The Arboredo Project, in partnership with local Guarani, quilombola, and family farming communities in Brazil, exceeded its planting target while building lasting forest restoration capacity across two priority territories.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (13 October 2026) – Forest Trends and the Arbor Day Foundation have planted one million trees with local communities in Brazil’s Atlantic Rainforest as part of the first phase of the Arboredo Project. Well over one million trees (1,015,594) have been planted across an area roughly 3.7 times the size of the City of London (1,089 hectares) in the Ribeira and Paraíba Valleys of São Paulo State since 2023.
The Arboredo Project directly engaged 379 families, mobilized 40 organizations and community groups, supported four community nurseries, and created 110 job opportunities linked to forest recovery and food production. More than 1.7 million Brazilian Reales flowed through the local restoration economy through the purchase of native seeds and seedlings, tools needed for planting, labor, and consultation of local experts.
The project was centered in some of the most complex and important social and ecological landscapes in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Implementation on the ground was led by local cooperative Cooperativa Para A Bioeconomia (COOBIO) in the Ribeira Valley and Akarui in the Paraíba Valley, both groups deeply rooted in their territories and the communities they work with.
The Arboredo Project reinforced local seed and seedling supply chains, strengthened community nurseries, created income opportunities, and supported agroforestry systems that connect food security, land stewardship, and income. The project leaves behind fully operational community nurseries, trained local teams, territorial cooperation networks, improved monitoring protocols, and institutional relationships capable of supporting future reforestation projects.
Key Outcomes:
- Refinement and use of the muvuca-rara is a direct seeding method, done by hand or with farm equipment, using a diverse mix of species selected for each territory. Some seeds sprout quickly, while others take years. This staggered timing is intentional to mimic how a forest actually grows.
- According to monitoring carried out with technical support from São Paulo State University, Registro Campus, seedling emergence rates (how many seedlings sprouted out of seeds planted) were 48% above projections. These findings are a strong signal of the muvuca method’s potential to be a good fit for other replanting projects in the Atlantic Forest.
- Eight experimental agroforestry plots were established across five communities in the Paraíba Valley, allowing farmers to combine forest recovery with food production and diversify income. Native plant nurseries produced tens of thousands of seedlings from up to 40 species.
- Across both project territories, 229 native plant species were used in replanting activities, including the diverse mix needed for the muvuca method, and species with nutritional, medicinal, and economic value for communities.
- Of the 18,000 kg of seeds purchased across both territories, about 44% came directly from local community seed networks, keeping money in the hands of local seed collectors.
- 56% of participants across Arboredo Project activities were women or youth, which is consistent with Forest Trends’ decades of experience working with Indigenous and local communities; replanting is not only “men’s work” or about land management – it is also a cultural practice, livelihood strategy, and generational commitment.
- Quilombola communities played an important role in local seed supply chains, connecting their traditional knowledge of native species with the practical demands of large-scale replanting. Family farmers and smallholders implemented the project in both valleys, managing restored areas, producing seedlings, and participating in training and knowledge exchange.
- In the Paraíba Valley, the Vale do Paraíba Agroecology Network (made up of 24 partner organizations), has become a regional hub for planning, coordination, and collective action.
- The Entre Serras e Vales Alliance, developed during the final phase of the project, brings together social organizations, technical institutions, and research groups across the Paraíba Valley, Serra do Mar, and Serra da Mantiqueira, to create a broader landscape stewardship strategy based on experiences from the Arboredo Project.
For Forest Trends’ Communities and Territorial Governance Initiative, the Arboredo Project reflects a deliberate approach to forest restoration: one that treats biodiversity and climate outcomes as inseparable from the economic resilience, climate resilience, and food security of the communities doing the work.
“Planting trees is only meaningful if the people planting them have reasons to protect and manage those forests for decades to come,” said Beto Borges, Director of Forest Trends’ Communities and Territorial Governance Initiative. “Arboredo showed that when communities lead, the environmental and social results reinforce each other. Local organizations like COOBIO and Akarui were not just implementers. They were the authors of this work.”
The next proposed step for this work is the Arboredo EntreVales Project, which would connect restoration efforts across four landscapes and translate experience gained during the Arboredo Project into a larger-scale strategy to strengthen community and landscape resilience in the region.
About Forest Trends
Forest Trends works to conserve forests and other ecosystems through the creation and wide adoption of environmental finance, markets, and other payment and incentive mechanisms. Our Communities and Territorial Governance Initiative partners with Indigenous and other forest communities on innovations to secure their rights, livelihoods, and cultures through a strategy built on advocacy, economic self-determination, and cultural integrity.
About the Arbor Day Foundation
Founded in 1972, the Arbor Day Foundation is the largest nonprofit membership organization dedicated to planting trees. Together with its partners, the Foundation has helped plant more than 500 million trees in neighborhoods, communities, cities, and forests throughout the world. More information is available at arborday.org.
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