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Earlier this month, we participated in the BTG Give Back Day to celebrate our graduation from BTG Soma, a project aiming to improve Non-profit Organizations’ abilities to fulfil their goals.  

The program challenged 10 non-profit organizations, chosen out of 230 applicants, to actively participate in 100 hours of BTG workshops. Our Development Coordinator, Carol Sacramento, took this opportunity head-on and attended the workshops during the evenings, conciliating this with her fulltime responsibilities at the Black Jaguar Foundation.  

During the graduation, Carol was granted a BTG certificate, together with a cheque for 25,000 Reais on behalf of the BJF! 

The event was concluded with some closing remarks and calls to action by the participating non-profit organizations.  

During the current planting season, we have been increasing our team alongside our number of planted trees! By carefully selecting 27 highly motivated individuals to help with the planting stage in our restoration sites located in the farms of Santa Fé and Serra Morena, we aim to make the most out of the prolonged rainy season.  

The planting team is currently carrying our direct seeding and planting our remaining seedlings. They have also started the maintenance process for trees planted at the start of the rainy season. The three-year maintenance element that follows the planting process is crucial in the restoration of healthy ecosystems.  

In addition, three more female professionals will start working in our new nursery in May, to ensure the inauguration of our new nursery and its smooth operation.  

Our forest engineers have also been working hard to implement new work safety measures, to ensure well-being in our planting sites!  

The prolonged rainy season has given us more time to restore Permanent Preservation Areas and Legal Reserves. As much as we depend on the science of restoration and our knowledgeable team, we also depend on rains, something we cannot influence, but can be lucky with too! 

Our ever-hard-working team has been doing their best to make the most out of the extended planting season. 

Would you like to find out more about why we’ve had so much rain in the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor? Then keep reading!  

La Ninã and El Niño are two opposing climate patterns that can influence the weather.  

Both have to do with so called “trade winds”, which refer to the movement of hot, humid air, to areas with low atmospheric pressure. When El Nino happens, the Pacific Ocean’s superficial layer of hot water moves in the direction of South America. The warm winds incite evaporation, and clouds are formed. In Brazil, this may incite more rain in Southern regions, and less in the North and Northeast.  

La Niña causes the opposite to happen, cooling down the superficial waters of the Pacific Ocean. In this case, it may lead to increased rain in the Amazon Rainforest and the Northeast of Brazil.   

 Rainfall helps the Black Jaguar Foundation realize our mission because it gives us a wider planting window! 

BBC. (2021, October 19). O fenômeno la niña está de volta: O que isso significa para o clima do brasil e da região. BBC News Brasil. Retrieved April 10, 2022, from https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/geral-58966796

Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais. (n.d.). Estação Chuvosa. Clima Estao chuvosa – CPTEC/INPE. Retrieved April 10, 2022, from http://clima1.cptec.inpe.br/estacaochuvosa/pt

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. (2018, May 14). El Niño and La Niña. OCHA. Retrieved April 10, 2022, from https://www.unocha.org/themes/el-ni%C3%B1o/el-ni%C3%B1o-and-la-ni%C3%B1a

The restoration of the Araguaia Corridor relies on planting native trees. To do this, we need native seeds to produce seedlings for the restoration process! Many of our seeds come from our seed collective, which originally started spontaneously, but has proven to be a valuable asset in providing our project with seeds. 

A few years ago, individuals from local communities took the initiative to start collecting and providing us with seeds from their gardens, plots of land, and farms.  

This initiative is growing, and now shows immense potential in providing a complementary income to groups living near the Araguaia River! Our field team has been diligently reaching out to different communities and encouraging them to join our seed collective.  

The local seed collective not only allows for an income, but for livelihoods. As communities start to see the value of keeping their forest intact, for social and economic benefits, they want to secure the forest and make sure they collect seeds in a sustainable manner. 

Click through the images below to see our seed collective in motion

We are thrilled to announce that we have recently partnered with CAIXA BANK to support us in planting 1 million trees in the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor! Together, we will promote the restoration of 600 ha of degraded land in permanent preservation areas and legal reserves in the Amazon rainforest and Cerrado Savana.  

Caixa Econômica Federal (Federal Savings Bank), referred to in Brazil as CAIXA, is one of the two federal banks in Brazil and is the fourth largest financial institute in Latin America. 

After a thorough application process and two field visits from CAIXA management, we signed the BJF-CAIXA partnership in March.  

CAIXA’s Social-Environmental Fund is an initiative that was started by the Brazilian bank in 2010, with the aim of using some of their resources to support social-environmental projects and investments in Brazil.  

Click through the images below to catch a glimpse of CAIXA visiting one of our restoration sites:

CAIXA believes in a philosophy of high-quality restoration, and therefore trusts the Black Jaguar Foundation to carry out the project in a sustainable, long-lasting manner, together with the local community. Just like the Black Jaguar Foundation, CAIXA believes that restoration is a lot more than just planting a tree.  

With this partnership, we aim to focus on further involving local communities in our project, continuing to identify and validate environmentally degraded areas, and implementing environmental restoration activities where possible and needed. 

We are very grateful for the funding we will receive from CAIXA for the growing and planting of 1 million native trees in the coming planting seasons. In addition to this, we are working around the clock to get the financial support for the 3-year maintenance element, to complete the BJF restoration process and assure the return of a healthy ecosystem. 

This first million native trees with CAIXA is only the start: we believe this partnership, based on mutual values, will allow us to continue our mission in realizing the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor together with great success! 

Last but not least, a big thank you goes out to you! Your continuing and amazing support during the past years, has enabled us to make such progress, and create these amazing milestones together.      

Find out more about how CAIXA is innovating for a better future by visiting their First 600 page here!  

Meet some of the faces behind our planting season 2021-2022. As this season is nearing its end, Our planters in the field have been working hard to plant as many native trees as possible before the planting window closes. We captured some of the people behind the planting this season to share with you!

Click through all the images below to see some of the smiling faces behind the planting:

Ciclus Engenharia is a Brazilian company specialized in the planning, execution and monitoring of environmental and forestry services. and is our new partner in supporting us to scale up our field operations ! They have been contracted by the BJF to help manage our labor force in the field. 

As the size of our restoration continues to increase significantly, so does our need for labor power. Ciclus will allow for the improvement of both the management and preparation of the planters we employ in the field. Furthermore, Ciclus also possesses extensive knowledge of restoration, and is able to help our technical team supervise restoration activities. Thanks to our partnership with Ciclus, we are able to ensure that our field team is engaging in safe and effective restoration practices!