Jan 22, 2018

Resources correspond to 97.5% of the total investment of the “Corredor Ecológico Monte Pascoal – Pau-Brasil” project

The Bank’s environmental restoration portfolio totals R$ 293 million intended for 29,000 hectares

The Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) approved a non-reimbursable financial cooperation of R$ 3.66 million in favor of the environmental group Natureza Bela, intended for the restoration of 210 hectares of Atlantic Forest in the state of Bahia.

The resources from BNDES’s Social Fund, within the scope of BNDES’s Ecological Restoration program, correspond to 97.5% of the total investment of the “Corredor Ecológico Monte Pascoal – Pau-Brasil” project, located in the Mosaic Protected Area of the Extreme South of Bahia (MEPS).

The degraded areas that will benefit from BNDES’s support correspond to 100 hectares in Parque Nacional do Pau Brasil, 53 hectares in Parque Nacional do Monte Pascoal and 57 hectares in the Indigenous Land of Barra Velha, located in the municipalities of Porto Seguro and Santa Cruz Cabrália, Bahia. The project will allow the growth of the forest to reduce the emission of approximately 46,000 tonnes of CO2.

Another highlight of the project is the integration between the environmental group Natureza Bela and the population occupying the areas to be benefited. This will allow the parks’ employees, the farmers living in the surrounding region and the indigenous peoples to be trained in restoration techniques, generating jobs, income and qualifying them to properly manage the region’s forest restoration chain.

BNDES’s support to the restoration of Brazilian biomes follows the guidelines of the Forest Code from 2012 and the National Policy of Native Vegetation Recovery (PROVEG), established in 2017. The Bank’s portfolio for ecological restoration accounts for a total of R$ 293 million in support of 29 projects, encompassing a total area of 29.1 thousand hectares, with 7.1 thousand being non-refundable and 22,000 being reimbursable resources. The prospect for the next three decades is of increase in demand for funding intended for restoration activities.

Natureza Bela – The Environmental group Natureza Bela was founded in 2001, in the municipality of Itabela, Bahia, as a civil society organization of public interest (OSCIP), whose mission was to contribute to the conservation of nature, promoting environmental education and strengthening citizenship. Since the beginning of its activities, the institution has dedicated itself to the recovery of degraded areas through the planting of native seedlings, monitoring of areas and formation of ecological corridors in the extreme south of Bahia, accounting for the restoration of 653 hectares.