Productive restoration advances in the Amazon and becomes a real chance for income and inclusion for family farmers
At the Pará Pavilion of COP30, experts highlight how recovering Legal Reserves can unite conservation, agricultural production, and strengthening family farming
The panel "Opportunities for the Productive Recovery of Legal Reserves: integrating conservation, production, and inclusion," held this Thursday (14) in the Castanheira Room of the Pará Pavilion at COP30, brought together experts, producers, and representatives from public and private institutions. The discussion pointed out ways to transform degraded areas into diversified productive systems, increasing income, strengthening family farming, and recovering the forest.
The Secretary of Environment and Sustainability of Pará (SEMAS) has been promoting this agenda in the State, articulating norms, programs, and technical guidelines that stimulate the recovery of environmental liabilities through productive models. For the department, productive restoration represents a real opportunity to reconcile environmental regularization, socioeconomic inclusion, and job creation in the countryside.
The panel featured specialists in regularization and productive restoration. Among the discussion panel were Silvio Brienza Junior, EMBRAPA; Marcela Eberius Mendonça, Coordinator of Rural Environmental Regularization of SFB and Coordinator of the Regulariza Rural Kfw Project; Gracialda Costa Ferreira, Professor at UFRA; Martin Ewert, Coordinator of Family Farming and Regenerative Systems at TNC, and the Moderator was Luiz Edinelson Cardoso, Environmental Analyst at SEMAS.
In the debate, it was emphasized that the evolution of recovery practices, especially through agroforestry systems, has consolidated productive restoration as an effective alternative for family farmers who do not want to lose their areas of use. According to experts, the combination of native species with commercial crops, such as cocoa, helps to restructure soils, increase biodiversity, and strengthen a forest-based economy.
Martin Ewert, Coordinator of Family Farming and Regenerative Systems at The Nature Conservancy (TNC), reinforced this progress by commenting that productive models are already showing concrete results in different regions of Pará.
“In seven years of system evolution, we are returning to have a productive forest. We are bringing income to farmers and recovering degraded pasture areas,” he stated.
An important milestone for this expansion was the normative instruction built by Ideflor-Bio, with the participation of various partners, which authorized the use of agroforestry systems with cocoa in Legal Reserve areas. The instrument, aligned with the environmental policies coordinated by SEMAS, opened new possibilities for regularization and productive restoration in the state.
To ensure families remain in the countryside and the expansion of agroforestry systems, access to technical assistance, inputs, training, and rural credit continues to be pointed out as one of the main challenges. SEMAS has been working to expand these fronts through funding programs, regulation, and inter-institutional articulation.
*Union for restoration*
Universities also play a strategic role in this process. Representing the Federal Rural University of the Amazon (UFRA), Gracialda Costa Ferreira highlighted that restoration is essential to rebalance environmental and social systems, in addition to being an urgent path in the face of accumulated degradation in the Amazon.
“The forest is sick, but it is still possible to heal it. For that, we need to act immediately,” she stated.
She reinforced that the moment requires cooperation among institutions, governments, organizations, and civil society. “There is no more time to dream of a sustainable future. If the present is not sustainable, there is no future. We need unity now,” she declared.
The researcher also reminded that human health and forest health are inseparable. “If the forest is sick, we are sick. Restoration is about balance and environmental justice,” she concluded.
The panel reinforced that the productive restoration of Legal Reserves is not just an environmental agenda, but a strategy for sustainable development that combines income generation, strengthening family farming, biodiversity conservation, and reduction of environmental liabilities — an agenda that is advancing in Pará with technical support, public policies, and commitment from Amazonian populations.
Text Lucas Maciel / ASCOM SEMAS
