iracambi's exciting new program
Smart Forests
Making complex systems understandable & available to all
SMART FORESTS
Over the last twenty years, Iracambi has planted over 160,000 trees in the remote mountains of the Serra do Brigadeiro and we now plan to plant thousands more. This has been grindingly hard work, hauling seedlings up mountainsides, and a percentage of the young seedlings has fallen prey to invasive grass or ant attacks. As you can imagine we have learned a lot about how to do successful reforestation in fragmented forests, as well as mistakes that we don’t need to repeat.
As our focus shifts more closely to climate action and planting thousands more trees, we need more than ever to be sure that our reforestation model is efficient and this is where Iracambi Smart Forest comes in.
This exciting new program, still under development, aims to build up a picture of ecosystem health in the neighboring forests – old growth, regenerated and restored – and provide a baseline standard for monitoring restoration projects in subtropical forest ecosystems.
We plan to continue quantifying and monitoring changes in forest systems, as well as developing scientifically validated, data-based reference conditions for forest restoration. Data will be stored in the Iracambi GIS and, along with our existing portfolio of maps, made freely available on the web.
Data to be collected will focus on vegetation, fauna, soils, and water, as well as weather and sounds. Biotic data: (vegetation cover, presence and health, as well as wildlife presence, population size and status,) provide insight into the composition of an ecosystem, its habitat and ecological functions. Environmental data: (soils, water, weather and sounds,) tell us about the conditions that allow an ecosystem to function successfully. Interactions between dynamic biotic and environmental data will provide a sound basis for ecosystem management and predictive monitoring.
Data collection will be carried out by remote sensing as well as by boots on the ground, using camera traps, catch and release, visual and sound monitoring, in addition to the appropriate equipment for monitoring soils, water and weather. Drone-mounted cameras and LIDAR will help complete the picture of ecosystem health – or lack thereof – which can be used to inform restoration projects in similar degraded forest sites in other areas.
Forests 4 Water Project
The Forest Trails at Iracambi
Reforestation Priorities
Monitoring the threat from mining
Will you help us?
We have made great progress but there is so much more we can do. In order for us to continue to build up our database and identify more areas for reforestation we need your help!
We really need support for this project. If you are interested in helping us please contact us.