Farmers prepare to access financial incentives for preserving nature
Emater provides technical rural assistance to 120 families in Monte Alegre to join the Payment for Environmental Services, a strategy of 'Forest + Amazon'
With the support of the local office of the Technical Assistance and Rural Extension Company of the State of Pará (Emater) in Monte Alegre, in Baixo Amazonas, 120 rural families are preparing to join the Payment for Environmental Services (PSA), a constant strategy of Forest + Amazon.
The Forest + Amazon is a partnership between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Ministry of the Environment (MMA), and the Government of Pará aimed at financially compensating farmers who preserve nature and restore ecosystems, preferably both initiatives, within their lands and properties. The expectation is that each family will receive, per year and per hectare, up to R$ 2,695.
Emater, the City Hall, and the State Secretariat for the Environment and Sustainability (Semas) met with interested families in the municipality on July 7 and 8 to qualify for the Program.
During the service at the Assembly of God Events Center, in the Limão Community, and at the auditorium of the Federal University of Western Pará (Ufopa), Emater guided cassava growers, corn planters, and small livestock farmers on public policies, issued national registrations for family farming (cafs), and forwarded corrections and validations of rural environmental registrations (cars).
“Emater's regular work already incorporates sustainable management, forest conservation, and good practices. From the PSA perspective, we intensified the introduction of alternatives such as agroforestry systems [safs], with cocoa and banana, and the development of Pradas [Projects for the Recovery of Degraded and Altered Areas]. We are already implementing a Prada in the Terra Preta community, with property scanning, environmental impact study, etc.,” says the head of the local Emater office in Monte Alegre, agricultural technician Francisco Carlos Lima, graduated in Public Management.
PSA
Internal reports from Emater show that, by June 2025, the state agency had preliminarily registered more than two thousand families from nine municipalities in Pará in the PSA. The work meets the goals of the Decentralized Execution Term, celebrated with Semas within the scope of the project Valoriza Territórios Sustentáveis (Valoriza TS).
The technical coordinator of Emater, veterinarian Cristiane Corrêa, a master's in Family Agriculture and Sustainable Rural Development, explains that official technical assistance and rural extension, on behalf of the State Government, are fundamental in the PSA.
“Public technical assistance and rural extension (ater) is an effective and sustainable tool of the PSA mechanism itself, even for raising awareness and mobilizing family farmers and traditional communities, so that they understand and are included: receiving information about what it is, how it works, and what the benefits are. The extension teams are also there, physically present and acting as a reciprocal bridge of knowledge, resulting in technological diffusion, ecosystem services, sustainable practices, and recovery of degraded and altered areas,” illustrates Cristiane Corrêa.
The veterinarian also highlights the encouragement of food production: “Our guideline always resonates in food and nutritional security, improvement of quality of life, respect for traditions, and guarantee of citizenship and dignity,” she points out.
Text by Aline Miranda
