Conservation International
In this former project, a strategy called the ‘Mosaics of Protected Areas’ was established to strengthen and manage the forest corridors of the Atlantic Forest.
Objective
The Atlantic Forest stretches from the north-eastern to the southern regions of Brazil and into northern Argentina and south-eastern Paraguay. Five hundred years ago, the Atlantic Forest covered approximately 330 million acres (about twice the size of Texas). Today, less than eight per cent of the forest remains as a result of widespread deforestation, and what remains is highly fragmented. Over the last 50 years, the destruction and degradation of the Atlantic Forest has been as severe as that of the previous three centuries combined.
Despite being the world’s most threatened tropical forest, the Atlantic Forest still maintains extremely high levels of biodiversity, making it one of the highest priorities for conservation action globally. The area is home to tens of thousands of plant species as well as 153 threatened species, a range of biological diversity similar to that of the Amazon. Many of the remaining forest fragments in the Atlantic Forest need to be protected immediately in order to prevent species extinctions.
Impact
Rebuilding the Atlantic Forest involves piecing together sustainably managed mosaics of land. Forest corridors, which are areas of vegetation that allow animals to travel from one patch of forest to another, are critical to increasing the survival of the forest’s endangered species. This is very important in the highly fragmented Atlantic Forest.
A strategy, called the ‘Mosaics of Protected Areas’, was established by Conservation International to strengthen and manage forest ‘mosaics’ (clusters of forest) and create forest corridors that link these mosaics together.
The sustainable forest mosaics concept complements ongoing initiatives around sustainable forestry, certification, restoration, conservation, and land use planning. It serves as a conceptual framework, coordinating the work of various initiatives in a coherent, sustainable landscape.
TreadRight has provided support to Conservation International to carry out the large-scale initiative to protect and effectively manage approximately three million hectares of the Atlantic Forest.
UN GLOBAL GOALS
This project implemented sustainable forest management practices to protect the Atlantic Forest. The forest has an important role to play in carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation.
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