A rainforest has been created metre by metre Impressions from the reforested rain forest Initial setbacks and new reforestation methods Salgados plan succession for Instituto Terra As evening descends, so does the urgently anticipated rain. The wind drives the water forwards at a slanted angle, with thick raindrops beating down onto the dried-out ground and trees shaking with every gust. In the glow of the sheet lightning, the tropical thunderstorm feels like a silver curtain that has pulled itself in front of the panorama of palm trees, shrubs and flat houses. The rain pelts the roofs with such force that those inside have to raise their voices in order to be heard. While the brownish floods dart from the slopes onto the pathways and into the water lily pond, a phone tree informs all the men to be present and correct first thing in the morning, even though the weekend has just begun. They now have a good chance to make up for lost time. From a slope at the edge of the now 700-hectare ranch, the Salgados savour a view over the part of the Mata Atlântica that they have reforested. It was during this time in the late 1990s that the idea for the Instituto Terra and the regional reforestation programme arose. The transformation of this tormented strip of land into a tropical paradise was also intended to cure Sebastião Salgado, allowing him to soon get underway with his major photographic project, Genesis. This would examine the beauty of some of the most untouched corners of Planet Earth. The people in this area of Minas Gerais state were initially sceptical about whether such a project could succeed. Whether the famous, globetrotting photographer had not only lost touch with his homeland, but had also had his head filled with the sort of ideas commonly held by city-dwellers and Europeans. Even Salgado’s father, who had started to build up the largest ranch in the area in the 1930s, had doubts about his son and daughter-in-law’s ideas. In the meantime, the workers in the institute’s nursery reduced the amount of water per day, as well as the number of days they water the plants, before taking them out of the seed tray and into the wild. This means the young trees become strong enough to take root and survive even through years with little rainfall. Today, nine in ten saplings survive the critical first years. These are mostly planted between December and April. In view of these successes, KfW was also prepared to support the project over the next four years with 13.1 million euros in German Federal Government funds. “Salgado may have become famous for his black and white photos,” says Karim ould Chih, who supervises the programme for KfW Development Bank, “but in this case, he and Lélia are bringing colour back to nature.” João Honoratio Mugia is one of these farmers. Mugia, 55, began planting trees on the hillside above his house almost nine years ago with the help of the Instituto Terra. Just two years later, he could see that the local spring held more water than before, enough to supply not just the family household, but also to irrigate 1,000 coffee plants – and, in turn, increase his income. So far, the Salgados have ploughed two to three million dollars of their own money into the project. They don’t know the exact figure. It costs 600,000 dollars per year just to cover the costs of maintaining the buildings and paths, paying the salaries of the 50 to 60 employees, and supporting the 20 students. Each of these students is given accommodation and taught here free of charge for a year, enabling them to train as technicians and master the arts of growing and planting. “I’m confident that we’ll succeed,” says Sebastião, who is also planning various appearances in Germany to find major donors. “More and more people are realising how important this type of long-term work is.” Salgado may be the most successful and famous photographer in the world right now. Millions visit his exhibitions, and thousands buy his books. The only thing on his mind? “The most important project of my life is the Instituto Terra.” Published on KfW Stories on 27 October 2021, updated on 5 March 2025.. All United Nations member states adopted the 2030 Agenda in 2015. At its heart is a list of 17 goals for sustainable development, known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our world should become a place where people are able to live in peace with each other in ways that are ecologically compatible, socially just, and economically effective. On our website, pictures taken, among others, by the following photographers/photo agencies are used: When Photojournalist Sebastião Salgado left his hometown in Brazil to cover Rwanda’s horrific genocide, he had no idea that he would land back at home to a different type of devastation. While Salgado was away, acres and acres of the lush forests he grew up with were cleared in a massive deforestation effort. Salgado told the Guardian: "The land was as sick as I was. Only about 0.5% of the land was covered in trees."  His wife, Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado, refused to accept the horrible reality that the land would be destroyed forever and proposed to Sebastião that they reforest the cleared pasture. The couple purchased an abandoned cattle ranch near the town of Aimorés, Minas Gerais from Sebastião’s parents, and quickly got to work. The goal of the project was to restore the land to its native subtropical rainforest. By April of 1988, the couple had built a network of volunteers and partners and had founded Instituto Terra, an organization that would focus on revitalizing the land. Since then, the organization has planted over 2.7 million trees, covering 1,502 acres of forest in 293 different tree species. As a result of the reforestation effort, 172 different species of birds have returned, 33 different mammals, 15 species of reptiles, and 15 different amphibians. For Sebastião, reforesting the land is many things. It is a way to mitigate climate change, and it is also a spiritual return to our roots in the natural world. “Nature is the earth,” he says. “And it is other beings, and if we don’t have some kind of spiritual return to our planet, I fear that we will be compromised.” Today, the organization works in numerous ways to heal the Brazilian landscape: it trains ecologists in agricultural, environmental, and forestry programming, produces important research papers, raises millions of plant seedlings in a flourishing nursery, and much more. It is incredible to believe that all this began with an ambitious dream to replant an obliterated forest and one couple’s astonishing dedication to bringing the land back to life. Thank you for signing up.Expect to hear from us very soon. We don’t flood you with panic-inducing headlines or race to be first We focus on being useful to you — breaking down the news in ways that inform We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today Large tree-planting initiatives often fail — and some have even fueled deforestation by Benji Jones “By planting millions of young trees, the nation is working to foster a new, lush green Turkey,” Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said when he kicked off the project in Ankara Less than three months later, up to 90 percent of the saplings were dead The trees were planted at the wrong time and there wasn’t enough rainfall to support the saplings the head of the country’s agriculture and forestry trade union told the paper They suck up carbon emissions naturally while providing resources for wildlife and humans — and they’re even nice to look at There’s just one problem: These campaigns often don’t work and sometimes they can even fuel deforestation Vox’s German Lopez is here to guide you through the Biden administration’s burst of policymaking. Sign up to receive our newsletter each Friday In one recent study in the journal Nature researchers examined long-term restoration efforts in northern India a country that has invested huge amounts of money into planting over the last 50 years The authors found “no evidence” that planting offered substantial climate benefits or supported the livelihoods of local communities The study is among the most comprehensive analyses of restoration projects to date but it’s just one example in a litany of failed campaigns that call into question the value of big tree-planting initiatives the allure of bold targets obscures the challenges involved in seeing them through and the underlying forces that destroy ecosystems in the first place Instead of focusing on planting huge numbers of trees we should focus on growing trees for the long haul protecting and restoring ecosystems beyond just forests and empowering the local communities that are best positioned to care for them In the past three decades, the number of tree-planting organizations has skyrocketed, growing nearly threefold in the tropics alone. So have global drives: Today, there are no fewer than three campaigns focused on planting 1 trillion trees, including the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) One Trillion Trees Initiative While many scientists criticized the paper the idea behind it — that we can plant our way out of climate change while simultaneously solving other problems like biodiversity loss — has stuck around It’s a charming notion that’s much easier for companies or countries to act on compared with doing the hard work of slashing greenhouse emissions Tree-planting campaigns are typically well-intentioned, but they often fall short of delivering the benefits they promise, from capturing carbon to providing refuge for rare species. “Large-scale tree planting programs have high failure rates,” the authors of one paper led by environmental researcher Forrest Fleischman One of the most stunning examples of these failures comes from Fleischman’s research in northern India If there’s a place where tree-planting projects might work it’s in the state of Himachal Pradesh an associate professor at the University of Minnesota who led the recent Nature study The state government has a strong track record of delivering services to the public and has been planting trees since at least 1980 An analysis of satellite imagery and interviews with hundreds of households, however, revealed that decades of planting by the government — amounting to hundreds of millions of seedlings — “had almost no impact on forest canopy cover,” Fleischman wrote on Twitter The researchers also measured a shift in the type of trees within the ecosystem away from species that locals prefer for firewood and animal fodder residents of Himachal Pradesh actually had fewer useful forest resources Some of the trees may have died quickly because they were planted in poor-quality habitat Farm animals could have also destroyed the saplings if they were planted in former grazing lands “Well-resourced forest restoration programs can fail to achieve their goals,” he added “We need to be more skeptical of big claims.” tree-planting projects didn’t just fail but also harmed existing ecosystems or ways of life suggests that it caused almost 73,000 hectares of forest loss in 2019 Researchers have also blamed large tree-planting efforts in China and Brazil for degrading grassland ecosystems. As I’ve previously reported grasslands store vast amounts of carbon — most of which is below ground — and provide homes for countless species Yet these ecosystems are sometimes considered degraded and are targeted for forest restoration campaigns “We need to be looking at all of our ecosystems and not just put trees everywhere,” said Karen Holl a professor of environmental studies and restoration expert at the University of California Santa Cruz Solving a problem as vast as climate change or biodiversity loss is never as straightforward as planting lots of trees “We’ll just plant trees and call that a restoration project and we’ll exonerate our carbon sins,” said Robin Chazdon a forest researcher at the University of the Sunshine Coast Buzzy tree-planting programs tend to obscure the fact that restoration requires a long-term commitment of resources and many years of monitoring. “We should just stop thinking about only tree-planting,” as climate scientist Lalisa Duguma has said “It has to be tree-growing.” Even fast-growing trees take at least three years to mature while others can require eight years or more “If our thinking of growing trees is downgraded to planting trees we miss that big part of the investment that is required,” Duguma said who has been involved in reviewing projects under the World Economic Forum’s trillion trees program said she was “shocked” that many proposals called for two years or less of monitoring “That’s not how long it takes for us to get the carbon or the biodiversity benefits that we want,” she said (Companies with planting projects under the WEF program must report on progress each year for the duration of their projects Those reports typically include information on the projects’ social and ecological benefits “The people who need nature are going to vote for nature” —Forrest Fleischman A bigger problem still is that many large planting campaigns don’t account for the underlying social or economic conditions that fuel deforestation in the first place People may cut down trees to collect firewood or carve out land for their animals putting seedlings in the ground won’t do much to end deforestation “Planting trees might not be the intervention,” Fleischman said “The intervention might be giving people a substitute for firewood.” “The simplistic assumption that tree planting can immediately compensate for clearing intact forest is not uncommon,” they wrote the only true global solution to restoring ecosystems is to support Indigenous and rural communities “Let’s look at places and think about how we can improve people’s lives,” he said “The people who need nature are going to vote for nature.” there are plenty of successful restoration programs — and they’re getting better who’s also an adviser for the WEF trillion trees campaign “There is ample evidence that when restoration is done properly Consider the Pontal do Paranapanema, a region in southern Brazil home to vulnerable species like the rare black lion tamarin monkey. Over the last 35 years, a nonprofit called Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas has worked with local communities to plant some 2.7 million native trees, as Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough reports The trees provide useful products that locals want such as fruit to eat and wood for building and a new revenue stream from selling seedlings the new trees create a network of forest corridors that has helped populations of the tamarin recover At the center of successful tree-planting campaigns like this are people, said Chazdon, who is compiling examples of effective restoration projects for a new mapping platform called Restor an author of the controversial 2019 study in Science which helped fuel the forest restoration frenzy “I hate that people keep asking me: where are you going to plant these trillion trees I’ve never in my life said we should plant a trillion trees.” Crowther and his co-authors even revised the abstract of the Science paper to clarify their claim that tree restoration is “one of” the most effective solutions to fight climate change — not the most important one Understand the world with a daily explainer plus the most compelling stories of the day, compiled by news editor Sean Collins. The aggressive push to privatize public lands, explained. A federal program killed nearly 2 million wild animals last year. The reason might surprise you. California researchers grapple with losing a landscape they love in real time. The government says it’s for the animals’ own good. Trump says he’s pro-America. Will his administration protect its most iconic butterfly? The bizarre link between your anti-anxiety drugs and salmon. Pedro Brancalion receives funding from The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and Fundação de Estudos Agrários "Luiz de Queiroz" View all partners they need to be planted correctly – which often is not the case Moreover, planting trees in the wrong place can have unintended consequences. For example, planting trees into native grasslands, such as North American prairies or African savannas, can damage these valuable ecosystems Planting fast-growing, nonnative trees in arid areas may also reduce water supplies. And some top-down tree-planting programs implemented by international organizations or national governments displace farmers and lead them to clear forests elsewhere any carbon they have taken up returns to the atmosphere To achieve benefits from tree-planting, the trees need to grow for a decade or more. Unfortunately, evidence suggests that reforested areas are often recleared within a decade or two We recommend that tree-growing efforts set targets for the area of forest restored after 10 rather than focusing on numbers of seedlings planted And it may not even be necessary to actively plant trees. For example, much of the eastern U.S. was logged in the 18th and 19th centuries where nature has been left to take its course large areas of forests have regrown without people’s planting trees It would be an enormous waste to squander this unique opportunity Here are key guidelines that we and others have proposed to improve the outcomes of tree-planting campaigns rather than decades into the future after trees mature Start with careful planning Which species are most likely to grow well given local site conditions Which species will best achieve the project’s goals And who will take care of the trees after they are planted It is important to plant in areas where trees have grown historically, and to consider whether future climatic conditions are likely to support trees. Planting in areas that are less productive for agriculture reduces the risk that the land will be recleared or existing forests will be cut down to compensate for lost productive areas Most tree seedlings need care to survive and grow This may include multiyear commitments to water weed and protect them from grazing or fire and monitor whether the venture achieves its goals We recently published a list of questions that all tree-growing organizations should answer and that funders should ask before pulling out their wallets They include questions about whether the initial drivers of deforestation have been addressed how the project will be maintained and monitored over time and how local stakeholders will be involved and benefit from the project It’s also important to look at the outcomes of prior tree-growing projects overseen by the organization Organizations that follow best practices are much more likely to grow trees successfully over the long term This is an update of an article originally published on April 27 Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article Brazil) is a Brazilian photojournalist whose work powerfully expresses the suffering of the homeless and downtrodden he took his first photographs and soon decided to teach himself the craft He became a freelance photojournalist in 1973 which included a remarkable group of photographs of mud-covered workers at the Serra Pelada gold mine in Brazil Other publications included Kuwait: A Desert on Fire (2016) that practices sustainable mining in the countries where we are present We exist to improve life and transform the future We extract ore and transport it through a a complete logistics chain we prioritize the safety of people and the environment Click on the states below to learn more about our performance in each location We value individual talent and seek to be more diverse and inclusive acting with respect and practicing open dialogue we receive a new 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areas of expertise the BioParque Vale Amazônia is a reference in the work of protecting species and promoting knowledge Brazil – Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado Júnior (born February 8 1944) is a Brazilian social documentary photographer and photojournalist who has spent the last 20 years planting trees and recreating a lost forest earning a master’s degree in economics from the University of São Paulo in Brazil He began work as an economist for the International Coffee Organization often travelling to Africa on missions for the World Bank when he first started seriously taking photographs He chose to abandon a career as an economist and switched to photography in 1973 working initially on news assignments before veering more towards documentary-type work Salgado initially worked with the photo agency Sygma and the Paris-based Gamma he joined the international cooperative of photographers Magnum Photos He left Magnum in 1994 and with his wife Lélia Wanick Salgado formed his own agency He is particularly noted for his social documentary photography of workers in less developed nations But it’s his crucial environmental work that is getting all the attention in 2019 Lélia and Sebastião have worked since the 1990s on the restoration of a small part of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil Confronting environmental devastation in and around a former cattle ranch bought from Sebastião Salgado’s family near the town of Aimorés they decided to return the property to its natural state of subtropical rainforest an environmental organisation dedicated to the sustainable development of the Valley of the River Doce the couple’s dream has already borne much fruit which has now been declared a Private Natural Heritage Reserve (PNHR) some 17,000 acres of deforested and badly eroded land in a broad stretch of the Valley of the River Doce have undergone a remarkable metamorphosis More than four million seedlings of the multiple species native to Brazil’s Atlantic Forest have been raised in the institute’s own nursery Those plants are now reforesting what was long known as the Salgado family’s Fazenda Bulcão and are also contributing to similar environmental restoration programs in surrounding areas “Once in a state of advanced natural degradation this former cattle ranch has been transformed into a fertile woodland alive with flora and fauna which for millenniums had made the Atlantic Forest one of the world’s most important repositories of natural species water again flows from natural springs and Brazilian animal species at risk of extinction have again found a safe refuge.” where the first planting took place in December 1999 the Instituto Terra is nearing completion of recovery of a single uninterrupted section of the Atlantic Forest This is an unprecedented achievement in the modern world Brent Lindeque is the founder and editor in charge at Good Things Guy Recognised as one of the Mail and Guardian’s Top 200 Young South African’s as well as a Primedia LeadSA Hero 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Be sure you have your GPS enabled and try again A couple of people can literally make a whole forest of a difference That’s what renowned Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado and his wife Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado have proven they planted 2.7 million trees over the span of two decades completely restoring an entire forest that had been wiped out by deforestation It all began back in 1994 when Sebastião Salgado took over family land in the state of Minas Gerais after finishing a traumatizing assignment reporting on the genocide in Rwanda he found all the trees cut down and the wildlife gone rather than the tropical paradise that he remembered as a child Then his wife came up with the brilliant idea of replanting the forest “The land was as sick as I was – everything was destroyed Only about 0.5% of the land was covered in trees Then my wife had a fabulous idea to replant this forest then all the insects and birds and fish returned and was reborn – this was the most important moment.” To make their dream come true, Salgado and his family recruited partners, raised funds and, in April 1998, they founded the Instituto Terra they have completely transformed the environment back into its original condition In addition to providing Salgado with creative inspiration, the process has provided him with one of the answers to climate change There is a single being which can transform CO2 to oxygen and you need to gather the seeds in the same region you plant them or the serpents and the termites won’t come And if you plant forests that don’t belong the animals don’t come there and the forest is silent We need to listen to the words of the people on the land Nature is the earth and it is other beings and if we don’t have some kind of spiritual return to our planet The Instituto Terra committed itself to the recovery of the 1,502 acres of forest in the Bulcão Farm in Aimorés They renamed the farmland the Private Natural Heritage Reserve (PNHR) The first mass planting was carried out in December 1999 it became an annual occurrence with the support of important associates thus recreating a forest of arboreal and shrub species native to the Atlantic Forest Among the many benefits, achievements, and positive effects that came from the reforestation include: The Salgados’ aim was to have the Instituto Terra serve as a beacon to awaken environmental awareness of the need to restore and conserve forest land They recognized that education and research as key components of this strategy so in February 2002 they created the Center for Environmental Education and Restoration (CERA) shining a fresh light on existing models of development The ultimate aim is to engage new participants in the battle to achieve sustainable development The center was such a success that by December 2012 over 700 educational projects had been developed embracing 65,000 people in more than 170 municipalities of the Valley of the River Doce covering both the states of Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais Some projects have even reached as far as the states of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro The Instituto Terra is nearing completion of recovery with just 10% of the PNHR remains to be restored Their mission continues with the goal of increasing the numbers of native Atlantic Forest species and genomes in the region beyond their land Log in to leave a comment The content that you are looking for is not available at this address This may be due to an internal fault or an error when typing Try getting in touch with our support service or looking for it using the search function the photography exhibition by Sebastião Salgado (Aimorés 1944) set up at Palazzo Buontalenti.The exhibition is curated by Lélia Wanick Salgado are we not leaving behind a large part of humankind?” There is probably no answer to this question but one can still admire the photos Salgado has taken to tell the story of migration and show us the tragedies and dramas that refugees face but the feelings and reactions of all people are similar We hold the key to humanity’s future These photographs show a portion of our present We cannot afford to look the other way.” "Almost a generation has passed since these photographs were first exhibited Yet in many ways the world they portray has changed little violence and war still force millions of people from their homes each year they end up in refugee camps that soon expand into small towns; in others they are ready to invest all their savings to pursue the dream of a mythical Promised Land Today’s migrants and refugees are undoubtedly the product of new crises but the despair and glimmers of hope we see on their faces are not all that different from those documented in these images Almost everything that happens on Earth is connected in some way We are all affected by the growing gap between rich and poor and fanaticism exploited for political purposes People torn from their homes are only the most visible victims of a global process." For all information you can visit the official website of the Pistoia Musei Foundation from where the majority of boat people left