The Bezos Earth Fund will provide USD 2.5 million to support a research and development initiative involving 30 native Amazon species and another 30 from Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. Known as the Native Species Silviculture Research and Development Program (PP&D-SEN), the project is the first of its kind in Brazil.
The primary goal is to help rural communities plant and cultivate native species of high economic value, from which timber and non-timber forest products can be regularly harvested, creating a source of work and income.
Led by the Brazil Climate Forests and Agriculture Coalition and other partners, the project will create a network of research institutes, universities, companies, governments, funders, and NGOs.
Still in its structuring phase within the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), the project will use funds from the Bezos Earth Fund over the next three years to establish two research sites for data collection and experimental field studies. In total, there will be 16 research sites.
Agronomist Miguel Calmon, co-leader of the Brazil Coalition’s native silviculture task force, and senior advisor at the Brazilian office of the World Resources Institute, one of the organizations involved in the project, says the Bezos fund donation is “crucial” to get the initiative off the ground. That way, when the project gets underway, “we will be prepared to be more efficient and faster,” says Mr. Calmon.
According to WRI Brazil, reforestation with native species is beneficial in many ways, improving water and soil quality essential for local wildlife.
A study by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, published in the journal Science, identified forests as a major contributor to climate change mitigation because they sequester carbon from the atmosphere, which is stored in the wood and help mitigate the effects of greenhouse gas emissions.
In addition, silviculture helps reduce deforestation pressure on natural forests by allowing planted forests to be closer to centers of consumption, eliminating waste in wood processing.
The Bezos Earth Fund was established in 2020 by Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon and the third richest person in the world, according to Forbes. Mr. Bezos has pledged to donate USD 10 billion this decade to climate change and conservation projects.
To date, the fund has donated USD 1.6 billion to initiatives including conservation and restoration, environmental justice, new technologies, energy, and industrial decarbonization.
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