Our collaboration with Brazilian NGO Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas (IPÊ) carries out forest restoration in the Pontal do Paranapanema region, reconnecting forest fragments through the restoration of wildlife corridors.
The project is on track, with the restoration of 138 ha, representing around 282 700 trees, concluding in February 2023. Another 38.5 ha area under restoration in Categeró Farm in the East Corridor had been restored by the end of the latest planting season, which ran from August to September 2023.
2023 was the final year of data collection in our research project with Rainforest Connection (RFCx). The results so far are exciting, demonstrating high species richness in our restoration sites!
Another major focus this year was capacity building, with WeForest playing a large role in knowledge exchange and dissemination, aiming to improve technical capacity and project quality. A cross-project field workshop between the Pontal project and our other Atlantic Forest project in Tietê, both part of our Wildlife Corridors Programme, toured the restoration sites and looked at similarities and differences between the project, sharing tips and best practices.
*Final count pending
The 2022-2023 planting season was completed by February 2023, with 138 ha completed in Estrela farm in the North Corridor. When we visited in early 2024, the seedlings were coming up nicely. Maintenance was ongoing to control the exotic grasses, so that the seedlings don’t have to compete for resources when they’re so young. Slide the handle to see how this area looked in August 2023, a few months after planting, and how it looks now.
The restoration areas for the 2023-2024 planting season were defined towards the beginning of 2023. 38.5 hectares of full tree planting at Categeró Farm in the East Corridor, to continue to stretch this area towards the Morro do Diabo State Park, was already completed by September 2023!
Our visit to the restoration sites in early 2024 was a chance to see some tremendous progress with our own eyes. Our sites are now large, continuous areas of growth, with low “edge effect” – the changes in biodiversity and microclimate that occur inside the space surrounding the edge of a fragment. Any gaps caused by mortality are not a problem, since they are dotted across large areas and have little effect on the natural regeneration and succession in the restored areas.
In some of the sites we saw exotic species that have the potential to become invasive, such as Clitoria fairchildiana from the Amazon biome and Cordia africana from Africa. We’ll have to keep an eye on that, as too many invasive and short-lived species can stop native trees from regenerating.
The visit was also a chance to review techniques, maintenance and monitoring. As planting happens outside of the rainy season sometimes, IPÊ are using two types of hydrogels: one applied to the seedlings in the nursery, and one applied in the field during planting. If necessary, they do some “rescue irrigation” during the first days after planting to help the seedlings along. In addition, they harrow before planting when possible, which improves grass control in the beginning of the restoration.
More sustainable seedling production
The community nurseries supported by our project here are paving the way in the sustainable production of native seedlings. The traditional plastic tubes are being replaced by biodegradable paper tubes that don’t harm the environment, known as ‘ecopots’.
As well as the environmental benefits, the pots are kinder to the seedlings. “The roots are able to pass through the biodegradable tube due to the porosity of the paper,” Nivaldo Ribeiro Campos, coordinator of the community nurseries, says. “The new pots keep the roots closer to their natural state and help the development of the seedlings in the field.” In addition, the seedlings are transported to the field without the need to remove the container, as is the case with traditional tubes. This reduces waste, labour and, consequently, costs.
In 2023 IPÊ provided each nursery with an average of 40 production trays and 5000 ecopots to start the transition process. Iraci Lopes Corado, owner of the Viva Verde nursery, found that the Jatobá seed (Hymenaea courbaril) is one of the species that develop very well in the ecopots, and the production of different species of ipês (Handroanthus or Tabebuia spp.) has improved a lot. The rooting of this species made it difficult to remove the seedling from plastic containers, which led to a lot of split or broken pots to discard, or even the death of seedlings sometimes. “With the ecopot, this problem no longer exists because the seedling and pot goes straight into the ground,” she says. She likes them so much that she’s invested her own funds in 460 more trays!
Marcela’s ambition knows no bounds!
We visited Marcela’s nursery again in early 2024. She’s nearly doubled her production capacity from 2023: her nursery is able to produce 700,000 seedlings per year! Some of these seedlings will play a part in IPÊ and partners’ continuing work in the area under the Corridors for Life project.
The third year of acoustic data collection to monitor biodiversity in our Pontal project was completed by the end of 2023. While the final results and analysis will be ready later in 2024, Rainforest Connection (RFCx) have so far identified a total of 187 species across 132 sampling sites in two consecutive years – 174 birds, 9 amphibians, two insects and two monkeys: the endangered black lion tamarin and the black capuchin.
The bare-throated bellbird (Procnias nudicollis), detected in WeForest’s restoration sites in 2022 and listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List.
© Bcmyrtlau
Most excitingly, the average species richness in our restoration sites (24 species) was nearly equal to that of mature forest sites (25 species)! In contrast, agricultural sites had an average of just 15 species.
To listen to the species detected in our Pontal sites, go to the Arbimon Insights platform at https://arbimon.org/p/weforest-wildlife-corridors/insights (go to the “Spotlight” tab and select a species from the scroll list).
Our project here is linking forest fragments to the second largest Protected Area in the Interior Atlantic Forest – the Morro do Diabo State Park – and that’s where the largest animals are to be found. Our camera traps within the park have spotted anteaters, pumas and even jaguars this year!
In June 2023 a field workshop brought together the teams and stakeholders from Pontal and our nearby Tietê Forests project, which we’re running with partner AES Brasil. The aim was to exchange experiences and good practices, and both sides presented their project highlights. The Tietê team was impressed with the size of the restoration sites in Pontal, while the Pontal team was impressed with the complexity of the implementation and maintenance in the Tietê project.
June’s workshop was also a great chance to compare and contrast our two Atlantic Forests projects: they may be just 300 miles apart, but they’re very different! The main similarity is that many of the same species are planted in both projects since they’re located within the same biome. The table below contrasts some of the other aspects of the two projects.
Pontal | Tietê |
|---|---|
Large continuous areas being restored | Small, spread out sites being restored along water courses |
Large forest fragments of forest in the landscape | Highly fragmented and small-sized forest fragments in the landscape |
Long-term presence (IPÊ in Pontal for over 30 years) | Ceiba and AES are private companies with limited time in the region |
Semi-mechanized planting using “matracas” | Mechanized land preparation, manual planting due to size of seedlings |
Hydrogel for irrigation and planting | Hydrogel planting |
No planting fertilization | Planting fertilization |
Planting throughout the year, with support from irrigation | Planting only during the rainy season |
No use of green manure | Use of green manure |
Spacing 2.5 x 2 m | Different planting designs aiming to optimize vegetation development and maintenance activities, resulting in a reduced herbicide approach |
No fertilization post-planting | Fertilization post-planting (once a year for 2 years) |
Community nurseries (on average 400,000 seedlings per nursery per year) | One nursery with complex infrastructure and over 1 million seedlings/year |
Difficult to standardize seedling quality | More technical and standardized production
|
Nursery best practices based on continuous development
| Nursery best practices based on scientific evidence
|
With knowledge exchange workshops like this, WeForest is working towards a much broader goal: to improve technical capacity and project quality to benefit all our restoration activities across the world.
Our planned ten-year collaboration IPÊ is now in its 10th year!
In the 2024-2025 planting season which will begin in August, 8 ha will be planted to bring the project to its overall target of 1313 ha.
The most important activity this year will be to run a thorough evaluation of the project and to start to monitor our sites now and in the future. IPÊ has put together two field teams to work exclusively on the maintenance of all the sites, including grass control and any replanting that is needed.
The nurseries are increasing the size of the paper pots to improve seedlings development even further.
Every hectare under restoration is mapped with GPS points to generate polygons (areas on a map) that are assigned to sponsors. Permanent monitoring plots are established in our sites and our forestry and science teams conduct surveys to monitor progress of biomass growth, tree density, survival rate and species diversity, among other indicators. Where social impacts are also critical, we measure socio-economic indicators such as the number of individuals or families directly benefiting, people trained, and income generated from forest-friendly livelihood activities.
Please visit our What We Do web page for more information.
Thank you for supporting the Pontal project!
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Incorporated May 26th 2010
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