IDESAM – recently named one of the top 100 NGOs in Brazil, and one of only three in the sustainability/environment category – has been working with agroforestry coffee systems in the municipality of Apuí, in the southern Amazonas State, since 2012. So far more than 50 local families are engaged with the production and commercialization of agroforestry coffee, and 50 hectares of degraded and unproductive land has been recovered through regenerative agroecology techniques.

With the new WeForest partnership, 175 hectares of agroforestry systems will be implemented in Apuí in the next five years, benefiting more than 150 families. The aim of the project is to reverse deforestation by engaging farmers and developing a new sustainable rural production model for the region, the second most deforested municipality in the Amazonas State.

It does this by promoting forest-based production systems based on the intercropping of native trees in coffee plantations as a way to regenerate soil fertility, increase coffee production and reforest the land. This improves landowner income, as well as increasing forest cover. It also reduces deforestation in the wider landscape and GHG emissions in this critical municipality.

Find out more here.

11/02/21: This project was the subject of an article on Mongabay.