The restoration of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest is focused on large properties which risks marginalising smallholders.  Imperial-partnered studies exploring the use of agroforestry by smallholder farmers in Pontal do Paranapanema.  Action on trust-building that will lead to long-term interdisciplinary partnerships between smallholders and agroforestry.  Brazil’s Atlantic Forest is one of the most threatened and biodiverse places on earth and its restoration is one of the biggest conservation challenges for the country jointly conducted by Imperial College London explored the employment of agroforestry by smallholder farms in Pontal do Paranapanema Smallholder or family farms are essential to Brazil’s food security while also providing ecological stepping stones for biodiversity their role in Atlantic Forest restoration has been largely overlooked Reader in Environmental Policy and Practice aims to better understand the relationship between agroforestry and the Movimento Sem Terra (MST) – the Rural Landless Workers’ Movement – in this region in southeast Brazil.  Inclusive approaches to agroforestry  forest restoration is focused on large farms and driven by legislative requirements and commercial pressure an approach that runs the risk of marginalising smallholders and excluding them from restoration benefits the study team looked at the interaction between MST farming communities and their engagement with agroforestry for restoration.  Restoration and sustainability strategies  Smallholder farms produce most of the fruit and vegetables consumed in the country there has been a failure to consider the different policy needs of large-scale industrial farming versus smallholder farming communities when designing forest landscape restoration (FLR) strategies Dr Mills said: “To engage smallholders in restoration they will need revised policy mechanisms better aligned to current livelihood needs”.  An interdisciplinary approach for success  The study used quantitative and qualitative data to assess farmers’ perceptions of agroforestry measures barriers to implementation and its impact on wellbeing with the report highlighting the need for tailored policies and financial measures to integrate smallholders into the restoration agenda.   Brazil’s Atlantic Forest provides an ideal backdrop in which to explore interdisciplinary relationships The study data collected from MST farmers in this region can be used to help reach biome restoration targets while supporting rural livelihoods and national food security for millions of smallholders across the country.   December 7, 2021JPEG An astronaut onboard the International Space Station (ISS) took this photograph of the Pontal do Paranapanema region of south-central Brazil the Morro do Diabo State Park of São Paulo preserves about 34,000 hectares (84,000 acres) of a native the Paranapanema River forms the border between São Paulo and Paraná states (Note that north is to the lower left in this ISS view.) In addition to serving as a physical border, the Paranapanema is a tributary to the Paraná River, merging just outside the bottom right of the photo. Over the past three decades, since the completion of the Motta Dam, the Paraná has progressively widened. Construction of the dam resulted in many geomorphological and ecological changes to the river Much of Brazil, including this part of the São Paulo state, has undergone extensive clearing of native vegetation to create space for agriculture This shift toward agriculture began nearly a century ago and led to the lighter hued geometrically shaped pastures and farms visible throughout this area View this area in EO Explorer Human activity and natural beauty merge in south-central Brazil The signs of economic activity around this Brazilian city are easy to see from space displays an array of natural and human-made features the black lion tamarin was declared critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species It was a dire situation: only an estimated 100 were left in the wild gradually became the protagonist of a success story — so much so that it has turned into a symbol of conservation in Brazil’s São Paulo state In 2008, its conservation status was upgraded to “endangered,” the category in which it remains to this day The species has made it through the worst thanks to the Black Lion Tamarin Conservation program founded in 1984 and headed since 2011 by biologist Gabriela Rezende The initiative encompasses scientific research environmental education and forest restoration Rezende is a researcher at the Institute for Ecological Research (known by its Portuguese acronym Ipê) and one of six winners of the Whitley Award in 2020 the biggest environmental conservation award in the world given by the Whitley Fund for Nature in the U.K has been postponed this year due to the novel coronavirus pandemic but the winners will still receive the prize money that comes with the award to use on their projects and resisting within a region of heavy agricultural activity the black lion tamarin has always been most threatened by forest fragmentation which isolates populations and results in their decline This is why conservationists have pursued a strategy of creating forest corridors connecting stretches of the Atlantic Forest in Pontal do Paranapanema The £40,000 ($50,000) Whitley Award will help establish these corridors and a management plan to prevent genetic inbreeding among the tamarins that are isolated in small areas “We’re going to move the animals to forests where they are not currently found,” Rezende says “When we provide more space for this population they tend to reproduce and occupy new areas.” In planning the corridors, Rezende took into account forests that needed restoration based on the Brazilian Forest Code The code requires that 20% of private properties be designated as legal reserves and the re-establishment of permanent preservation areas (PPAs) “We began the restoration and designed the corridors in the landscape so that the fragments would be connected,” Rezende says will connect the black lion tamarin populations in a continuous forest area of about 45,000 hectares (111,000 acres) The so-called North Corridor is already underway and should connect six forest fragments to the north of Morro do Diabo State Park we’ll have connected all the populations of Pontal do Paranapanema,” Rezende says “Once we’re able to allow the animal to use the entire area we would be close to our goal: to once again upgrade the species’ conservation status on the Red List.” The forest restoration process is a long-term strategy “We have registered several species in the restored corridor But we have yet to register the black lion tamarin which has additional demands regarding the structure of the forest before occupying these areas,” Rezende says She estimates it will take five to 10 years to complete the restoration of all the planned corridors the forest will still need another 10 to 20 years to take on a functional structure that serves for the black lion tamarin’s complete use Hence the importance of the animals’ movement according to the management plan which will accelerate the process by allowing them to occupy forest fragments that are currently connected and suitable for use but still empty The Black Lion Tamarin Conservation program began in 1984 with primatologist Claudio Padua who moved to Pontal de Paranapanema years earlier with the objective of researching these animals with the construction of the Rosana hydroelectric dam underway on the Paranapanema River animals were being rescued from the area that was about to be flooded The program gave rise to the Institute for Ecological Research and “Everyone who works with endangered species dreams of seeing the animals with enough areas to form a viable population Padua attributes the program’s success to persistence: “Everything that I’ve seen work so far was because someone persisted until they succeeded.” He says he also considers a greater balance in the relationship between humans and nature essential “Human beings need to understand that they are part of nature It’s a good time for us to be discussing this.” Padua says he sees environmental education as an important ally When he first came to the area to begin his work he used to ask people what good things they had there Most people told him all they had was forest the residents started to say: I’m very proud of what we have here This is our survival and the rest of the biodiversity’s survival,” he says The conservation program also maintains nine tree nurseries administered by the community and managed by Ipê with its local partners: city halls and other institutions The nurseries are located within the black lion tamarin’s conservation area and span the three municipalities of Teodoro Sampaio Mirante do Paranapanema and Euclides da Cunha Paulista Some of the seedlings they produce are used in the new ecological corridors Responsible for establishing a bridge between the research teams and the communities environmental educator Maria das Graças de Souza sees the nurseries as spaces for collective learning: they provide knowledge income generation and conservation awareness “Students from local schools know the species that are forested and those that are part of the diet of the fauna being studied,” she says The restoration of vegetation in degraded areas not only benefits the black lion tamarin, but also big cats and mammals, such as the Brazilian tapir. Recognized for her work to conserve the tapir, Patrícia Medici was honored this year with the Whitley Gold Award the main prize given by the Whitley Fund for Nature Rezende says it’s important to use the role of charismatic species to leverage conservation projects She says she’s motivated to keep fighting for the black lion tamarin “The tamarin is unable to do anything to save its own species are the ones who are destroying their environment,” she says when I got the opportunity to see this animal in the wild I felt partly responsible for its future.”  Banner image of a family of black lion tamarins in the trees of the Pontal do Paranapanema region Image courtesy of the Institute for Ecological Research (Ipê) This story was first reported by Mongabay’s Brazil team and published here on our Brazil site on June 25 The “fortress conservation” model is under pressure in East Africa as protected areas become battlegrounds over history and global efforts to halt biodiversity loss Mongabay’s Special Issue goes beyond the region’s world-renowned safaris to examine how rural communities and governments are reckoning with conservation’s colonial origins and trying to forge a path forward […]  JPEG An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) focused a long camera lens on the Sun’s reflection point while orbiting over southern coastal Brazil. That reflection (known as sunglint) highlights three major rivers: Rio Paraná For scale, the Atlantic Ocean near the port city of Santos is about 600 kilometers (400 miles) from the Paraná River. The sea surface also reflects sunlight, as does the smoke pall across the top of the image. The smoke came from fires that were burning further north in Brazil and Paraguay Such views looking toward the sunglint point show the water bodies in stark detail But the contrast with dark land surfaces causes such a loss of detail that the entire metropolitan area of São Paulo The Rio Tietê flows right through the metro region from headwaters north of São Paulo. This river provides half of the region’s urban water supply All of these rivers are heavily controlled by strings of reservoirs that retain water flow for use by the major cities and to generate hydroelectric power The reservoirs all appear as the brightest Texas State University on the Jacobs Contract at NASA-JSC View this area in EO Explorer Sunlight highlights details around Rio Paraná multi-island zone in the Rio Negro (Black River) shown in this astronaut photograph from September 2 long “archipelagoes” upstream of the city of Manaus (not shown) in central Amazonia Sixty kilometers of the total 120-kilemeter length of this archipelago appear in this image Astronauts learn to sense the way sunlight brings out different features in the water and around coastal cities the mirror-like reflection of sunlight off water makes the Trombetas River and Lake Erepecu in the Brazilian Amazon stand out from the deep green forest the program's biodiversity research has provided a scientific foundation for creating conservation areas and increasing sustainable development in São Paulo considered one of the least polluted in the state of São Paulo when its approximately 1,000 springs and streams became part of the Nascentes do Paranapanema State Park the conservation unit contains and protects the rich flora and fauna of the Atlantic Forest in the municipality of Capão Bonito—230 kilometers distant from the city of São Paulo—where jaguars even the extremely rare bush dog (Speothos venaticus) still roam This March three specimens of the canid were captured by the lenses of a camera trap installed in the region by Fundação Florestal an agency of the Secretariat for Infrastructure and Environment (SIMA) of the state of São Paulo A year prior to establishing the reserve in Capão Bonito four conservation units were created in the Serra da Cantareira region: Itaberaba State Park and the Pedra Grande Natural State Monument Léo Ramos Chaves BIOTA studies have estimated that the value of ecosystem services such as pollination provided by bees can be as high as R$65 billion per year in BrazilLéo Ramos Chaves A workshop involving 160 researchers from public and private universities and research institutes in the state of São Paulo was held in November 2006 to meet this demand which resulted in the publication of a book that still has an impact to this day the Fundação Florestal board was led by agronomist Maria Cecília Wey de Brito who had participated in BIOTA’s original conception from 1996 to 1999 “It was her appearance on the committee that catalyzed this process of translating the data into a more useful format for decision makers,” Joly emphasizes who is today a project coordinator at Ekos Brasil Institute the workshop and the publication it generated were important milestones for the sector “Out of this event came the proposition of making viable public policy based on the science produced by BIOTA,” the agronomist observes According to biologist Ricardo Ribeiro Rodrigues from the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture at the University of São Paulo (ESALQ-USP) who is also a member of BIOTA’s pioneer steering committee the book’s production took close to two years and included the development of 27 thematic maps and 3 synthesis maps identified knowledge gaps regarding biodiversity in São Paulo could be converted into conservation units seven conservation units have been created so far,” Rodrigues says The third of the synthesis maps showed the fragments of native vegetation existing on private properties whose characteristics did not justify conversion into Fully Protected Conservation Units This is not to say that these areas were less valuable Protecting and interconnecting these fragments to restore ecological corridors is vital for biodiversity Surveys conducted within the BIOTA framework by researchers from ESALQ and the USP Biosciences Institute (IB) indicate that 78% of the natural vegetation in the state of São Paulo is found on private property Gustavo Muniz Dias / IB-Unicamp Tunicate colonies of Symplegma rubra…Gustavo Muniz Dias / IB-Unicamp Tatiana Menchini Steiner / IB-Unicamp  …and the worm variety Diopatra cuprea marine species identified on the north coast of São PauloTatiana Menchini Steiner / IB-Unicamp  the Araçá Bay project also left a legacy for the academic field: the data on marine fauna in the state of São Paulo that were collected in the study Amaral is working on developing the second volume of the Manual de identificação dos invertebrados marinhos da região Sudeste-Sul do Brasil (Identification manual for marine invertebrates in the Southeastern and Southern regions of Brazil) which will be augmented with material from a variety of research projects she is coordinator of another BIOTA initiative whose goal is to conduct taxonomic refinement work on the Zoology Museum collection at the UNICAMP Institute of Biology and fill in any gaps in the identification of collected species The results will be available on the SpeciesLink collaborative network which was developed by BIOTA and is coordinated by the Reference Center for Environmental Information (CRIA) a Civil Society Organization of Public Interest (OSCIP) (a type of government-registered NGO) created in 2000 a system began being developed to receive and share species-occurrence data for holdings in biological collections throughout the state of São Paulo the SpeciesLink network includes collections not only from São Paulo but from all over the country and abroad,” says Dora Ann Lange Canhos CRIA’s director and one of BIOTA’s founding scientists the network has 1.2 million records on more than 28,000 different species found in São Paulo State “This entire collection is available online to public managers and has been used in various ways such as in the production of threatened species lists and conservation policies,” Canhos observes Solutions in nature “The BIOTA program has an enormous amount of data all of which are freely accessible,” points out biologist Jean Paul Metzger “By synthesizing the data generated in the field and the lab and foster transformative research at the border between science and politics,” says Metzger who is leading a new approach for BIOTA that has the potential to increase the program’s impact in society this nascent line of work aims to collaboratively analyze the available data on a specific subject and use the resulting set of multidisciplinary data in the search for solutions to socio-environmental problems The research carried out within its scope must meet SIMA requirements as well as those of the state’s Department of Agriculture and Supply BIOTA Synthesis is divided into five thematic groups: pollination and agricultural productivity; forest-based economy and restoration; water security in the face of climate change; regulation of zoonotic diseases; and disease prevention in urban areas “It’s important to make it clear that initiatives like the synthesis center aren’t going to replace our data collection and biodiversity characterization projects They’re just going to add a new type of activity,” Joly emphasizes © Revista Pesquisa FAPESP - All rights reserved.