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Suzano and Sofidel join forces for a pilot program to protect biodiversity and support local communities in the Amazon region

 :2023-06-01 来源:Suzano、 Sofidel 分类: Enterprise

Suzano, the world’s largest producer of hardwood pulp, and Sofidel, a leading tissue paper producer, today announce “Together we plant the future - Developing biodiversity corridors towards a more sustainable future”, a landmark three-year pilot project which will advance ecological conservation and restoration, alongside supporting socio-economic development in the Amazon region in Brazil. This will be delivered with support and on-the-ground implementation from IABS, the Brazilian Institute for Development and Sustainability and Amazônia Onlus, an Italian non-profit active to defend the forest and the people of the Amazon.


Through the partnership, Sofidel’s investment will scale up sustainable business models that can be adopted by communities living alongside the rainforest, at the same time as improving their food security and nutritional quality. In the first phase, this will help lift about 1,400 family farmers out of poverty through income-generation projects, including increasing agricultural productivity, beekeeping, and the cultivation and commercialization of native species such as açaí berries and babassu coconuts. 


Alongside this, ”Together we plant the future” will fund the creation of an important biodiversity corridor to promote connectivity within a 2,210 square kms area of high ecological value rainforest, straddling the border between the Brazilian states of Maranhão and Pará. This will be achieved through a combination of natural habitat restoration and sustainable agroforestry systems, contributing to Suzano’s long-term goal to create biodiversity corridors that connect half a million hectares (5,000 square kilometers) of priority areas in Brazil’s Amazon, Atlantic Forest and Cerrado biomes by 2030 –an area equivalent to more than 700,000 football pitches.


The biodiversity corridor will benefit a range of native species in the region that are impacted by the fragmentation of habitats. These include the jaguar (Panthera onca), red-necked araçari (Pteroglossus bitorquatus), channel-billed toucan (Ramphastos vitellinus), South American tapir (Tapirus terrestrius), eastern black-handed tamarin monkey (Saguinus ursulus), red-handed howler monkey (Alouatta belzebul), and black bearded saki monkey (Chiropotes satanas), many of which are currently considered to be threatened or vulnerable to extinction.