Students in rural Tocantins start the year with an ecological restoration workshop
A partnership between Agroicone and the Tocantins State Department of the Environment and Water Resources, with support from the Land Innovation Fund, took this step to develop an agenda for the large-scale restoration of native vegetation in Brazil's Matopiba region.
Technical training workshop on ecological restoration at a school in the State of Tocantins. Drone Josimar Furlan. Image courtesy of Agroicone.
In the municipality of São Salvador, in Tocantins, 36 high school students from the Farming Family José Porfírio de Souza State School (CEFA) started their semester with an activity that took them out of the classrooms and into the field. A technical training workshop on ecological restoration for economic purposes gave them theoretical and practical classes on concepts, advantages, difficulties, and processes behind the implementation of Agroforestry Systems (AFS). The workshop was a follow-up to another Agroicone project supported by the Land Innovation Fund that identified major challenges and opportunities for large-scale restoration in the Matopiba agricultural frontier (covering parts of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia), and offered a novel benchmark based on policies implemented in other states of the country. Entitled "Innovative public policies for the conservation and restoration of native vegetation on private land in Matopiba", that survey was carried out following a number of meetings with the Environmental departments of each state in the region and highlighted, among other points, the need to disseminate technical knowledge, provide incentives for seedling production and seed collection, and stimulate the planting of commercial species, as possible ways to expand the scope and relevance of restoration actions in Brazil.
With about 3 thousand inhabitants and located 400 km from Palmas, Tocantins' capital city, São Salvador has a strong presence of family farming and a potential for sustainable agricultural development. Over three days, professionals from the agricultural, forestry and environmental fields gave workshops to 9th to 12th grade students, with support from the CEFA school's own team of teachers. During the activity, the students planted a hectare of land inside the school grounds, helping recover the area and raise food for school lunches. The species they planted include fruit trees such as mangaba and bananas, in addition to baru, turmeric, and cassavas.
The workshop showed practical benefits of agroforestry systems – a form of land use and occupation in which native species are planted together with agricultural crops in the same area, producing food while conserving and restoring the environment. Agroicone's researcher, Bruna Córdova, accompanied the activities and concluded: "The results went beyond our expectations, with a strong engagement by students in the learning and planting activities. They were enthusiastic participants, made the AFS a success, and took the chance to master this technique for themselves.”
The training model chosen for the CEFA workshop was based on the "Sustainable Fields" project, coordinated by the Tocantins State Department of the Environment and Water Resources (Semarh) and the Amazon Institute for Conservation and Sustainable Development (Idesam), with support from the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa). The project aims to enable new production and land-use models in Tocantins, with a greater focus on integrated crop-livestock-forestry systems.
For Semarh's environmental engineer, Thaiana Brunes, the technical training activity will contribute to the restoration of the Cerrado, as students become promoters of agroforestry systems. "These students go home with a different outlook on the environment and will take what they learn back to their families and workplaces, mainly because most of them are farmers. The project will play a key role in social development, with quilombola communities, small family farmers, and women participating in the workshop", he says.
Credit: Making Studio Pro; Bruna Cordova; Students State College Agricultural Family José Porfírio de Souza. Images provided by Agroicone.
PUBLIC POLICY PANORAMA FOR THE MATOPIBA REGION:
The proposal to hold this ecological restoration workshop came out of an extensive survey by Agroicone, with support from the Land Innovation Fund, to produce the "Overview of public policies for the restoration of native vegetation in Matopiba". The study covered 58 ecological restoration public policies in all regions of Brazil, some in partnerships with private and international organizations, implemented in 15 states and the Federal District. Assembled and systematized for the first time, with descriptions and analyses, the initiatives range from comprehensive policies to projects and specific regulations.
After a series of meetings with the Departments of Environment in Maranhão, Tocantins and Bahia – states that are part of the Matopiba agricultural frontier – it became clear that almost all the knowledge available on ecological restoration in Brazil relates to the Atlantic Forest and forest formations. Analyses of the Cerrado biome are more recent, and still underway. There is little consolidated quantitative information about the scale and scope of restoration actions in this region, nor is there practical support material to train agents and adapt practices and methods applied in other regions to the needs of this biome.
"We identified a bottleneck of knowledge and technical expertise on ecological restoration tailored to the needs of the Cerrado. In conversations with the Tocantins State Department of Environment and Water Resources (Semarh), our partner in this activity, we decided to adopt a model for technical training workshops for high school students, which can be replicated in other schools in the region, to train multipliers of sustainable farming practices," says Laura Antoniazzi, partner and senior researcher at Agroicone.
"We identified a bottleneck of knowledge and technical expertise on ecological restoration tailored to the needs of the Cerrado. In conversations with the Tocantins State Department of Environment and Water Resources (Semarh), our partner in this activity, we decided to adopt a model for technical training workshops for high school students, which can be replicated in other schools in the region, to train multipliers of sustainable farming practices," says Laura Antoniazzi, partner and senior researcher at Agroicone.
The project dialogues with the UN’s principles and challenges for the Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, and with Brazil's Paris Agreement commitments to restore 30 million hectares of land and reduce carbon emissions by 43% by 2030. Land Innovation Fund Director Carlos E. Quintela concludes: "We want to contribute to creating the country’s restoration agenda, and to a greater understanding of the issue’s importance for the international environmental conservation agenda."
About the Land Innovation Fund:
Founded with an initial contribution from Cargill and managed by Chemonics International, the Land Innovation Fund supports initiatives for a sustainable and deforestation-free soy production chain with positive economic and socio-environmental impacts, in three of South America's priority biomes: Cerrado, Gran Chaco and Amazon. It supports innovations that increase yields through sustainable practices, mechanisms, and approaches, encourages farmers to conserve and restore native forests and vegetation, and mobilizes networks and resources to transform the soy supply chain.
Agroicone is an organization that generates knowledge and solutions to transform Brazil’s agriculture sector, and to respond to the global challenges of sustainable development. It operates in five strategic areas: i) international trade and global issues; ii) sustainability and territorial intelligence; iii) public policies; iv) business, markets, and finance; and v) technologies in agro-chains. Agroicone is staffed by a multidisciplinary team, with a wide range of expertise in the economic, regulatory/legal, territorial, socio-environmental, and communication fields.