Protecting forests and engaging farmers and ranchers in REDD+ through sustainable commodity supply in Brazil

Alianca da Terra worked with three main target groups to reach this outcome, and some of their achievements are described below.

Why did Norway decide to support this project?

With a 67% decline of deforestation, Brazil demonstrated that it was possible to balance economic growth and forest protection. However, increased demand for agricultural products from Brazil challenges this success. More than 25% of the legal Amazon is in private hands and this land is key in both the deforestation and potential protection of the forest thereon as well as buffering the protected areas it surrounds. Alianca da Terra’s project was seeking to help farmers, ranchers and indigenous communities improve their land management, thus reducing the vulnerability of forest to deforestation and forest degradation. For that reason, Norway decided to support the project.

Results

Alianca da Terra worked with three main target groups in this project. Norad observes that there has been more progress in the work with private landowners and indigenous communities than with the agrarian reform settlement families.

Private landowners in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado have engaged in frontier governance. This includes firefighting, improved forest management and other ecosystem services development on properties. During the project period, farmers’ financial investments in conservation activities has increased from Reais 9, 5 million in 2012 to Reais 15 million in 2015. The number of forest hectares that is now under better management has increased with 582.367 ha in 2015 from 2.813.595 ha in 2012.

Alianca da Terra also participated in The Rio Sustainable Food Initiative which was an alliance between civil society organizations, government and research institutions, under the coordination of Conservation International (CI-Brasil) and WWF-Brasil. The purpose of the initiative was to support the Rio 2016 Committee to find viable healthy and sustainable food supplies for the 2016 Olympic Games.       

However, when the Rio 2016 Committee decided on which food suppliers were to provide food, price was chosen over sustainability. Because of that there was almost no consumption of traceable sustainable products during the games.

Alianca da Terra has assisted Indigenous Communities in increasing the forested area in recovery or increased protection from zero hectares in the project area in 2012 to 92,085 ha in 2015 (at Maraiwatsede Indigenous Reserve). In addition, Alianca da Terra has trained indigenous peoples’ representatives in fire prevention and management activities. The indigenous people living in the forest are often the first ones to detect a fire, and therefore an effective voluntary fire fighting force reduces vulnerability of remaining forests. 150 indigenous people were trained, and 100 fire combats or 1294 hours were spent firefighting throughout the project period.

Agrarian reform settlement families: Aliança da Terra developed a Registry of Social-Environmental Responsibility (RSR) to support producers in the social and environmental management of their lands. The number of new families registering in the RSR platform has not increased significantly for several reasons. First, there is a lack of knowledge on certifications. Second, there is a large number of environmental liabilities in properties hampers adoption of certifications due to the high cost to perform adjustments, which implies the reduction of profitability and, consequently, the lack of interest of producers to adhere. Third, most rural producers do not have the means to invest in the correction of environmental problems within the stipulated time given by certification agents. Fourth, there is no assurance that a premium will be paid to producers, which could impact in the recovery of the investments done to reach certification standards.

As a poverty reduction measure, Alianca da Terra has also contributed to producing cattle herds of high-quality animals for inclusion in clean supply chain. AdT achieved 6.732 artificial inseminations during the three-year project. The calves born with improved genetics had 80% average increase in their sales price, from USD250 to USD450* per unit.