The piece, written by Jake Spring, begins by highlighting that, according to a scientific study, restoring global forests could sequester 22 times as much carbon as the world emits in a year, making the case that trees are a key tool in confronting the climate crisis along with cutting fossil fuels.
Black Jaguar Foundation and Scelta Mushrooms have renewed their partnership for the eighth consecutive year!
Since the beginning of our activities in 2015, Scelta Mushrooms, one of the world’s largest mushroom producers, has been a loyal partner of the Black Jaguar Foundation. Notably, Jan Klerken, the company’s founder and current Ambassador, planted one of the first trees of the project and also introduced us to many other partners, paving the path of our success.
For the past 30 years, Scelta Mushrooms has been producing high-quality mushrooms for companies in the food industry worldwide. Sustainability is one of the company’s core values. Scelta aims to make mushroom-based food products that are tastier, healthier, and more sustainable.
Recently, Scelta developed an innovative line of mushroom-based products, including supplements that boost the immune system, natural alternatives to artificially produced flavor enhancers, and substances rich in vitamin D!
Concern for sustainability is what brought Scelta Mushrooms and the Black Jaguar Foundation together. According to Jan Klerken, “our success would not be possible without Mother Nature, so we treat the land with respect in our processes. We hope that our partnership with Black Jaguar encourages others to join this wonderful initiative.”
If your company, like Scelta Mushrooms, cares about sustainability on our planet, contact us and join our mission. Together, we are much stronger!
On October 5 this month, we were hit by the consequence of the climate crisis in the heart of our operation in Santana Do Araguaia. Our brand-new nursery was hit by a STORM with extreme winds and rains, causing severe damage to its structure and buildings.
This event didn’t just affect us; the entire municipality is suffering damages and losses. Our thoughts go out to the people of Santana Do Araguaia.
We worked the past 2 years together with the local community to build our largest and state-of-the-art nursery from scratch…. And, we are not giving up, but we can’t do it alone.
While we ar still assessing the damage, to make the first emergency repairs of the indoor and outdoor nursery and buildings, our emergency-budget is €140.000.
Join us in restoring our nursery today! Your support can make a real difference. Let’s rebuild together!
The month of October marks the beginning of the rainy season in the Araguaia region, and with it, the initial stages of the 2023/2024 planting season. As you may know, ecological restoration is a far more complex process than simply planting trees. It requires careful planning and preparation for everything to go smoothly.
In these early weeks, our field team has started constructing and installing fences, preparing the areas that will be planted in the coming months, and mixing seeds for direct sowing, a technique commonly referred to as “muvuca.” Let’s delve a bit deeper into each of these processes.
The construction and installation of fences in specific planting areas are essential to protect the seedlings and ensure their proper growth. This is typically required in regions close to pastures to prevent cattle from trampling or grazing on newly germinated seedlings.
During this stage, the Black Jaguar field team removes the grass in the planting areas and digs holes for the seedlings. This creates suitable conditions for native species to thrive when they are eventually planted.
During this rainy season, planting seedlings and direct sowing will start in January on our partner rural properties. Until then, we’ll continue to work tirelessly to ensure high-quality ecological restoration in the Araguaia region!
We are proud to share that Black Jaguar Foundation was selected, amongst 9 other renowned nature organisations, to present our mission at the symposium of ‘Mega Eco Projects’, at the University of Pennsylvania in the USA. Our initiator, Ben Valks, attended the event and had the opportunity to showcase the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor and exchange experiences with various other environmental organizations from around the world.
Exciting news from Santana Do Araguaia! The Araguaia Seed Network has expanded, and to mark this important milestone, we have gathered our dedicated members for a collaborative journey. Together, we are shaping the mission, vision, and values that will define our project’s visual identity and create more engagement in the region and beyond.
The first step is to exchange experiences and opinions about the Network’s purpose. To achieve this, Black Jaguar gathered active members to collectively discuss and construct the mission, vision, and values of the project.
Laís D’Isep, a seedling production analyst and the principal coordinator of the collective, visited all the settlements and groups, creating activities to facilitate the exchange of ideas and reflection on the activities carried out over the past 18 months.
During the meetings, it became evident that the Araguaia Seed Network had already generated both financial impact as an additional source of income for families and social impact through an extended sense of community where people can rely on each other.
More than 70 people participated in the meetings, and the experiences shared will soon form the basis for the creation of the Araguaia Seed Network’s identity.
Through the purchase and sale of native seeds, the Araguaia Seed Network is an initiative aimed at supplementing the income of those living near the Araguaia River and providing seeds for the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor. Currently, the initiative is expanding its scope, and soon there will be a group formed by students in Palmas (TO).
In less than two years of operation, we have already achieved remarkable results, and we hope that in the coming years, the Araguaia Seed Network will continue to grow, reaching more people and generating more socioeconomic impact for local communities.
Black Jaguar Foundation is now an official Grant Receiver of the World Wildlife Fund. Together, we are working to strengthen the Araguaia Seed Network, generate even more positive socioeconomic impact for local communities, and ensure quality seeds for the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor.
Through this partnership, WWF supports the training, equipment, and seed purchases for network member collectors. These seeds, in turn, will be used for seedling production in our nursery in Santana do Araguaia and for direct sowing in our restoration areas.
Now, we are active in four cities in the Amazonian states: Santana do Araguaia (PA), Caseara (TO), Marianópolis (TO), and Porto Nacional (TO). We are providing a unique opportunity for local communities to participate in the bioeconomy, safeguarding their forests and biodiversity simultaneously.
The Seed Network was born from the partnership between Black Jaguar and local communities to collect native seeds for use in our ecological restoration project, the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor.
Since last year, the initiative has provided a new source of income for small farmers and settlements. Black Jaguar provides training, technical support, and equipment to enable them to become active members, collecting, processing, storing, and selling their seeds.
We aim to strengthen community involvement in forest preservation and the recovery of degraded areas, enhancing their social and environmental benefits, such as:
The goal of this partnership is to plant 500,000 trees using various restoration techniques (seedling planting, direct sowing, and assisted natural regeneration) over two planting seasons—the first conducted from October 2022 to May 2023 and the next, starting in October 2023 and lasting until March 2024.
We are extremely honoured to officially welcome to the team, our newest ambassador, Humberto Tan!
Humberto Tan is one of the most well-known TV personalities in the Netherlands. He was born in Suriname, a vast country north of Brazil in South America. Together with his mother, two brothers, and sister, he emigrated to the Netherlands when he was about 4 years old.
In 1991, he finished his Law Master’s at the University of Amsterdam, and started his TV career. From the early start in his TV career, he was the host of the following programs: NOS Studio Sport, NOS Journaal, RTL Late Night, Holland’s Got Talent, and UEFA Champions League, just to name a few. He hosted the daily famous talk show RTL Late Night over 1000 times!
Humberto went on to win many awards in TV and Radio, including: The Zilveren Televizier-Ster (which he won two times), the Sonja Barend Award for best TV interview of the year, and Broadcast personality of the year.
In August 2023, he proudly accepted the invitation to become Ambassador of the Black Jaguar Foundation.
In 2023, Humberto Tan made a documentary film called “De Jacht op de Jaguar” (The Hunt of The Jaguar) which revolves around the importance, beauty and also the illegal hunt of Jaguars in Suriname.
Like the founder of BJF, Ben Valks, Humberto went on a search for the Jaguar to learn more and try to make a picture of this majestic and iconic animal. As a result, he made a documentary film about his journey in search of the Jaguar and Ben started the Black Jaguar Foundation.
“What we all share in the Foundation is how we want to leave this world, when we’re 105 or maybe older, with nature in a stronger, better and healthier way than it is at the moment. 1,7 billion native trees will help to achieve this goal”, says Humberto Tan.
Next to the Black Jaguar Foundation, he is already an ambassador for the Dutch Red Cross, WWF the Netherlands and the Nationale Postcode Loterij.
Visit Humberto Tan’s profile here!
As our field team is ready for the exciting start of another planting season, we’ve taken a moment to reflect on our milestones of the last planting season.
We’re extremely proud of our journey so far. After five planting seasons, including the 2018/2019 pilot project, we can already highlight some excellent achievements:
The 2022/2023 Planting Season was one of the most challenging for Black Jaguar until now. To achieve our ambitious goal, we have to grow – not only as a team and in number of hectares restored, but also in terms of learning, opportunities and changes.
And the result for the planting season was excellent! In a single rainy season (October through April), our field team carried out ecological restoration on 175 hectares of the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor – growing and planting 437 thousand native trees!
With the last planting season, we’ve now restored over 300 hectares on partner properties in the Araguaia region. This area equates to approximately 680,000 native trees planted by our team.
All these developing species are already part of the ecological corridor that will contribute to bring back the biodiversity of two of the world’s most vital ecosystems: the Amazon Rainforest and the Cerrado.
During the 2022/2023 planting season, Black Jaguar worked on 17 partner properties, engaging in both planting and maintenance activities.
This significant growth strengthens our organization locally, and the consistent success of our work year after year instills confidence in other rural property owners in the region.
Black Jaguar is already present in three cities along the Araguaia River: Marianópolis do Tocantins, Caseara (Tocantins), and Santana do Araguaia (Pará) – where are located our main activities and the BJF nursery with a capacity for 500,000 seedlings per year.
Looking ahead to the project’s future, our articulation team continues to work on promoting the organization and the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor in southern Pará. We hope that in the coming years, many more cities can become part of one of the world’s largest restoration projects.
Now is the time to focus on the upcoming planting season, which is just around the corner. How about becoming a part of this mission of hope and action? Support us!
The Black Jaguar Foundation was invited by Good to Nature, a non-profit organization based in China, to virtually showcase Black Jaguar Foundation’s work. During the Tropical Forest Festival, an audience of students, private sector professionals, and civil organizations from China were introduced to our work.
The goal was to introduce the Black Jaguar Foundation and the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor, shedding light on the key features of one of the world’s most important tropical forests: the Amazon. The presentation was shared on China’s most popular online platform, with approximately 83.5 million daily active users.
Due to the relatively small distribution of rainforest in the total land area in China, there is limited knowledge about these ecosystems. Hence, Good to Nature decided to host a festival filled with activities and lectures to give the Chinese audience a chance to appreciate the beauty and significance of tropical forests worldwide.
The event’s purpose was to emphasize the importance of biodiversity and the restoration of these ecosystems, particularly promoting projects and activities around the world dedicated to protecting and restoring tropical forests.
During the presentation, Joel Boele, Community Outreach Coordinator, explained where we operate, the unique aspects of the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor, characteristics of the region’s flora and fauna, and underscored the impact of our project on the environment and the local population.
It was an excellent opportunity to engage with a diverse audience and exchange experiences with other participants at the event.
After the lecture, students applied their newfound knowledge to design exhibition panels. During the preparation, they not only relied on the information shared by Black Jaguar but also conducted further research on the Amazon Rainforest.
One week after the presentation, Good to Nature sought feedback from the students who attended. Here are some testimonials:
“As a city-raised child, I could only learn about the rainforest through documentaries. Participating in this rainforest citizen education program brought me so much joy! I feel that my love for nature has found a home, and my life has become more fulfilling. In the future, I hope not only to promote the importance of the rainforest to others but also to apply the knowledge I learned here to restoration efforts, such as tree planting.”
– XU Xinyu
“As a future guardian of the rainforest, I realized the challenges of this role. Not only are there unexpected incidents to handle, but we also need to respond to unexpected questions from visitors. This taught me to be adaptable. I also learned a lot about the rainforest here and can now share that knowledge with others.”
– LIU Yichen
“Participating in the Future Rainforest Guardian Program made me realize the importance of rainforest conservation, especially in the face of global warming. Rainforest restoration can help mitigate global warming, as the rainforest plays a crucial role in carbon storage. Additionally, rainforest restoration contributes to the recovery of ecosystem services, including climate and water regulation, providing habitats for various plants and animals. When the air and water are cleaner, we can have a better living environment!”
– LI Zhongze
Good to Nature is a non-profit organization based in China dedicated to the restoration and protection of ecosystems. The organization is committed to promoting the protection and revitalization of ecosystems in China. They work not only on restoring tropical forests but also on promoting the importance of tropical forests and encouraging the Chinese population to participate in their restoration and protection.
We would like to express our gratitude to Good to Nature for giving us the opportunity to present the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor to an enthusiastic audience committed to building a better tomorrow for all of us. It’s heartwarming to see so many young individuals determined to protect our forests.
