Capacity building in forest restoration: integrated biodiversity and climate protection in the Mata Atlântica (REPLÂNTICA)
The Brazilian Mata Atlântica, a global biodiversity hotspot that includes major populated cities, is under stress from human demands. Whilst biodiversity and ecosystem services are intrinsically gratis, they suffer from urban pressure that can lead to their collapse. Though legal frameworks demand ecological restoration, conservation gains are required to save and rebuild biodiverse forests, ecosystem services and to protect the climate. The project aims at developing training courses aimed at diverse local and multi-sectorial public who can shape these changes, including landowners, influencers and the public. These can learn of the issues, share in the need to restore, learn how to restore their degraded land and evaluate and document their efforts and link to global targets, looking at the corporate world for long-term sustainability.
- Countries
- Brazil
- IKI funding
- 799,829.70 €
- Duration
- 01/2024 till 12/2026
- Status
- open
- Implementing organisation
- TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences
- Implementing Partner
-
- Guapiaçu Ecological Reserve
State of implementation/results
- After successfully completing its first year, the REPLÂNTICA project started in March 2025 with full force into the developer workshop at the Guapiaçu Ecological Reserve (REGUA), Brazil, to discuss and finalise concepts for this year’s courses.
- As a new format of teaching materials, the project team developed ‘folhetos’ as tailored hand-outs for all our local target groups.
- The REPLÂNTICA website has been continuously updated with course information.
- In 2025, five courses on ecological restoration were conducted, targeted at local public sector workers, NGOs, landowners, women in rural areas and university students.
- The first course, again tailored to the public sector, took place in April 2025 with 35 participants.
- The second course, tailored to NGOs, took place early in May 2025 with 24 participants.
- The course tailored to landowners took place in June 2025 with 16 participants.
- The fourth course, tailored to women in rural areas, took place in July 2025 with 23 participants.
- The course tailored to university students took place in August 2025 with 20 participants.
- The last course for 2025 tailored to local communities scheduled from August till October.
- Two more events are scheduled for 2025: the second matchmaking event and the networking event ‘Women for Restoration’, scheduled for 25 October 2025 at REGUA.
- On June 6, the first matchmaking event of 2025 was held in celebration of World Environment Day. The event brought together local companies to formalize previous match ideas and explore new partnership opportunities for forest restoration. This matchmaking event also featured a community activity: the planting of 500 native seedlings in collaboration with local schools.
- In 2024, altogether nine matches were created, and activities for forest restoration agreed on carried out.
- The project team created certificates for successful course participation, with 135 certificates issued in total in 2024, and by September 2025, 118 certificates for successful course participants in 2025.
- Information on project results and events is published regularly through posts on social media (primarily Instagram and YouTube).
Latest Update:
12/2025
Project relations
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