Click through the descriptions of some of our newest team members to get to know them better!

This summer, the BJF participated in two leading Agriculture fairs in Brazil, showing that agriculture and ecological restoration can go together! We successfully participated with our own booth at Agrotins ’22 (Palmas, Tocantins) and Expoasa’22 (Santana do Araguaia, Pará).

We received an overwhelmingly positive response to our presence from our existing and potential farmer-partners and political representatives on federal, state and municipal level.

Watch the video-compilation above and experience what some of our existing and potential partner farmers and political representatives on federal, state and municipal level  have to say about our mission of hope & action in realising the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor in Central Brazil.

During these events, our team made many new connections and potential new partnerships with rural landowners and governmental bodies.

Find out more about our participation in some of Santana do Araguaia’s main Agricultural fairs here. 

Last month, the Black Jaguar Foundation took another step towards realising the Araguaia Seed Collection Collective!

Laís D’Isep, our seeds production analyst, visited settlements in several cities in the Araguaia region. While in Marianopolis, she reached out ot the settlements Manchete and Piracema for the first time.

In Caseara, Laís spoke with people living in the settlements União e Onalício Barros, that had already heard of the project beforehand, and with secondary school students in the Colégio Estadual Trajano de Almeida.

With these visits, Laís aimed to present the Araguaia Seed Collection Collective, answer any questions about the project, and invite local community members to participate in the training sessions.

So far, we have managed to engage 130 members in this initiative.

Training participants is a fundamental to our seed collection collective because it increases the likelihood that seeds will be collected in an appropriate way.

To this effect, the BJF technical team divided the course into five modules, including practices of seed collection and its benefits.

At the end of June, Laís went back to all the settlements she had visited previously to complete the first module of training in seed collection.

We expect this cycle of training sessions, including all five modules, to be concluded by the start of our next planting season!

To organize the Araguaia Seed Collection Collective, we are learning from other already existing initiatives. In June, Laís D’Isep participated in a course offered by the Rede de Sementes do Cerrado, in partnership with Floresta Nacional de Brasília, Aprospera, Tikré and Caminhos da Semente.

The course provided an introduction to seed collection, outlined benefits of different fruits and seeds, went over seed storage, and explained how to organize and sell seeds.

At the Black Jaguar Foundation, we believe that we can inspire, learn, and ultimately, grow together. Strengthening communities and maintaining as well as restoring ecosystems in the region!

The Araguaia Seed Collection Collective aims to provide our project with native seeds while simultaneously complementing the income of local communities living near the Araguaia River. Nevertheless, for seed collection to be realized in an appropriate way, the BJF team has been organizing numerous training sessions.

The following video shows trees that were planted one and a half years ago and are already producing seeds! The Urucum seed will be one of our priority seeds to be collected for the coming planting season.

Last month, our team had the opportunity to present the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor to the Brazilian Ministry of Environment’s technical team, building new partnerships to support our work of ecological restoration. This visit also consisted of meetings with other departments of the Ministry of Environment, including the Department of Protected Areas, and the president of Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade.

During our visit, we were also invited to meet with the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture. We discussed how the BJF can best support the Ministry of Agriculture’s projects moving forward, with a focus on our contributions to “Paisagens Rurais no Cerrado” (Rural Landscapes in the Cerrado Savana), in the municipalities in Para, Tocantins and Mato Grosso that fall within the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor.

These new partnerships will be instrumental in raising more land for us to plant on in the 23/24 planting season!

The Black Jaguar Foundation started collaborating on the Project “Paisagens rurais do Cerrado” with our partner Serviço Florestal Brasileiro in 2021.  

The project, coordinated by the Brazilian department of Agriculture (MAPA), is supported by many different organisations including the Black Jaguar Foundation and focusses on incentivising the integrated management of rural properties. To make this a reality, it provides technical assistance to rural landowners in the project regions.  

 The Black Jaguar Foundation has been working together with Serviço Florestal Brasileiro (SFE) on the restoration of Permanent Preservation Areas (APPs) and Legal Reserves (RLs) in the Cerrado Biome, in collaboration with rural landowners in the region

Providing technical assistance in ecological restoration ensures healthy ecosystems, increases agricultural productivity, and creates new employment opportunities! 

This will enable rural producers to develop the economic, social, and environmental aspects of their properties.  

For a 4^th year in a row, Seacon logistics has renewed its partnership with us!

We feel honoured that the founder of the company, Mr Hai Berden and his wife Corry have been fully backing our mission of Hope and Action from the very start.

Since 2018 Seacon Logistics has been a proud partner to our mission, helping us realise the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor.

Seacon Logistics is the Logistics Chain Director for coordinating and optimising your logistics supply chain. From their strategic inland locations in Europe they efficiently manage your flow of goods in cooperation with a worldwide network of dedicated partners.

The company provides world-wide transport solutions on the road, rail, and water!  Seacon is always on the move, and consistently incorporates environmental, social and economic development into its operations.

In 2023, Seacon Logistics will move into a modern new head office in The Netherlands, Venlo with all of its logistics and staff departments. Seacon Logistics will also open a new logistics service center (warehouse) of approximately 50,000 mˆ2 to give shape to its step-by-step sustainable growth.

Plenty of developments are also being made in Seacon’s German branch, in Duisburg, the largest European Inland logistics hotspot. This includes the rail and water connections that Seacon has established, linking Asia to Europe.

These connections, combined with Seacon’s Container Freight Station located at rail and water terminals, allow the company to store and transship goods of all shapes and sizes worldwide.

Seacon Logistics is increasingly data-driven, always focussed on optimizing solutions for people and the planet.

Their Seanovation programme serves as a good example of this. Derived from a major study, which looked into how processes could be integrated, optimised and digitised, it aims to enhance Seacon’s efficiency and improve customer experiences. This programme, which started being operationalised in August 2021, will encompass transport over landfreight, seafreight, Airfreight, and Warehousing.

Read about Seacon’s exciting developments here.

Seacon is focussed on the three pillars of corporate social responsibility: people, planet and prosperity.

Through their initiative, Seacon Blue, the company supports many social, environmental, and cultural  projects alongside the Black Jaguar Foundation. Seacon is also involved in several (inter)national social initiatives and charities.

Find out more about Seacon’s partnerships here!

To improve our outreach locally, we have opened an office in Santana do Araguaia! Here we are hoping to receive local landowners, as well as others in the local community, who want to learn about the project.

We started renting this space at the end of 2021 and are very happy with how it is all coming together. Currently, we are in the final stages of renovating and furnishing the office. With the BJF logo painted on the entrance wall, and the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor map hung up inside the office, we are excited to open our doors to landowners soon.

Having a local office will allow for an increase in our approachability and our credibility among the local landowner community.

Feel free to stop by whenever you’re in the area!

Donating blood is an important action that saves lives. The “red June” movement aims to shed light on this and incentivize blood donations all over Brazil. To celebrate this movement, the Black Jaguar Foundation supported a blood donation campaign in Santana do Araguaia (PA).

The event happened on the 25^th of June, and was organized by Santana do Araguaia’s Municipal Secretary of Health.

Throughout the day, professionals working for HEMOPA (Fundação Centro de Hemoterapia e Hematologia do Pará), were available at the Escola de Tempo Integral Dr. Wagner Pereira da Silva, to collect blood from donors.

The Black Jaguar Foundation supported this action, and incentivized sponsor and landowner partners to participate.

Some of our team members that work in different cities also strengthened the campaign by donating from different regions. Carol Sacramento, our Development Coordinator, donated in São Paulo, while Ben Valks, our initiator, donated in Brasilia.

At the end of the day, HEMOPA managed to collect 96 packs of blood, which will certainly have a great positive impact in the region.

For every donation made, the BJF provided a native tree seedling to be planted in the donor’s garden or farm!

As we are finalising our 2021/2022 planting season, our field team has started carrying out maintenance activities for our planted seedlings!

Our technical team has diligently been going through all areas currently undergoing ecological restoration and monitoring their progress. This allows us to identify any future steps that are still needed for maintenance and contributes to planning for the next rainy season.

This involves evaluating the last planting season, the irrigation of areas where we planted trees during the last rainy season, and removing invasive grasses, among other activities.  

The 21/22 planting season brought with it many valuable learning moments for our technical team: we improved our direct seeding techniques, joined forces with Ciclus – a company that specialises in planning, implementing, and monitoring ecological restoration, and strengthened our relationship with rural landowners in the region.

Implementing these measures allowed us to successfully carry out ecological restoration in the following six partner farms: Fazenda Santa Fé, Fazenda Serra Morena, Fazenda Santa Izabel, Fazenda Bela Vista, Fazenda Cantão, and Fazenda Anajá. The first three are located in Santana do Araguaia (PA), while the other three farms are in the municipalities of Caseara and Marianópolis do Tocantins (TO).

The progress made during this season was made possible by the continuous support and trust that we receive from our amazing supporters and landowner partners.

While our field team is conducting maintenance activities, they are also planning for the next planting season, which will start somewhere between September and October 2022!

Environmental restoration is a long and complicated process which requires a series of steps. First, we need to map all the ecological restoration sites for the planting season. Following this, the planting techniques to be used per hectare of land are defined in all of the rural properties that the Black Jaguar Foundation has agreements with. Simultaneously, our field team makes sure that we have enough seedlings for the planting season.

Our planting season can only begin after all these steps have been completed!

In the next rainy season, our objective is to complete our first million native trees! To accomplish this, we have built one of the biggest nurseries in Santana do Araguaia, which will have the capacity to produce 500 thousand seedlings per year.

Our new nursery, located in Santana do Araguaia, will have the capacity to produce half a million seedlings every year and will become the central provider of seedlings for the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor. To help manage it, we are welcoming new additions to the BJF team!

From the vast pool of applicants provided by our Human Resources team, five were selected to join our existing nursery team, currently led by our Seed Production Analyst, Norivânia Diniz.

Training sessions for the newest members of our nursery team were organised from the 9^th to the 13^th of March.

On the first day, our Field Coordinator, Carlos Eduardo, orchestrated introductory sessions, where he presented the Black Jaguar Foundation’s mission and work, explaining future steps that need to be taken to realize the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor. At the same time, Norivânia Diniz emphasised the importance of teamwork and collaboration in ensuring that healthy seedlings are able to grow in the nursery.

The rest of the week’s training sessions were held by Guilherme Faganello,  an expert in seedling production who directs projects for Embira Consultoria Ambiental.

Our new nursery is already producing seedlings! Norivânia and her team are currently producing seedlings in small tubes, and making our nursery a little bit greener every day.