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Julia Silveira

Maintenance of BJF restoration sites: taking good care of our growing native trees

By News Home

The end of the planting season is also the time to take care of the small (and not so small) trees that are growing in our restoration sites. After planting many seedlings and seeds over the last rainy season, our field team will now focus their efforts on maintenance.

Maintenance consists of: removing invasive plants that eventually compete with our planted trees, carrying out complementary fertilization and guaranteeing that the fences and forest firebreaks (aceiros) surrounding the project areas stay functional. These activities are realized every four months, or until full canopy closure of the forest, and can take up to three years.

Have a look at some of the BJF field team carrying out maintenance
Why is it important to maintain our growing seedlings?

Maintenance is one of the 17 steps in the Black Jaguar Foundation’s Cycle of Ecological Restoration. That’s how we ensure that the seedlings planted can grow into resilient trees along the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor. 

One of the activities carried out during the maintenance process is managing invasive exotic grasses, to prevent competition with native tree seedlings and plants.

According to our Project Coordinator, Dimitrio Schievenin, the maintenance phase is just as important as the planting itself. “One of the biggest reasons for the failure of restoration projects throughout Brazil is precisely the lack of maintenance,” he explains.  

Because of this, we closely monitor the growth of our seedlings, performing maintenance whenever necessary, and allowing biodiversity to gradually return to the areas where we operate. 

Would you like to join us in realizing one of the longest biodiversity corridors on Earth? Become one of the First 600 to join our mission of hope and action HERE.

Biodiversity Update: Planting even more native tree species

By News Home

Each planting season, our team learns even more about all the different native species we need in each restoration site, allowing us to improve the return of healthy ecosystems. See how we are contributing to enriching the region’s biodiversity.

Variety of native species planted in BJF restoration sites

Currently, we use about 73 different species of trees in our restoration projects! Among these, some are adapted to flooded soils, while others thrive in drier regions. Depending on the technique used in the restoration site, the key species planted differ.  Have a look below to find out more about the variety of species in our restoration sites: 

Direct Seeding
Planting Seedlings

In the planting stage, we divide the different species of seedlings into two groups: canopy and diversity. Both groups are then planted in the restoration site. Canopy trees are fast-growing and serve to provide shade to the area and rebuild the forest structure. On the other hand, diversity trees grow more slowly and should be planted in between the canopy seedlings.  

This variety of species furthers the success and quality of our restoration sites and increases biodiversity in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes!

Would you like to join us in realizing one of the longest biodiversity corridors on Earth? Become one of the First 600 to join our mission of hope and action HERE.

BJF in the press: read our latest features!

By News Home

As the Black Jaguar Fondation continues to further its mission of hope and action, it has also been getting more media attention. Over the past few months, we have been Featured in Reuters, Forbes Brasil, and appeared in some of the most read Newspapers and Radio Broadcasts in the Netherlands.  

Many of these platforms have shared the difficulties of carrying out ecological restoration in Brazil, and at the same time highlighted the urgency of this work. We are proud to see the Black Jaguar foundation being used as an example of quality ecological restoration in the region.   

A big thank you to the authors of these articles, who have taken a close look at our work and recognized the importance of ecologically restoring our planet. It is beyond late to be a pessimist, the time to act is now.  

We are excited to continue sharing our mission of hope and action with the world. Find a summary of our latest media appearances below:  

Reuters

At the start of June, Reuters published a Special Report on the challenges of restoring the Amazon. We are very honoured that we have been selected for the investigative report, among the two leading organisations in Brazil carrying out ecological restoration. 

Read the feature HERE.  

Forbes Brasil

Earlier this year, the Black Jaguar Foundation was also featured in Forbes Brasil.  

The article described how our loyal BJF Friend, Ms. Andrea Dreesmann, started her company TreeLove to exclusively support the Black Jaguar Foundation.  

Read more below:

These media appearances have also helped us spread our message in the Netherlands, with appearances in:

We hope that these articles will give you a holistic picture of our project. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us in case of questions. You can email us at: contact@black-jaguar.org  

 Together with our community of dedicated sponsor partners, farmers, and team, we are realising one of the longest biodiversity corridors on Earth!  

Would you like to join us in realizing one of the longest biodiversity corridors on Earth? Become one of the First 600 to join our mission of hope and action HERE.

Promoting the BJF mission with Google Ad Grants!

By News Home

Have you come across ads from the Black Jaguar Foundation on Google when searching for terms related to ecological restoration? Great news! This is because we have been awarded Google Grants, which provides $10,000 monthly to promote the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor through ads on Google. 

Google did an extensive due diligence on our organisation and we are thrilled to let you know that we have been approved by yet another International partner.

How did we obtain Google Ad Grants?

To be approved for Google Grants, the organization must be nonprofit. The grant aims to increase social impact and connect people to causes that they are interested in. You can find out more about the Google Ad Grants requirements here 

After ensuring that the Black Jaguar Foundation met all the requirements for Google Ad Grants, we initiated the application process and created an account for Nonprofit Organizations on Google. 

 Once all these steps were completed and approved, we set up a Google Grants account, and from there, our Communications team began researching, studying, and working hard to launch our first campaigns! 

We have already placed some ads to promote our project of ecological restoration and have been sharing a lot of content related to environmental education. 

We believe that Google Ad Grants will allow us to give our mission more visibility and highlight the urgency of ecologically restoring our biomes, starting with the Amazon Rainforest and Cerrado Savanna.  

Become a part of this movement today! Support the Black Jaguar Foundation by sharing our content with your friends and family. 

 Let’s come together to create an even larger community capable of making a real difference and generating a positive impact on the Earth. 

Would you like to join us in realizing one of the longest biodiversity corridors on Earth? Become one of the First 600 to join our mission of hope and action HERE.

2022 BJF Annual Report

By Invisible on news page

The Black Jaguar Foundation’s Annual Report 2022 is finally ready! Have a look at all that we achieved together in 2022: 

Please click on “full screen” on the right bottom to see the report in an optimised way.

INDEPENDENT AUDIT DONE BY BAKERTILLY 

The 2022 BJF Annual Report also includes combined, consolidated finances for Black Jaguar Foundation’s branches in Brazil and The Netherlands. These finances are audited by Bakertilly.

The Dutch and Brazilian entities are separate legal entities and administer their finances in two separate systems. Although we are not legally an integrated organisation, we act as such and have therefore decided to present you our combined financial statements.

Download the Independent audit here

For every candidate successfully placed by Kienbaum, various native trees are planted!

By News Home

Kienbaum and the Black Jaguar Foundation have been working together to make a positive impact since 2009!

Kienbaum believes in “turning potential into progress” by creating the perfect match between professionals and organisations. Last year in December, the company started a wonderful new initiative to plant various trees per professional successfully placed in an organisation. 

So far, Kienbaum has already planted thousands of trees, alongside their other incredible contributions. We are very grateful for Kienbaum’s continued support in realising the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor – the longest nature corridor in South America!

Each new Kienbaum placement receives the following certificate, with an illustration of where their trees will be planted. The certificates are all carefully framed by the Kienbaum team:

This is only their most recent initiative! Over the years, Kienbaum has planted many trees during conferences, birthdays, special holidays, and so much more. Have a look at the video testimonial below where Kienbaum’s Managing Director, Hans Jonkers explains Kienbaum’s relationship with the Black Jaguar Foundation, and find out more about our journey together.

Kienbaum is a part of our “The First 600” community, which refers to the First 600 sponsors to contribute to the realisation of the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor.

Would you like to join the Black Jaguar Foundation in realising the longest biodiversity Corridor on Earth, like Kienbaum is doing? Click the button below and find out how you can do so!

Find out more about Kienbaum by visiting their First 600 Page HERE or by visiting their website HERE. 

One of the stars of this planting season and many other highlights…

By News Home

Our latest planting season was full of achievements, challenges, and learning opportunities. With many positive results, we have selected some of our favourite highlights to share with you today!

Meet the Star of this Planting Season: the Sumaúma tree

Over the 2022-2023 planting season, the Black Jaguar Foundation team had the opportunity to plant the Sumaúma tree for the second time since the start of our ecological restoration efforts.

Its incredibly positive results have made it the star of this season and ensured that it will remain a key member of our operations for years to come! Sumaúma can grow incredibly fast and is one of the largest trees in the Amazon – able to reach up to 50 meters in height and 2 meters in diameter.

See its growth for yourself! The image below shows our field supervisor Taiwan next to 6 months young Sumaúma tree. Can you see that it is already bigger than him? We can’t wait for our trees to get as big as the one on the image to the right…

We are excited to see these beautiful trees grow into healthy forests in the years to come!

The Sumaúma tree is considered a mother tree for “varzea” forests, which are often forests present along rivers that are susceptible to floods. This tree species is typically found in tropical regions and develops well under direct sunlight.

Despite the Sumaúma species’ fast-growing nature, during its first 3 years of growth, it is still not very good at creating shade for ecological restoration. Therefore, we plant it together with species that can provide this shade early on, like the Cafezinho species. Creating shade is important because it causes the temperature of the soil to drop, which prevents invasive grasses from growing. These invasive grasses compete with the native trees that we plant and prevent them from growing. Therefore, by planting trees like Sumaúma together with other fast growing trees like Cafezinho, we are helping its growth and also ensuring greater biodiversity in the region! 

Scaling up on Natural Regeneration as a method of ecological restoration

30 of the many hectares planted this season were restored using natural regeneration. We hope to use this method much more in the future and take advantage of the full potential of the region.

Have a look at the video below, and understand how the BJF carries out natural regeneration:
More trees, more life!

The number of trees planted in this rainy season was higher than for any of our past rainy seasons yet. It is very exciting for us to see these numbers grow together with our operations and team!

Have a look at some of our youngest trees, planted in December last year:
What are we doing now?

We have reached the end of the planting season and our field team will continue to carry out maintenance and monitoring activities for our planted seedlings! This means that you can expect many updates on the growth of our trees in the coming time – keep an eye on our social media channels.

The maintenance process in crucial is ensuring the health of our planted trees and involves the irrigation of areas where we planted trees during the last rainy season, and removing invasive grasses, among other activities.

For the next planting season…

We will continue to plant lots of Sumaúma trees together with many other species that are native to the Araguaia region.

The BJF team has already started defining the three clusters of farms where we will carry out ecological restoration during the 2023-2024 planting season. By working in clusters, we are able to define our plan the most efficient way, optimising our logistics and labour force.

Our achievements were made possible by the vital support of our BJF partners. Join us by becoming one of the First 600 sponsors to realise the Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor.