Brazil, the parts of forests returned to the indigenous people have started to grow again
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Brazil, Atlantic Forest. A huge area that includes rainforests, dry forests, mangroves, grasslands, savannahs. And which is unfortunately in danger, threatened by deforestation and soil consumption. But there is a little good news, which says a lot about how strong and significant the impact of human activity is. A study just published in the journal Pnas Nexus has shown that in the “returned” portions of the forest – after the agreements for the recognition of land usufruct to the indigenous communities who have inhabited them for centuries – deforestation has reduced and the trees have returned to grow. The work, conducted by a group of experts from the University of Colorado Boulder, confirms the hypothesis – already supported by similar previous research – that the legal recognition of the “right to land” of indigenous peoples is not only an effective tool to reduce land exploitation and human rights violations, but also to mitigate change climate change and biodiversity loss.
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“Our study,” he explained Rayna Benzeev, first author of the work, “adds an important piece to the growing body of evidence that indigenous land tenure has often enhanced reforestation: a fact we now know is also true for the Atlantic Forest, a region that has undergone the process of deforestation for a long period of time” mainly due to agriculture, urbanization, mining and timber harvesting. “Protecting forests”, echoes Peter Newton, co-author of the work, “is not only important for the health of trees and for biodiversity in general. It is also essential for the populations that inhabit and depend on them: keep consideration of human well-being is an integral part of the sustainable future of forests”.
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The Atlantic Forest is the second largest rainforest in Brazil: it covers an area of about 90,000 square kilometers, more or less a third of Italy, and extends for about 3,000 kilometers along the Atlantic coast, touching 17 different Brazilian states and large cities like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Five centuries of deforestation have reduced its surface to just over a tenth of its original size (for comparison, the Amazon Forest still retains about 80% of its original area): “The Atlantic Forest”, Benzeev explains, ” “It has great reforestation potential. So far, the international community has underestimated it, even though it is more critically endangered than the Amazon rainforest.”
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In the recently published study, the researchers analyzed data relating to 129 indigenous communities residing in the Atlantic Forest to which, between 1985 and 2019, land rights were formally recognized, crossing them with satellite photographs from the same period of time: in this way they observed, precisely, that in the areas “returned” to the indigenous peoples, deforestation and reforestation had respectively slowed down and increased compared to the areas formally remaining in the hands of the government. “Our work,” Benzeev continues, “shows that every year since the formalization of indigenous land rights there has been a 0.77 percent increase in forest cover compared to other lands.” A quantity that, added up over the decades, means a lot more forest.
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But there is still a lot to do, especially from a political point of view: “In recent years there has been a ‘stagnation’ in the process of returning the land to the indigenous people. We need to work to make these processes more continuous: in this way, the indigenous peoples will be able to obtain territorial autonomy – and therefore reforestation can progress – regardless of political changes at the national level”.
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