Replanting denuded forests is a potentially effective tool in the fight against climate change. By trapping carbon dioxide in living trees, these projects can help slow global warming and restore wildlife habitats while protecting threatened species. However, there are many challenges facing environmental groups around the world seeking to reforest areas decimated by logging and ranching, and to prevent further degradation of these habitats. Daunting threats, including fires, seasonal flooding, and even arson, are just some of the obstacles that stand between conservationists and success.
For non-profit organizations like Rioterra, which has planted millions of young trees in the western Brazilian Amazon and seeks to reforest land decimated by illegal logging and ranching, the struggle is particularly daunting. In September 2021, Rioterra worker Milton da Costa Junior was threatened at gunpoint by two masked men on motorcycles who ordered him to stop planting trees. While the incident is still being investigated, it is just one example of the many challenges facing environmental groups working to counter the climate crisis.
Tree-planting initiatives have struggled to cultivate native trees on a mass scale in Brazil, where seasonal flooding and fires are perpetual worries. Furthermore, many farmers fear that conservationists want to push them out of the rainforest altogether in order to make way for reforestation efforts. Yet without significant investment in forest restoration, the Amazon risks reaching a tipping point at which it can no longer sustain itself as rainforest and instead dries out into a degraded savanna. According to climate scientist Carlos Nobre, this would require forest restoration over an area twice the size of Germany at a cost of over $20 billion.
The largest of Brazil’s dozens of reforestation initiatives are led by non-profits such as Rioterra and The Black Jaguar Foundation, which seek to expand their work in the years to come. Rioterra has reforested Amazon land approaching the size of Manhattan over the past decade and plans to more than double that by 2030 while spending approximately $2.4 million annually on reforestation. Black Jaguar Foundation, meanwhile, hopes to raise $3.7 billion in the next 20 years to restore forest the size of Lebanon. At present, the group has raised just 0.2% of its goal and planted just 0.03% of the target area.
Despite these challenges, scientists believe that Brazil is particularly well-suited to reforestation efforts due to the amount of previously forested land available for restoration. Much of this could happen naturally if adjacent, intact jungle were simply allowed to reclaim the scarred patches. According to Brazil’s laws, there is a level of forest conservation mandated that is unseen in most other countries. Yet the question of whether Brazil will invest the resources and efforts necessary to counteract the effects of deforestation remains open. While the country’s administration has made some attempts to promote reforestation, it remains hampered by other structural and economic factors.
The work of conservationists such as Rioterra and Black Jaguar Foundation remains vital in countering the effects of deforestation and mitigating against the worst effects of climate change. While the obstacles they face are considerable, their efforts to restore degraded habitats and ensuring the survival of threatened species offer hope in the face of a rapidly changing environment.
