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Amazon Reforestation

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An ambitious project is underway to restore 73 million trees across 30,000 hectares of land (about 74,000 acres) in the Brazilian Amazon, the largest tropical forest restoration in the world.

Working with Brazilian and international partners, Conservation International's efforts are focused on areas along the southern edges of the Amazon, known as Brazil’s “arc of deforestation,” as well as in the heart of the forest, where natural regeneration is still possible. By restoring these carbon-absorbing forests, the projects aims to help the South American country achieve its climate commitments under the Paris Agreement, as well as its target of reforesting 12 million hectares (nearly 30 million acres) of land by 2030.

We’re seeing a tree yield that is three times higher than our initial estimates. Rather than 3 million trees growing in 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres), as we would have expected, we’re estimating 9.6 million trees in the same area. This is a very good result, and it offers hope of overcoming the challenge of reducing restoration costs to enable restoration at a large scale.”

Miguel Moraes of Conservation International Brazil on the favorable results of the “muvuca” seed-planting method being used on site

The muvuca method

One of the initiative’s most noteworthy features was the use of a seed-planting method called “muvuca,” widely advocated by the Instituto Socioambiental as a way to reduce restoration costs. Unlike typical reforestation efforts, in which tree saplings are planted one at a time, the muvuca method relies on spreading a large and varied mixture of native seeds across the targeted areas, to assure a higher diversity of trees.