Our first major restoration project
Five hectares for the Atlantic Forest
Five hectares. Around 6,000 eucalyptus trees. Nothing native left growing beneath them. This is where our first restoration begins.
· Santuário Jacupemba
We have engaged a local company to begin clearing approximately five hectares of eucalyptus plantation at Santuário Jacupemba. An estimated 6,000 trees stand on this part of the land. The previous owners planted them for the pulp and paper industry; they are not native to the Atlantic Forest.
The result is a monoculture: nothing else grows in this part of the land, and the native wildlife that once belonged here is gone. Where a living Atlantic Forest ecosystem should be, there is now only eucalyptus. We want to give the land back to native plants and animals.
Vera shares the project
See Vera’s Instagram reel about this first restoration project.
Watch Vera’s reel on Instagram
Clearing is only the beginning
The local company will cut the eucalyptus without poison, herbicides or any other chemicals. We will control regrowth by cutting it back, not by spraying the land.
Rewilding will not start immediately after the trees are cut. There will be a substantial period of monitoring and repeated trimming so that eucalyptus shoots and saplings do not take hold again. Only when regrowth is under control will we begin planting thousands of locally native trees and supporting natural regeneration.
This is our first major restoration project. Five hectares will not become mature rainforest overnight. But every stretch of land freed from plantation trees can help the Atlantic Forest reclaim space, one native tree at a time.