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About [Edit]
About Us
BioBrasil is a non-profit environmental organization based in Lauro de Freitas, Bahia, Brazil, dedicated to the conservation of threatened fauna and flora throughout the country`s various biomes. The Foundation recognizes that innovative approaches are required to confront the multi-faceted threats to the global ecological well-being and tackle economic development challenges spawned by human progress.
The Foundation`s main tools to achieve these goals are scientific research, environmental education, land purchase, local community sustainable development and low-impact ecotourism. The Foundation offers consulting services to farmers and corporations interested in maintaining private reserves or applying environmentally sustainable agricultural techniques and practices.
Scientific Research
BioBrasil believes that an essential element in any conservation strategy is understanding the biological composition of the targeted unit. To that end, extensive research has been carried out by BioBrasil team members in the Atlantic Rainforest, the Cerrado [Wooded Savannah Forest] the Caatinga, and the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazonia. Avifauna surveys are ongoing and recent publications include pieces in National Geographic [March 2000], Geo Magazine [Germany and France, October 1999] International Wildlife [April 2000], NeoTropical Primates [January 2000], BBC Magazine [December 2000] and Ciência Hoje [August 1998] among others.
In conjunction with New York`s Natural History Museum, members of BioBrasil discovered the wintering grounds of the Sterna dougali [Roseate Tern] off the Coast of Bahia. The World Parrot Trust has sponsored research on the Lear´s Macaw and Golden Conure. Plantações Michelin da Bahia have contracted the foundation to survey the avifaunal composition of the company`s private reserve.
Environmental Education
Often pedantic and impractical in its application, environmental education is nonetheless hailed as an effective means to inculcate students and professionals with an ecologically friendly outlook and understanding of human beings role in the natural world. BioBrasil`s complete immersion method exposes participants directly to nature and provides didactic instruction on the complex processes at work around them.
Students spend up to a week exploring rare Atlantic Rainforest remnants, boating through an extensive mangrove area, trekking in preserved Restinga forest and visiting local sites to understand the historical, economic, anthropological and social dynamics at work in the community. The staff includes trained educators, practicing field biologists, professional ecologists and agronomists specialized in agroforestry methods.
Local Community Sustainable Development
Is well known that the degradation of critical ecosystem had been pushed by agricultural expansion, logging, hydroelectric dams, hunting and poaching of wildlife, development and urban growth, and the poverty of the local communities. But, BioBrasil still believing that the most important component on a conservation system are the neighbor communities. Although considered as a old and controversial tool for conservation, several projects had failed on using too much monetary resources and not giving to the community the right knowledge. Inject money directly, build modern infrastructures and generate jobs are not enough. A innovative concept had been developed by BioBrasil on the last four years, and it consist on giving a clear understanding of the importance of the physical location of the community for the conservation and for their own socioeconomic development. The knowledge and the valorization of the local nature resources, integrated to the culture and the lifestyle, creates the best base to bring a local sustainable development.
BioBrasil provides to the communities a completely training on the sustainable use of the local resources – agriculture, extractivism, culture [handcrafts], among others. Also, the foundation encourage the communities to improve their organization system throughout the detection of leaders that could be more motivated than educated. Putting all elements together, the community is able to rethink their actual situation and plan the actions for the future, integrating the natural environment as part of their lives. The community became aware of the importance of the community on the whole system and it transform in a very strong political barrier for foreign investments. The socioeconomic development came from their own hands and the conservation of the natural environment is the final result.
Land Purchase
Increasingly, the acquisition of land by private conservation entities is viewed as an effective measure to ensure large tracts of threatened habitat can be protected for eternity. Environmental NGOs, with stringent by-laws that guarantee the transfer of protected lands to like-minded organizations in case of demise, therefore become large land trusts.
In this vein, BioBrasil has sought to tap available financial support in order to buy up large tracks of threatened habitat and incorporate them into existing reserves or convert them into new reserves. With the backing of the Wisconsin-based Kaytee Avian Foundation, BioBrasil has purchased 4000 hectares of cerrado habitat in the state of Piaui, and plans to acquire another 2700 hectares contiguous to its reserve.
Key parcels of other ecosystems have been targeted by BioBrasil, and include important Lear´s Macaw habitat, Atlantic Rainforest remnants and extensive areas in the Pantanal. The Foundation seeks to form partnerships with groups and entities interested in securing resources to expand BioBrasil`s protected lands.
Ecotourism
Though it has long been hailed as a means to balance environmental imperatives with economic progress, ecotourism has often failed to achieve either of those goals. Over-exploitation of natural resources and under-utilization of local people`s knowledge have resulted in many enterprises that neither protect the physical surroundings nor provide opportunities for the communities in which they operate.
BioBrasil`s ecotourism projects endeavor to provide the visitor with breath-taking natural spectacles while ensuring that the money this tourist spends stays in the locale of operation or used by the various conservation projects developed by the Foundation.
While the Foundation currently owns two eco-lodges it also operates tours throughout Brazil that offer the participant exposure to an awesome array of Brazilian fauna. Among the highlights are the eight monkey species [including the White Uakari] , two river dolphin species, twelve macaw species [including Hyacinth Macaws, Blue-and-gold, Scarlet , Green-winged, Chestnut-fronted, Blue-headed, Blue-winged, Golden collared, Red-bellied and the extremely rare Lear`s macaw], the Golden Conure, Hawk-headed Parrots, most Amazons, Giant Otters, Giant Anteaters, Capybaras, Maned Wolves, groups of 10,000 Scarlet Ibises and various species of whales and sea turtles.
BioBrasil is a non-profit environmental organization based in Lauro de Freitas, Bahia, Brazil, dedicated to the conservation of threatened fauna and flora throughout the country`s various biomes. The Foundation recognizes that innovative approaches are required to confront the multi-faceted threats to the global ecological well-being and tackle economic development challenges spawned by human progress.
The Foundation`s main tools to achieve these goals are scientific research, environmental education, land purchase, local community sustainable development and low-impact ecotourism. The Foundation offers consulting services to farmers and corporations interested in maintaining private reserves or applying environmentally sustainable agricultural techniques and practices.
Scientific Research
BioBrasil believes that an essential element in any conservation strategy is understanding the biological composition of the targeted unit. To that end, extensive research has been carried out by BioBrasil team members in the Atlantic Rainforest, the Cerrado [Wooded Savannah Forest] the Caatinga, and the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazonia. Avifauna surveys are ongoing and recent publications include pieces in National Geographic [March 2000], Geo Magazine [Germany and France, October 1999] International Wildlife [April 2000], NeoTropical Primates [January 2000], BBC Magazine [December 2000] and Ciência Hoje [August 1998] among others.
In conjunction with New York`s Natural History Museum, members of BioBrasil discovered the wintering grounds of the Sterna dougali [Roseate Tern] off the Coast of Bahia. The World Parrot Trust has sponsored research on the Lear´s Macaw and Golden Conure. Plantações Michelin da Bahia have contracted the foundation to survey the avifaunal composition of the company`s private reserve.
Environmental Education
Often pedantic and impractical in its application, environmental education is nonetheless hailed as an effective means to inculcate students and professionals with an ecologically friendly outlook and understanding of human beings role in the natural world. BioBrasil`s complete immersion method exposes participants directly to nature and provides didactic instruction on the complex processes at work around them.
Students spend up to a week exploring rare Atlantic Rainforest remnants, boating through an extensive mangrove area, trekking in preserved Restinga forest and visiting local sites to understand the historical, economic, anthropological and social dynamics at work in the community. The staff includes trained educators, practicing field biologists, professional ecologists and agronomists specialized in agroforestry methods.
Local Community Sustainable Development
Is well known that the degradation of critical ecosystem had been pushed by agricultural expansion, logging, hydroelectric dams, hunting and poaching of wildlife, development and urban growth, and the poverty of the local communities. But, BioBrasil still believing that the most important component on a conservation system are the neighbor communities. Although considered as a old and controversial tool for conservation, several projects had failed on using too much monetary resources and not giving to the community the right knowledge. Inject money directly, build modern infrastructures and generate jobs are not enough. A innovative concept had been developed by BioBrasil on the last four years, and it consist on giving a clear understanding of the importance of the physical location of the community for the conservation and for their own socioeconomic development. The knowledge and the valorization of the local nature resources, integrated to the culture and the lifestyle, creates the best base to bring a local sustainable development.
BioBrasil provides to the communities a completely training on the sustainable use of the local resources – agriculture, extractivism, culture [handcrafts], among others. Also, the foundation encourage the communities to improve their organization system throughout the detection of leaders that could be more motivated than educated. Putting all elements together, the community is able to rethink their actual situation and plan the actions for the future, integrating the natural environment as part of their lives. The community became aware of the importance of the community on the whole system and it transform in a very strong political barrier for foreign investments. The socioeconomic development came from their own hands and the conservation of the natural environment is the final result.
Land Purchase
Increasingly, the acquisition of land by private conservation entities is viewed as an effective measure to ensure large tracts of threatened habitat can be protected for eternity. Environmental NGOs, with stringent by-laws that guarantee the transfer of protected lands to like-minded organizations in case of demise, therefore become large land trusts.
In this vein, BioBrasil has sought to tap available financial support in order to buy up large tracks of threatened habitat and incorporate them into existing reserves or convert them into new reserves. With the backing of the Wisconsin-based Kaytee Avian Foundation, BioBrasil has purchased 4000 hectares of cerrado habitat in the state of Piaui, and plans to acquire another 2700 hectares contiguous to its reserve.
Key parcels of other ecosystems have been targeted by BioBrasil, and include important Lear´s Macaw habitat, Atlantic Rainforest remnants and extensive areas in the Pantanal. The Foundation seeks to form partnerships with groups and entities interested in securing resources to expand BioBrasil`s protected lands.
Ecotourism
Though it has long been hailed as a means to balance environmental imperatives with economic progress, ecotourism has often failed to achieve either of those goals. Over-exploitation of natural resources and under-utilization of local people`s knowledge have resulted in many enterprises that neither protect the physical surroundings nor provide opportunities for the communities in which they operate.
BioBrasil`s ecotourism projects endeavor to provide the visitor with breath-taking natural spectacles while ensuring that the money this tourist spends stays in the locale of operation or used by the various conservation projects developed by the Foundation.
While the Foundation currently owns two eco-lodges it also operates tours throughout Brazil that offer the participant exposure to an awesome array of Brazilian fauna. Among the highlights are the eight monkey species [including the White Uakari] , two river dolphin species, twelve macaw species [including Hyacinth Macaws, Blue-and-gold, Scarlet , Green-winged, Chestnut-fronted, Blue-headed, Blue-winged, Golden collared, Red-bellied and the extremely rare Lear`s macaw], the Golden Conure, Hawk-headed Parrots, most Amazons, Giant Otters, Giant Anteaters, Capybaras, Maned Wolves, groups of 10,000 Scarlet Ibises and various species of whales and sea turtles.