Julia Silveira

The 29^th edition of the Esri Netherlands GIS conference that took place in Rotterdam’s World Trade Center last month welcomed almost 1400 participants and was a big success. With companies from a variety of different sectors coming together to share how they use Esri’s software, it provided a wonderful opportunity to promote our mission of hope and action and learn from other organisations.

A big thank you to Esri Netherlands for inviting our initiator Ben Valks and Community Outreach Coordinator Joël Boele to explain how we are making use of their geo-information software to restore the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor and work towards a healthy planet for future generations.

The conference took place over the course of two days, and with this item we would like to bring to you some of the second day’s highlights, where the BJF gave the closing presentation.

The Black Jaguar Foundation presented the closing Keynote speech! 

We were honoured to provide the closing presentation for the Esri Netherlands conference. Joël Boele (Community Outreach Coordinator) and Ben Valks (Initiator) explained our how we plan to plant 1,7 billion native trees in the Amazon Rainforest and Cerrado Savanna over the course of 30 years.

As Ben beautifully put it : “We have no plan B because there is no planet B“. The time to act is now and it is definitely too late to be a pessimist. It is safe to say that the entire conference room was inspired by Ben and Joël’s drive and inspiring words.

Joël dove into how we are currently using Esri to realise the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor. She explained that first, we use Esri’s software to create maps, showing which areas are available for ecological restoration, and giving us an idea of how simple they are to access. These observations, together with satellite images and field visits, allow us to validate different areas for restoration, decide on which restoration methods are needed, and which species of trees should be planted in the designated areas.
Finally, the room was left in an atmosphere of hope. With the message that nature CAN be restored, if we listen and work with it. Thank you Esri for all of your support, and for organizing this wonderful event!

Finally, the room was left in an atmosphere of hope. With the message that nature CAN be restored, if we listen and work with it. Thank you Esri for all of your support, and for organizing this wonderful event!

Have a look at how the presentations went via the following video (please be aware that it is in Dutch!)

How is Esri supporting our mission?

Currently, Esri Netherlands is providing both financial and technical support to our grand mission of restoring the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor. Esri’s ArcGIS Platform supports the BJF in gathering data of all sorts, so that we can reach objective answers to difficult challenges.

More recently, Esri released a podcast of our initiator Ben Valks and Community Outreach Coordinator Joel Boele, recorded during the conference. You can access this in their podcast “Something Spacial” , via this link.

We are determined to build a greener planet, together with our partner farmers, and sponsor partners like ESRI who are incredibly motivated to help us realise our mission.

Find out more about our partnership with Esri on their first 600 page here! Together, we are stronger.

A closer look at the rest of the sessions, which were full of innovation!

Data driven work

Bas Bijtelaar (Esri’s senior manager business development) started the second part of the plenary program with “Footprints”, a beautiful song he played on his saxophone to highlight the importance of leaving positive footprints on our planet. Bas emphasised the importance of data driven work and the role that geo information systems play in this. We were grateful to be given the opportunity to follow his great performance and insights.

The morning sessions

Vitens

The second day of the conference was opened by Esri’s directors, Ed van Ingen en Jurgen ten Siethof, and revolved around the theme : “innovating together”. During the plenary session that followed, two of Vitens’ key members, Matthijs Zwart (Chief Information Officer and Chief Information Security Officer) and Tyrza Niemeije (product owner Digital Twin distributie), explained how Vitens uses Esri software to ensure the sustainable distribution of drinking water.

As Matthijs beautifully put it: “A mission creates a team”. This is very much something we relate to, here at the Black Jaguar Foundation. It was great to see a drive to preserve our planet’s resources, present in other companies making use of ESRI software as well.

VolkerWessels

Together with Jan Peter ter Maaten (service owner and product owner GIS), Paulus Eckhardt, Volker Wessels’ director of digitization explained how the company is making use of ESRI software to to manage their clients’ information and deal with every-day challenges.

A big thank you to Esri Netherlands for organising this wonderful event!

While conducting our grand mission of ecological restoration, we cannot forget that we are not alone. Many other organizations are also engaged in beautiful projects to protect and restore our planet. That’s why we have joined the World Rainforest Day community, which is a branch of Rainforest Partnership.

About the World Rainforest Day Community

The World Rainforest Day community was founded in 2017 by Rainforest Partnership, aiming to create a global movement to protect and restore healthy forests. They connect forest-focused organizations with new partners, including non-environmental sectors, and aspiring rainforest guardians.

At the moment, their community consists mainly of rainforest organizations, indigenous groups, policy representatives, youth leaders, the private sector, and creative guilds.

About Rainforest partnership

Rainforest Partnership protects tropical rainforests by working directly with local and indigenous communities, organizations, and governments at all levels in community-centered conservation projects.

In addition to founding World Rainforest Day, Rainforest Partnership also works on the ground with local and indigenous communities in Peru and Ecuador. The images below show the Rainforest Partnership team at work! In the first image, they are at the at COP26 in Glasgow, UK , while the second image shows the Rainforest Partnership team and advisors (including Niyanta Spelman, founder & CEO, and Raina Chinitz, Ecuador projects coordinator) with their partners on the ground (Sani Warmi, a women-led organization) in Sani Isla, Ecuador.

Why protect rainforests?

As the World Rainforest Day Community explains, Rainforests are a type of forest where rainfall is continuous and abundant all year round, commonly found in temperate regions. Though they only cover around 6% of the Earth’s surface, they provide a habitat to around 50% of all terrestrial biodiversity found in the world!

Rainforests provide the world with natural resources, including fresh air, filtered water, and medicine. They are also the source of many of the products we use daily, including coffee, cacao, spices, common fruits and vegetables, to name a few. Notably, products like beef and the palm oil found in shampoo and many common hygiene and food products are directly related to rainforest deforestation worldwide. This makes it pertinent for consumers globally to look into where their products come from, and how they are produced.

The Black Jaguar Foundation aims to show that agriculture and ecological restoration can walk together, and we are happy to be part of the World Rainforest Day community.

With the support of likeminded individuals and organizations, we can work towards a healthy planet for our future generations!

Find out how you can join the World Rainforest Day community here.

The Araguaia Seed Collection Collective is currently in the running for a grant, financed by Global Landscapes Forum (GLF)! The first stage of the challenge involves online voting, until the 15^th of October, and your help is needed! Watch the video linked below and get to know the project.

To support our application, click on the link below, register in the GLF platform, like and comment on our video. Each like is worth 3 points and each comment 5 points. Navigating the platform will take a few minutes of your time but will greatly help our team and the communities they support daily!

LINK: SUPPORT THE ARAGUAIA SEED COLLECTION COLLECTIVE

To support us, you can:

✓ Register in the GLX platform

✓ Like the video

✓ Comment on the video

✓ Share with your friends!

ABOUT THE ARAGUAIA SEED COLLECTION COLLECTIVE

The Araguaia Seed Collection Collective is an initiative started by the Black Jaguar Foundation’s team together with local communities in Caseara and Marianópolis, in the state of Tocantins. The initiative started as a means of providing our project with seeds however also shows great potential to complement the income of local communities living near the Araguaia River.

This year, we have started training sessions for communities living in settlements in the Araguaia region! We have germinated many of these seeds in the new BJF nursery, and some of the seedlings will be planted during this planting season. Further, our field team is currently visiting many different communities, providing training sessions and technical equipment, to incentivise individuals to become a part of our project.

We need your help to expand and strengthen this initiative in 2023! Will you join us in supporting communities with a complementary income and promoting the conservation of forests?

It’s too late to be a pessimist, and we need your support to realise the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor!

The Brazilian division of our partner Royal De Heus has recently visited the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor and seen every single one of the projects that they are currently contributing to. The visit lasted three days, and included trips to the new BJF nursery, our restoration sites, and meeting the Araguaia Seed Collection Collective.

The 13 members of the Royal De Heus team that travelled with us to Santana do Araguaia showed great enthusiasm throughout the visit and even helped us plant some trees and grow seedlings in our new nursery!

They were all incredibly excited to see the project and the positive socio environmental impact that it is generating in action.

After the visit, Edmilson Ribeiro, the director of Human resources for De Heus Brasil, shared with us the following words:

“We cannot find the words to describe how happy we are with all that we saw last week. We feel incredibly proud of this partnership and the positive impact on nature that we are promoting. Simply amazing”. 

We are incredibly touched by these warm words, and grateful for all of the support that Royal De Heus has provided over the years!

De Heus was once of our greatest supporters in building the new BJF nursery, which will have the capacity to grow 500 thousand native tree seedlings annually! That’s why we decided to start our tour of the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor with a symbolic inauguration of the BJF nursery.

In the following day, our nursery team, led by our seed production analyst Norivânia Diniz, walked the De Heus team through some of the main activities conducted in the nursery and provided an explanation of how we grow healthy seedlings to become resilient trees.

We also organised some more practical activities, where our partners got their hands dirty, helped us germinate many seeds, and even planted their own trees!

In the afternoon, we visited some the areas being restored in the Santa Fé farm and our field coordinator, Carlos Eduardo Oliveira, explained the different planting techniques currently being used in different areas. We could already see significant growth of native vegetation planted 12 and 24 months ago!

Throughout the planting activities, the De Heus team also saw some of the biodiversity present in the region and was inspired by all of the beauty that nature provides.

During the dry season, the Araguaia region is prone to forest fires. This makes fire prevention and control incredibly important.  De Heus is aware of this, and therefore supported us in creating Caseara’s first fire brigade!

We were able to visit the fire brigade – which is already in motion and considered to be one of the most active brigades in the region – present our partners to the volunteer fire fighters, and speak to Paulo Roberto, Caseara’s secretary of environment and tourism.

It was inspiring to see the brigade in action, working to contain fires. A big thank you to De Heus for making this possible!

The Araguaia Seed collection collective is another one of our projects supported by De Heus, which will have a massive impact on this and in future planting seasons!

Despite this being a recently established initiative, the De Heus team was already able  to collect seeds, participate in the first purchases of seeds, and talk to some of our seed collectors!

With the global demand for food on the rise, feeding the planet while safeguarding our ecosystems is an ever-growing challenge.  

Our longstanding partner Royal De Heus is working to help farmers produce food more efficiently, in a way that safeguards natural resources as much as possible. That’s why they have chosen to support the Black Jaguar Foundation in realising the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor!  

On August 17 2021 De Heus Animal Nutrition signed a long-term partnership with the Black Jaguar Foundation to support our efforts in realising one of the longest nature corridors on earth: The Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor.  

We are incredibly grateful to De Heus for all of their support. Thanks to them and many of our other wonderful partners, we have been able to make great progress with the new BJF nursery, collect many seeds with the Araguaia Seed Collection Collective, and train capable firefighters to protect our planted trees!  

 This partnership will certainly play an important role in bringing together agriculture and environment! We are excited to see the ever-growing trust placed on our organisation, and hopeful for all the milestones that will certainly come with it. 

Would you like to join us in creating a better world for our future generations? Find out how you can do so as a first 600 sponsor partner here

Learn more about our partnership with De Heus here.  

The Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor will consist of strips of ecologically restored land that connect isolated ‘islands’ of pristine and intact nature. In doing so, it also contributes to keeping the Araguaia River alive, as a lot depends on the river. Not only for fresh water, but also for transport, species in and alongside the river and as a source of cooling amongst many other important ecosystem services.

The vegetation that is found on river margins, often referred to as riparian vegetation, is vital for the preservation of different processes that occur naturally in and around rivers. Such processes include:  

1. The purification of water 

   Did you know that trees help to filter water? They do this by first absorbing the water through their leaves, and then releasing it as 1) water vapor and 2) through their roots. In absorbing rainwater, trees also absorb the nutrients that may have been picked up from excess fertilizer or animal waste. In doing so, they lower the amount of pollutants in our rivers.

2.  Providing shade and shelter to aquatic animals  

   By providing shade during periods with high temperatures, trees help to reduce the water temperature, and keep oxygen in the water which helps preserve aquatic organisms.  

3. Stabilising river banks and reducing bank erosion. 

   Erosion and sedimentation are natural processes, but can also generate problems for the river’s health. The presence of too much sediment in the water reduces water quality and can lower the river’s ability to flow, meaning that the quantity of water present can also decrease.  By stabilising river banks, trees reduce erosion and limit the amount of sediments that fall into the river.  

The Araguaia and Bananal lowland regions island regions were identified by ministry of environment as priority areas for conservation due to their high biodiversity and vast flooding regions. Also the Cerrado and Amazon are inseparable connected by soil, air and the rivers.

At Black Jaguar Foundation all our efforts are to realise the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor because we believe that it truly has the size to make a difference. Would you like to join our mission of hope and action? Donate a tree here.  

In preparation for this planting season, our team has been working hard to collect seeds with the Araguaia Seed Collection Collective, led by Laís D’Ísep dos Santos.  

So far, we have already bought seeds of around 11 different native tree species! The seeds we have purchased are mainly caju (cashew) seeds, since there is an abundance of these in the settlements that are near our restoration sites.  

Currently, we have 18 participants who are actively collecting seeds and over 100 other people recently received the first two modules of seed collective training.

We plan to complete this first cycle, consisting of four modules of training sessions, by the end of this year.  

Have a look at the first two modules for our seed collective training below!  

Our new partner Contact4You believes that making a difference always starts with yourself. That’s why they have partnered with the Black Jaguar Foundation!  

The organisation carefully considers sustainability in every decision they make. Internally, Contact4You has already started to:  

1.  Separate waste 
2.  Support local entrepreneurs 
3. Make use of electric cars 
4. Encourage their employees to work hybrid  

Reforestation affects all of our lives. Today, but also in the future. From the air that we breathe, to the water we drink, to the medicines we take, we are all dependent on the health of our ecosystems.

Contact4You joined the BJF community of sponsor partners in July 2022. A big thank you to them for choosing to invest in our mission of hope and action and ensure a healthy planet for our future generations.  

 At the Black Jaguar Foundation, we are currently working to realise the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor so that it can become the longest nature corridor on Earth with 2600 km in length and 40 km in width. 

 Together we CAN make the difference. Find out how you can become a BJF partner here and get to know one of our newest partners in their first 600 page! 

www.contact4you.nl multichannel customer service specialist 

With the rainy season approaching fast, we have intensified seedling production in our large new nursery! 

During the past weeks, we have germinated many different species, and are happy to announce that the seeds we sowed between June and July have already grown enough to be transported to the next phase of the seedling production process. These seedlings have just moved to our open sun site area, so that they can get used to field conditions and become resilient trees. 

In this first stage, the focus is on the production of species that are able to grow in periodically flooded regions. For this reason, we are focussing our production on species with these characteristics, including ingá, guarandi and jequitibá vermelho, among others.  

These species will become part of the first stage of our planting season, which will begin in October. Nevertheless, our second batch of seedlings will include a wider range of species that are native to the region.  

While the seeds develop, the seedlings that were sowed by our nursery team between June and July have already grown enough to move from our covered, inside nursery, to the open sun site areas. In this stage,  which is often referred to as acclimatisation, they are exposed to field conditions so that they can become resilient and grow.  

These seedlings will be planted in our restoration sites between October and November. We are very excited to see so many of our seedlings grow into healthy forests in the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor! 

At  the Black Jaguar Foundation, we strive to be as environmentally conscious as possible while carrying out our ecological restoration methods!

One of our most recent developments has been adjusting the way we grow and transport seedlings. Instead of using plastic bags, the BJF team now uses re-usable tubes.  

 One of the biggest benefits of this is the fact the these tubes can be reused with each poduction cycle – for up to 10 years. 

Another benefit is that these tubes take up a lot less space, which allows us to produce more seedlings in our nursery, using less soil. In other words, more seedlings for the coming planting season!  

All of these updates, together with our ever-increasing work rhythm, indicate that the coming months will be full of wonderful achievements. None of this would be possible without your support, so thank you! We hope you continue following our journey of ecological restoration.