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Conserving more than 70 thousand hectares in the Arc of Deforestation since 2009, protecting the Amazon and promoting sustainability.
The project mobilizes human and financial resources to protect its forests against invasions, as detailed below in the Main Activities Related to Threat Prevention section. Over the years, many property invasions and increased deforestation have been recorded in the Amazon region caused by illegal occupations. According to PRODES, a project that monitors deforestation in the Amazon Forest, the state of Mato Grosso, where the FSM project is located, has already lost 222,595.52 km2 of forest, which corresponds to 24.60% of the state's total area. , and the year 2021 was the year with the most deforestation since 2000. In the PRODES deforestation ranking, Colniza is the 8th city with the highest annual deforestation (2020/2021) and the 17th city with the largest deforested area in the Legal Amazon. Furthermore, we can assume that the numbers tend to be considerably more worrying because deforestation is only counted in areas larger than 6.25 hectares.
Main activities related to threat prevention
Prevention of illegal activities:
Fire Prevention and Control
Due to the geographical location of the project area, close to the conservation units Igarapés do Juruena State Park and Juruena National Park, we can assume possible positive impacts and contributions to the environment such as the maintenance of the ecological corridor, which is rich in fauna and flora and acts to control soil fragmentation, connectivity between populations, and as a refuge area for biodiversity. Additionally, the Project Area functions as a buffer zone for risks and threats to the mosaic of protected areas in the North of the State of Mato Grosso (Figure 1). The presence of many threatened species of flora and fauna around the project was identified, such as Leopardus tigrinus, Kunzia tomentosus, Dinomys branickii, Clytoctantes atrogularis, Bertholletia excelsa, Hevea brasiliensis, species).
Additionally, it is important to highlight that some areas surrounding the project are classified as Important Bird Conservation Areas (IBAs). There are only 234 IBAs in Brazil and we can say that the region close to the Santa Maria Project is one of them.
The red polygons in Figure 1 represent the limits of the Florestal Santa Maria project. In addition to highlighting the contrast between the deforested region and the forest region of the municipality of Colniza, the satellite image proves that the Santa Maria Forestry project is responsible for protecting large and contiguous forest fragments in this region since its beginning in 2009.
Figure 1. Region of the Florestal Santa Maria project in the Google Earth view (Landsat/Copernicus Satellite) for the years 2009 and 2016, and in the Planet satellite view for the year 2023.
The project baseline assumed that, in the absence of the project, the forest would have been illegally cut and the timber exploited, after which the area would have been transformed into pasture or coffee, two common practices in the project region. As described in the PDD document, before the start of the project the farm had recorded several cases of invasions, but with the project this was controlled due to the intensification of patrolling and inspection activities.
The project's initial deforestation model states that, in the absence of the project, 87.6% of the area could have been converted in 30 years. This is due to the fact that the first baseline was established based on the deforestation trend observed between 1999 and 2010, a time when deforestation rates were much higher than today. However, as initially foreseen in the methodology, every 10 years the baseline needs to be revalidated, which was done for the considerations of avoided deforestation from 2019 onwards. The new models now show much lower pressure in the project area , showing that the project has been efficient in reducing the risk of deforestation in its area.
Figure 2. Annual deforestation rates for the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, observed by the Official PRODES Monitoring Program
Yes, in addition to the REED+ project on the Santa Maria farm, sustainable wood management is carried out, interfering, however, not making the project unfeasible.
The existence of management interferes with the generation of credits since every activity that removes carbon from the project area is accounted for and deducted from the credits generated. In short, activities such as opening roads, dragging trees, the carbon stored in trees and even the impact they generate when they fall are accounted for and removed from the generation of credits.
Sustainable forest management involves the careful management of forest resources to ensure their conservation and sustainable use, while carbon generation refers to projects that seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the sequestration or reduction of CO2e emissions. The availability of sustainably harvested wood from the forest is an interesting tool for controlling leakage, as it meets the region's demand for wood in a sustainable manner, avoiding the opening of new surrounding areas for this purpose. As evidence of sustainable wood management, the farm is FSC certified.
FSC is the Forest Stewardship Council, a global non-profit organization with the aim of promoting sustainable forest management, based on its standards that are currently the highest level of socio-environmental assessment exclusive to forest management activity. The standards used to evaluate FSM consider biodiversity conservation, water resources management, waste management, soil conservation, protection of workers' rights and work safety, relations with local communities, respect to the customary rights of traditional communities and various aspects of financial management and transparency.
Although the project began in 2009, Systemica took over the technical execution of the project in 2020 and since then has been dedicated to improving the project and its activities, valuing socio-environmental integrity based on scientific basis and transparency. Below are some of the updates made by Systemica since then:
Technical Updates:
Social Updates:
Yes, the most recent in September 2022, written by the Reuters news agency. He follows link to access the full article.
The criticisms made in the article are related to the following aspects: death of an outsourced employee in the project area, sale of carbon credits to a crypto company, lack of some social activities and loss of FSC certification.
In the first year of forest management, carried out by the new project owner, Caraguá, on May 17, 2021, there was a fatal accident during forest management activities, with an outsourced employee, who was wearing all personal protective equipment (PPE). , died after an antler fell. All first aid care was provided immediately, but, unfortunately, death occurred. It was a regrettable accident. Required safety equipment and techniques applicable to the activity were used on the occasion. The outsourced company paid compensation to the deceased's estate in the amount of 66 thousand reais and the companies Caraguá and Florestal Santa Maria paid compensation of 85 thousand reais.
Caraguá no longer works with the outsourced company's field activities, it currently carries out its field activities directly, has FSC certification and, even though it has no legal obligation, provides life insurance to its field employees. Currently, the Santa Maria Florestal REDD Project, managed by Caraguá, is in the implementation phase of social benefit sharing activities and international CCB certification. In this way, Caraguá's commitment and action in controlling the Redd Santa Maria Project reflect exactly the principles highlighted in the project description
As for the non-execution of some of the social activities initially planned by the project's former management, this is related to the lack of liquidity and low unit price of carbon credits, especially between the years 2012 and 2020, where the credits were sold at low prices. around 0.50 dollars, which although made it possible to preserve and develop some social activities, others ended up being unfeasible.
The sale of carbon credits to companies that carry out tokenization of credits is directly linked to the previous point, as it brings liquidity to the project, which was not available at the time, enabling the resumption of many social and biodiversity activities.
On the other hand, in addition to criticism, the project has also been recognized for its performance, for example, in an article in which a case study of avoided deforestation was used by Sylvera, one of the most important global assessment companies. of voluntary market projects. In the article written by Sylvera, FSM is highlighted as an example of a project that actually prevents deforestation and presents a solid baseline. He follows link to access the full article.
It is worth highlighting that Systemica is always open to listening and responding to criticisms and considerations of Florestal Santa Maria and all the projects in which it operates, with the aim of always improving and maintaining the highest possible integrity and transparency.
If you have any questions, criticisms or suggestions regarding the project, please write to us via email contato@systemica.digital or Whatsapp +55 11 5039-1080.