Project 2
Ecological restoration of degraded cattle pastures with an agroforestry-system and native tree species
Dehevehe Sapuyá, as his indigenous name is, lives with his wife, three children and first grandchild in a small house not far from Pau Brasil, the nearest town outside the reserve. Dehevehe is a math teacher at the indigenous school on the reserve and at the state school in Pau Brasil. AMAP will support him and his family in renaturalizing his farm with an agroforestry system.
Dehevehe's farmland is located in the extreme south-east of the indigenous territory on the Rio Pardo and is around 64 hectares in size. It is no longer actively grazed with cattle. The biodiversity of the Mata Atlântica is to be restored here. Part of the land is to be planted with an agroforestry system and part with native tree species. The land has been degraded by decades of grazing and the soil is heavily compacted and depleted. In the valley of a stream that occasionally carries water, a small piece of forest, a capoeira, has managed to survive.
Dehevehe works on renaturalizing his land in his spare time. He has already built a small house to store tools and laid a water pipe to the river. Now he is starting to fence in 7.5 hectares, where the first agroforestry is to be planted. The fence provides protection from the neighbors' free-roaming cattle, so that the first bushes will soon provide shade. His vision is that one day he and his family will be able to live off the income from the forest.