. The ranch his family owns includes the Temoso Sierra 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.
There are more than 600 RPPN in Brazil, covering some 500,000 hectares. They are an essential tool for protecting biodiversity, especially in the Mata Atlantica, where there are 360 private reserves totaling 83,000 hectares, Marcia Hirota, project director for the non-governmental foundation SOS Mata Atlantica.
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, according to 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 NGO 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 one of the top five.
The Mata extends 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. It is home to more than 20,000 plant species and 1.6 million animal species, including hundreds of mammals, birds and amphibians that are endemic. Half of the flora is autochthonous as well. Its biodiversity is proportionately much greater than the Amazon's.
Conserving and expanding the Mata forests means, among other things, protecting water resources and stabilizing 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 stands out. In the state of Paraná, just 0.8 percent of the original forests remain, threatening species deprived of habitat, such as the gray-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 them.
Agronomist Berbert, one of the first to receive this type of financing, developed an environmental training and education center on his rural estate, which has conducted courses for forest rangers and on RPPN management. In this way he has been able to 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 of 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 neighboring 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
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