<
https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/from-humble-roots-a-restoration-plan-in-brazil-aims-for-1-5m-hectares-of-forest/>
"We set out from the town of Extrema, in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, in a
four-wheel-drive vehicle at 9 a.m. on a Monday. Driving beneath a mountainous
vista and blue skies, Benedito Arlindo Cortez, our host, stops to chat with
everyone we meet; he pulls the car over to talk to someone, then puts it in
reverse to talk to someone else. Both are landowners who have joined the
Conservador das Águas project.
“All the forest you see on the tops of the hills was planted by us,” Cortez
says, pointing to the green top of a mountain. “We had only 5% of forest
coverage in this sub-basin. Today, we have over 30%.”
Cortez is coordinator of the Conservador das Águas (Water Conservation)
project, which works to protect the Ribeirão das Posses River, a tributary of
the Jaguari. The latter is the largest waterway feeding the five reservoirs of
the Cantareira system that supplies water for up to 9 million people in the
city of São Paulo and more than 3 million in Campinas.
The project began in Extrema in 2005 to protect the water supply for the town’s
35,000 inhabitants. Nestled in the Mantiqueira Mountains, a part of the
Atlantic Forest biome that rises to nearly 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) in
altitude, this region is the source of much of the water that supplies the
urban centers of southeastern Brazil.
The project involves restoring native vegetation on rural properties,
especially in those parts of the properties that landowners are legally
required to preserve — near springs, along riverbanks, and on hilltops.
Conservador das Águas also encourages sustainable agriculture and the promotion
of good sanitation practices.
To date, the project has planted 2 million native trees. It has expanded to
neighboring municipalities, and in 2016 led to creation of the Plano
Conservador da Mantiqueira (Mantiqueira Conservation Plan), which aims to
reforest 1.5 million hectares by 2030 — an area 10 times the size of the city
of São Paulo.
The plan encompasses 425 municipalities comprising 14.4 million hectares (35.6
million acres) in the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais.
These municipalities are located in the river basins that overlap with the
Mantiqueira Mountains, such as the Grande, Paraíba do Sul, Tietê, Piracicaba
and Rio Mogi-Pardo, or that originate in them, such as the São Francisco and
the Doce."
Via
Future Crunch Jun 1, 2022:
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-ebola-electric-trucks-super-reserve/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
