Restoring the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor - One Farm at a Time

The problem

Despite being one of the world's most ambitious environmental laws, Brazil's Forest Code remains widely under-implemented. Millions of hectares of environmental liabilities (degraded Permanent Preservation Areas and Legal Reserves) sit unrestored on private properties across the country, not because landowners are indifferent, but because the barriers to compliance are real and structural. Restoration is technically complex, financially demanding, and logistically challenging, particularly in remote regions where supply chains are fragmented, skilled labour is scarce, and access to credit and technical assistance is limited. For smallholders and agrarian reform settlers, these barriers are even higher. Yet within this gap between legal obligation and on-the-ground reality lies an extraordinary opportunity: millions of hectares of land that must, by law, be restored — representing one of the largest potential restoration pipelines on the planet. BJF exists precisely to bridge this gap, turning a compliance obligation into an economic opportunity and a local development pathway, one farm at a time.

The Tocantins-Araguaia Basin covers approximately 9% of Brazil's territory and sits at the confluence of the Amazon and the Cerrado, two biomes that together house more than 40% of the world's biodiversity. More than 70% of the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor has been deforested over the past 50 years, driven by agricultural expansion and cattle ranching. The region is now experiencing the consequences: more frequent droughts, reduced river flow, diminished soil health, and declining agricultural productivity. The farmers we work with are living these consequences every day.

The solution

The Black Jaguar Foundation is restoring 1 million hectares across Brazil's Amazon reinforest and Cerrado Savanna. But this isn't traditional conservation. We're not buying land or fencing nature away. We're partnering directly with farmers and local communities to restore what Brazilian law already requires, while making restoration economically viable and community-owned.

Our model is integrated around a 17-step ecological restoration cycle developed and refined over eight successful planting seasons. We provide the full package of technical, legal, and financial support to rural landowners and agrarian reform settlers to restore Permanent Preservation Areas and Legal Reserves on their properties under the Brazilian Forest Code. We engage and work with the local communities, governments and private sector to deliver end-to-end ecological restoration operations. We do not plant trees and leave, we stay for three years of active maintenance and up to 20 years of monitoring, using over 80 native species adapted to the specific ecological conditions of the Cerrado-Amazon transition zone.

Over eight successul planting seasons years, our farmer-centered model has restored over 945 hectares across 29 partner farms. We've planted almost 2 million native trees with native seeds supplied by the 150 seed collectors—70% women—creating alternative livelihoods from standing forest. With 75 full time employyes located in Santana do Araguaia and over 2,000,000 R$ invested in the local economy we are building a restoration economy. Camera traps already document 15 native mammal species, including jaguars and maned wolves.

Now we're scaling. With new funding and a second hub launching soon, we'll reach 6000 cumulative hectares and ecological restoration in agrarian reform farms within four years.

The challenge we are asking you to help us overcome

The greatest challenge BJF faces is not in the field, it is in being seen and heard at the scale our work deserves. We are a small organisation doing large-scale work in a remote region of Brazil, without the institutional visibility of major conservation organisations. Every hectare we restore, every farmer we partner with, every jaguar that walks through our camera traps is proof that this model works. The RestorLife Award would give that proof a global platform, and help us attract the investment, partnerships, and policy support needed to realise the longest biodiversity corridor on Earth.