Reforestation in Brazil

Photo credit: Mongabay

Remnant Brazil nut tree in a landscape cleared for soy fields. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.

 

Reforestation contributed more than $5 billion to Brazil’s economy

by Mike Gaworecki

• Planting new trees and restoring deforested land contributed nearly four-fifths of that windfall, some R$16.1 billion ($4.27 billion).
• Sustainably produced forest products contributed another R$4.6 billion ($1.2 billion).
• Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff has committed to restoring 12 million hectares (nearly 30 million acres) of forest by 2030.

Brazil’s Statistics Bureau, known as IBGE, says that reforestation and sustainable forest management provided the country with R$20.8 billion (about $5.5 billion) in revenue last year, according to The Rio Times.

An IBGE study found that planting new trees and restoring deforested land contributed nearly four-fifths of that windfall, some R$16.1 billion ($4.27 billion). Sustainably produced forest products contributed another R$4.6 billion ($1.2 billion).

The regions where reforestation projects were most prevalent are the Amazonian states of Rondônia and Pará, in the north and northeast of Brazil, The Rio Times reported.

Brazil has reduced deforestation drastically over the past decade, thanks in part to $1 billion in funds provided by Norway to Brazil’s Amazon Fund. The amount of Amazon rainforest lost in 2014 was 75 percent below the 1996-2005 baseline, for instance, though there are signs that deforestation rates have started to climb again.

Research has shown that reduced rates of deforestation in Brazil might save as many as1,700 lives every year.

Read the full article: Mongabay