“Now I have my land, a document with my name, I feel happy.”– Valdemir Cordeiro Da Costa
Our Amazon Rosewood Conservation Project protects roughly 180,000 hectares of native forests in Brazil and keeps close to 550,000 tonnes of CO2 from entering our atmosphere, so it’s no secret that it’s good for the planet. You can’t deny its global impact, but another important aspect of this project is what it brings to local communities.
Thanks to funding from donations like yours, locals were able to establish additional security patrols to protect the forests from illegal loggers and poachers, protecting land that brings new sources of income to community members. This is especially important because of severe poverty — the local population doesn’t just live on this land, they depend on it for their survival.
Each villager is allotted 1 Tarefa (or, one quarter of a hectare) that is then theirs to either sustainably farm or raise livestock on. Deforestation used to be the only way to make an income here, but that devastating line of work has now been replaced with a booming açaí berry farming industry — nearly 66% of profit from the forests now comes from sustainable açaí farms, (followed closely by Brazil nuts). Next up on the menu? Villagers have already been experimenting with sustainable black pepper farms, and have started testing out the potential of specialized honey and tree oils.
Preventing deforestation, reducing carbon emissions, and providing stable livelihoods in communities where it is most needed — none of these would have been possible without the support and donations to the sale of carbon by this project.
It’s a great reminder to us all: taking action for the planet can have an effect that you can’t always measure in tonnes.