© Bruno Kelly/USAID
The Regenerative Agriculture for Conservation of the Amazon (ARCA in its Portuguese acronym) Program will promote Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in buffer zones around conservation units, Indigenous lands, quilombolas and land reform settlements in seven territories in three of Brazil’s Amazonian states.
Launched in October 2023, this four-year program led by CIFOR-ICRAF is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The territories where the ARCA Program works directly are the northeast and southeast of the state of Pará; the Portal da Amazônia and Alto Xingu, in Mato Grosso; and the Mosaic of Gurupi, Médio Mearim and Itapecuru Valley, in Maranhão. All are located in the Brazilian Amazon’s Arc of Deforestation.
ARCA’s aim is to promote rural development, biodiversity conservation and the socio-environmental resilience of traditional communities through capacity building, collaboration, and innovation, for the adoption and spread of regenerative practices and context-sensitive solutions, while also strengthening inclusive participation, access to resources and markets and the gathering of evidence to guide policies and investments.
The program will be carried out in the territories by four of CIFOR-ICRAF’s strategic partners – Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), Instituto Sociedade População e Natureza (ISPN), Instituto Ouro Verde (IOV) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Brasil.
The strategic partners will do capacity building with local partners and take part in governance forums in their respective territories. They will also manage small projects run by partners and grassroots organizations, and collaborate in the joint design of technological solutions, territorial planning processes and proposals for public policy making.
Contact us
Julio Sampaio
Program leader
Intended impact
Adoption by farmers and traditional communities of biodiverse agroforestry systems, ecological restoration, and sustainable forest management of non-timber products (Nature-Based Solutions) in the priority territories, on a scale large enough to recover the environment and reduce pressures for deforestation and degradation.
Equitable business models and socio-environmental safeguards in place in the territories, reducing risks and enhancing conditions for communities, investors, and private-sector buyers.
Public policy processes at sub-national and national levels emerging from action research, capacity building and participatory territorial management by traditional communities, Indigenous Peoples and quilombolas, together with rural support agencies and governmental bodies.
Specific objectives
1
Strengthen capacities in innovative tools, approaches, and techniques for the co-construction, innovation, and adoption of regenerative agriculture adapted to local social, biophysical, market and political contexts
2
Support the development of Nature-Based Solutions through a network of demonstration units and micro-projects focused on grassroots organizations and traditional communities
3
Strengthen the capacities of women and young people to play greater roles in decision-making on sustainable rural development alternatives
4
Provide methodological and logistical support to strengthen or create participatory forums on land use and natural-resource management
5
Carry out research and diagnostics on degradation factors, dynamics of value chains, and local innovation in NBS and regenerative agriculture, gathering evidence to produce know-how and learning cycles for public policy making
6
Support market access for traditional communities and groups of family farmers, develop their social and environmental safeguards and inclusive business models, and attract sustainable private sector investments
ARCA CIFOR-ICRAF team
Alison Castilho
Landscape coordinator for Pará state
Denyse Mello
Monitoring, evaluation and learning coordinator
The ARCA Program’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
1
No Poverty
2
Zero Hunger and Sustainable Agriculture
5
Gender Equality
10
Reduced Inequalities
12
Responsible Consumption and Production
15
Life on Land
Statements
The ARCA Program is innovative in that it acts primarily in buffer areas of protected areas and with traditional communities and indigenous peoples. The institutions have extensive experience in agroforestry, restoration, regenerative agriculture, management of non-timber forest products, and governance. This association of strategic partners will enable the transformation and strengthening of territories, contributing to the conservation of natural areas and the inclusion of family farmers and traditional communities in ecological processes.
Andrew Miccolis
CIFOR-ICRAF country coordinator, Brazil
The ARCA Program is innovative in that it acts primarily in buffer areas of protected areas and with traditional communities and indigenous peoples. The institutions have extensive experience in agroforestry, restoration, regenerative agriculture, management of non-timber forest products, and governance. This association of strategic partners will enable the transformation and strengthening of territories, contributing to the conservation of natural areas and the inclusion of family farmers and traditional communities in ecological processes.
Beatriz Moraes Murer
Head of ARCA for the Instituto Socioambiental
The Instituto Sociedade População e Natureza (ISPN) is an entity that already works with environmental conservation, climate and sustainable use of biodiversity. In Maranhão, a state with one of the highest deforestation rates in Brazil, the ARCA Program is an important step towards addressing social inequalities, generating income, improving access to markets and outflow of production from family farmers and traditional peoples and communities. All of this is combined with the strategy of agroforestry, restoration, regenerative agriculture, and the strengthening of civil society governance forums.
Ana Tereza Ferreira
ISPN ARCA coordinator in Maranhão state
In the Portal da Amazônia territory, north of Mato Grosso, the ARCA Program strengthens the actions that the Ouro Verde Institute has developed in recent decades with family farmers in the region, among them the expansion and qualification of the credit action by the Banco Comunitário Raiz (Raiz Community Bank), and also the expansion of the commercialization of agroecological and agroforestry products by SISCOS – Solidarity Commercialization System; support for the activities of the Amazon Portal Seeds Network; connection of partners who research and work in the line of forest restoration; formation of a collective of young community communicators and others. These actions are guided by the Institute’s concern to strengthen family farmers, their communities and initiatives so that they can continue with their practices of caring for the environment and well-being, especially in this territory, which is an area of agribusiness expansion.
Ana Carolina Bogo
Instituto Ouro Verde (IOV) coordinator
Through ARCA, we will strengthen the capacities of basic institutions of family farming, such as cooperatives, associations and agro-industries, as well as rural leaders in the municipalities of São Félix do Xingu, Altamira (via the Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area) and Tucumã, through training and capacity building in agroforestry arrangements, environmental restoration and regenerative agriculture. We will also work to improve multi-stakeholder governance in southeastern Pará by facilitating a network of sustainable rural development and agroecological transition.” In addition to the actions planned in the southeast of Pará, TNC will also work on the improvement of public policies aimed at forest restoration in the Brazilian Amazon, via the Alliance for Restoration in the Amazon and its members, a collective in which it currently plays the role of executive secretary.
Rodrigo Freire
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Brazil’s private areas leader in the Brazilian Amazon
Concepts
Regenerative agriculture is an agricultural production system that aims to improve ecosystem health while promoting the resilience and sustainability of farming communities. This agricultural model focuses on regenerating natural resources, such as soil, water, and biodiversity, while also seeking to increase productivity and income for farmers. – Regenerative agriculture to value water and soils.
“Nature-based solutions address societal challenges through actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural and modified ecosystems, while benefiting people and nature. They address important challenges such as climate change, disaster risk reduction, food and water security, biodiversity loss and human health, and are key to sustainable development” – IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).
Agroforestry systems
“Systems based on the dynamics, ecology and management of natural resources that, through the integration of trees on the property and in the agricultural landscape, diversify and sustain production with greater social, economic and environmental benefits for all those who use the soil at various scales” – JOSE, S. Agroforestry for ecosystem services and environmental benefits: An overview. Agroforestry Systems, v. 76, p. 1 – 10, 2009.
Ecological restoration
“The process of assisting in the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged or destroyed to a recovery trajectory that allows adaptation to local and global changes, as well as the persistence and evolution of its constituent species” – SER, 2019. International principles and standards for the practice of ecological restoration. Second edition: November 2019. Society for Ecological Restoration, Washington, D.C. 20005 U.S.A. Restoration Ecology 27(S1): S1–S46, 201.
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