ARCA will facilitate the development of innovations led by traditional peoples and communities, as well as family farmers, and support the scaling of biodiverse agroforestry systems, ecological restoration and sustainable management of socio-biodiversity products.
The Regenerative Agriculture for the Conservation of the Amazon (ARCA) programme has begun in Brazil with the signing of a cooperation agreement between the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
ARCA’s objectives include promoting rural development, biodiversity conservation and the socio-environmental resilience of traditional peoples and communities. It will advance nature-based solutions (NBS) in areas surrounding conservation units, Indigenous lands, quilombola and agrarian reform settlements in seven territories across three Amazonian states.
The programme, which will run for four years, will focus on capacity building, collaboration, and innovation. Its central aim is the adoption and dissemination of regenerative practices and solutions adapted to each context, whilst strengthening inclusive participation and access to resources and markets, and providing subsidies to guide policies and investments. In the bigger picture, it aims to reduce the drivers of deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, and biodiversity loss.
The ARCA programme operates directly in the northeast and southeast of the state of Pará; Portal da Amazônia and Alto Xingu in the state of Mato Grosso; and the Gurupi Mosaic, Médio Mearim and Vale do Itapecuru in the state of Maranhão. All of these territories are located in the eastern part of the Amazon’s Arc of Deforestation – the region where, according to the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), the agricultural border advances towards the forest and where the highest rates of deforestation in the Amazon are found.
ARCA seeks to promote the conservation and restoration of protected areas, while at the same time improving communities’ livelihoods and supporting the adoption of regenerative systems and practices at the interface between forests and agriculture, ecological restoration, and the management of non-timber forest products.
The program is coordinated by CIFOR-ICRAF and involves four strategic partners: Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), Instituto Sociedade População e Natureza (ISPN), Instituto Ouro Verde (IOV) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Brasil.
These partners will develop the capacity of grassroots organizations and local partners and participate in governance forums in the territories in which they operate. They will also manage small projects aimed at grassroots organizations, collaborating in the joint design of technological solutions, territorial planning processes and inputs for proposing public policies.
Context
The Brazilian Amazon encompasses a network of different categories of protected areas (conservation units, Indigenous lands, quilombola areas, and legal reserves in agrarian reform settlements) that play a central role in conserving biodiversity, providing ecosystem services, and sustaining traditional peoples and communities.
These tracts of forest are threatened by external degradation factors, including illegal logging, agricultural and livestock systems that often use fire as a land management practice, and commodity plantations with low productivity and diversity. What’s more, communities, civil society institutions, local governments and landowners rarely have access to tools or methods for designing technical solutions tailored to different objectives and local contexts.
ARCA’s step-by-step plan
Interventions in the chosen territories will be carried out primarily by mobilizing networks of demonstration units, ‘mini landscapes’ (collective farms or reserves) and projects targeting grassroots organizations and Indigenous communities, especially around protected areas. This work will enable farmer-led innovations and learning to scale up biodiverse agroforestry systems, restoration, and sustainable collection of non-timber forest products.
At the territorial level, studies combined with monitoring and modelling will feed into land use and natural resource plans. Activities aimed at strengthening governance forums and the participation of local actors will contribute to the development of equitable business models and socio-environmental safeguards, reducing risks and improving conditions for investors and private sector buyers.
At wider scales, the results will serve to integrate learning between territories, produce technical-scientific publications and generate recommendations for the sub-national and national levels of public policy processes.
For more information, please contact Julio Sampaio, ARCA programme leader: J.Sampaio@cifor-icraf.org
Acknowledgements
The ARCA programme has been made possible thanks to financial support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
