The Atlantic Forest
Program
The Atlantic Forest ranks among the
five most important biodiversity
hotspots over the Earth's natural
regions in an analysis by Conservation
International. It is also considered
Unesco's largest Biosphere Reserve.
Due to its remarkably high number of
endemic species of plants and animals
– around 40 percent not found
anywhere else on the planet – and
also to its extensive habitat loss and
fragmentation, it is reduced to under
16 percent of its original extent. The
Atlantic Forest is one of the world's
priority regions for conservation.
CI / Russell Mittermeier
Originally distributed among more than
1.3 million square kilometers (321
million acres) along Brazil's eastern
coast, the Atlantic Forest is the second
largest rainforest block in the Americas.
More than 60 percent of animals and
the vast majority of plants threatened
with extinction in Brazil are found in
this biome. It features different socioeconomic conditions and diverse
landscapes, from the country's largest
industrial centers and megacities like
Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo to vast
areas of agriculture, forestry, and
pasture. At least 70 percent (more than
130 million) of the Brazilian population
lives in the region, which is at the
forefront of the country's economy.
CONSERVAÇÃO
The last remnants of this exuberant
forest still shelter a wealth of biological
diversity comparable to that of the
Amazon region. Unfortunately, this rich
biodiversity remains under serious
threats, such as population growth;
urban expansion; illegal deforestation;
conflicting demands for agriculture;
electric power generation;
deteriorating water quality due to
untreated sewage and excessive use
of fertilizers and pesticides; and
industrial pollution. The loss of
remnant forest cover worsens the
climate change prognosis, given
likely impacts on human populations
and their livelihoods. The loss of
related ecosystem services such as
water provisioning and flood control
in turn threatens potential for future
economic development.
While there are many causes for
concern over the Atlantic Forest's
natural assets, there are also exciting
new opportunities for conservation.
With that belief, CI has been working
in the region since 1990 and during
that period has already contributed
to:
• capacity-building and consolidation
of critical networks of key federal and
local governmental, nongovernmental, and private entities, as
well as local communities working
together in partnerships for Atlantic
Forest conservation;
• production of a high volume of
science-based information on the
biome's biodiversity, threats, and
conservation opportunities;
• creation of public and private
protected areas;
• implementation of regional-scale
biodiversity conservation actions;
• improvement in the governance,
management efficiency, and
sustainability of the biome's priority
protected areas;
• effort toward integrated planning
and management of land and water
resources in river basins to restore
and maintain ecosystem services.
Biodiversity Corridors – emphasis on
a regional conservation strategy
A biodiversity conservation corridor is a regional-scale conservation approach
based on integrated planning and management of a territory to establish
biodiversity-friendly land use and maintain or restore ecosystem functions,
through the participation of a multi-stakeholder network.
Integrated management of the corridor's various land types ensures survival of
threatened species of regional, national, and global value and maintains key
ecological processes supporting sustainable development. In order to prioritize efforts
on the richest biodiversity and most critical areas and to better tackle conservation
goals, CI and partner organizations have led a process of participation by community
and government to design multiple biodiversity corridors within the Atlantic Forest.
After extensive research and consultation with experts, this process resulted in three
main planning units for CI's work focus: the Serra do Mar Biodiversity Corridor,
the Central Biodiversity Corridor, and the Northeastern Biodiversity Corridor
(see map).
Northeast
Corridor
Brazil
Atlantic Forest
Central Corridor
Paraguay
Serra do Mar Corridor
Legend
Biodiversity Corridors
Argentina
Forest remnants
States boundaries
Atlantic Forest original extent
Uruguay
Countries borders
Protected Areas
Management:
improving governance
Protected areas like parks and
biological reserves comprise less
than 2 percent of the Atlantic
Forest and, since they are too
small to maintain viable
populations of many species,
it is urgent to expand existing
ones, establish new ones,
and connect them all. The
strengthening and expansion of
the biome's protected area system
is a key element in implementing
biodiversity corridors and
maintaining key elements for
long-term conservation. CI is
at the forefront of several efforts
toward this goal.
A task force for the Central
Corridor comprising CI, the
Brazilian government, universities,
and, partner NGOs, intends to
create new federal and state
protected areas, expand existing
federal protected areas, and
integrate management of the
protected area network in the
region.
Likewise, the Atlantic Forest
Protected Areas Initiative (AFPAI) uniting Cl, The Nature
Conservancy, and Fundação SOS
Mata Atlântica - aims to strengthen
the network of protected areas in
the biome and to bring financial
sustainability for them. Its objective
is to implement 1.3 million
hectares (3.2 million acres) of
current and new public protected
areas in priority areas for
biodiversity conservation in years
to come.
CI, Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica,
and The Nature Conservancy have
also joined forces to strengthen the
conservation instrument of private
reserves — 600 in number,
representing a very small portion of
forest remnants but offering a good
basis for expansion — through the
Program of Incentive to RPPNs of
the Atlantic Forest. Since 2003, this
initiative has been assisting
landowners through technical and
financial support to create and
sustainably manage private
reserves in the biome, especially in
the biodiversity corridors. This
program has been replicated at two
other biomes in Brazil. So far, the
program has promoted seven calls
for proposals, with 216 projects
awarded and 310 new private
reserves formally created or in
process (25,000 hectares or 62,000
acres) throughout the biome.
Demand for water by the Atlantic Forest
region is the largest in Brazil, but it
shows signs of diminishing local and
regional water quantity and quality.
In this context, CI has been designing
a framework for payment for ecosystem
services provided by the Três Picos
State Park's freshwater sourcing potential
(58,790 hectares = 145,280 acres),
located in the Serra do Mar Biodiversity
Corridor, in the state of Rio de Janeiro.
CI and its partners have also been
articulating with the Environmental/Water
Provincial Secretariats of Brazil's
southeastern states design of policy
frameworks for tapping ecosystem
services.
Renato de Mello-Silva
CI-Brasil / Ivana Lamas
Ecosystem services are the tangible
benefits that people receive from nature,
such as water, shelter and food. In the
Atlantic Forest, CI has been carrying out
efforts to identify, measure, and value
these services so that societies can care
responsibly and sustainably for natural
systems and that the benefits they
provide are available in the long run.
Together with partner organizations and
local communities, CI is promoting forestbased carbon, forest-water, and payment
for ecosystem services pilot initiatives,
exploring distinct contexts within the
biome. Among them, we can highlight the
project in southern Bahia, whose goal is
to restore 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres)
on private lands to improve the
connection between two national parks,
and the other iniciative to reconnect forest
fragments along an extremely threatened
region in the southeastern portion of
Brazil (Minas Gerais state) that harbors
two of the most important sanctuaries for
the northern muriqui (Brachyteles
hypoxanthus), the largest primate in the
Americas.
José Caldas
Ecosystem Services:
safeguarding the Atlantic
Forest as a provider of
human well-being
CI / Bill Konstant
CI has also been participating
in creation and management of
Mosaics of Protected Areas in the
Atlantic Forest. A managerial
modality aimed at the integrated
management of protected areas
and recently established under
Brazil's National System for
Protected Areas (SNUC, in
Portuguese). It encompasses a
legal framework intended to bring
robustness to clusters of protected
areas, by optimizing management
goals and resource use to increase
protection and reduce negative
pressures upon ecosystems. CI's
overarching goal with this initiative
is to establish a well-designed
network of effectively managed
protected areas and their buffer
zones– in total, more than
100 protected areas and 3 million
hectares (7.4 million acres).
The Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact: a task force to
bring back the wealth in a broad scale
Launched in April 2009, the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact is an ambitious large-scale
initiative carried out by an alliance of more than 130 partners, among public and private
institutions, governments, companies and landowners aimed at reforesting 15 million
hectares (37 million acres) of degraded and deforested lands by the year 2050.
It orchestrates their efforts and resources towards preserving biological diversity;
generating employment and income within the restoration production chain; sustaining,
appraising and paying for environmental services; and aligning agricultural activities
with legal requirements in the 17 states covered by the biome.
Dialogues with the private sector: cooperation in search of
common ground, best practices, and concrete results
CI'S MISSION
Building upon a strong foundation
of science, partnership, and field
demonstration, CI empowers
societies to responsibly and
sustainably care for nature for the
well-being of humanity.
CI believes that working with key players is essential to the success of conservation
efforts in the long term. Hence it takes part in the so-called 'Dialogues' between private
(mainly those which determine use of significant land areas in the Atlantic Forest
domain) and the environmental sectors. These dialogues seek to strengthen
cooperation and find common ground among companies and conservationists who
want to be effective and achieve economies of scale in their pro-sustainability efforts.
Since 2005, CI is part off the 'Forest Dialogue for the Atlantic Forest' - a regional forum
derived from the global 'The Forests Dialogue' - formed by 25 organizations from the
pulp, paper, and environmental sectors aimed at proposing agreements and generating
innovative models for public policies that promote protection and restoration of the
forest.
The success of this initiative has inspired other sectors to undertake similar
approaches. In 2008, CI helped create the 'Cocoa Dialogue' along the Central Corridor
in southern Bahia, the largest cocoa-producing region in Brazil. And, more recently,
there have also been discussions to engage representatives from the
sugarcane/ethanol sector, a critical one in the Northeastern Corridor.
Capacity-building and institution-strengthening
– empowering civil society
In a diverse and extensive region such as the Atlantic Forest, it is essential to establish
an effective network of organizations to promote the engagement of a wide range of
key actors, address conservation needs successfully, and carry out joint conservation
initiatives in the most critical areas of the biome.
The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) is a multi-level fund anchored in
broad partnership and alliances that has been investing in biodiversity hotspots around
the world, including the Atlantic Forest. Through an institution-strengthening program,
CEPF has provided technical capacity opportunities and supported conservation
projects in this biome. Hence, through specifically designed programs and dozens of
training workshops, CEPF helped to consolidate a network of partners in each corridor
and build institutional capacity for groups that represent civil society interests with
regard to Atlantic Forest conservation issues.
After six years of investment in the biome, financing more than 100 local institutions
and engaging 460 organizations, the CEPF started the second phase of support in
2008, dedicating the amount of US$2.4 million to the consolidation and sustainability of
outcomes accomplished in the earlier period. Besides actions targeted at institutionstrengthening, it also provides support to the protected area network within the biome.
CONTACT INFO
Luiz Paulo Pinto
– Director of the Atlantic
Forest Program
[email protected]
www.conservation.org.br
Phone: +55 31 3261-3889
Márcia Cota
– South America
Development Director
[email protected]
www.conservation.org
Phone: +1 703 341-2617