Restoring Brazil's Forgotten Dryland Forest

Founded in 1998 and based in Ceará, Associação Caatinga works with rural communities in Brazil's Northeast to restore the Caatinga, the only dry forest biome found solely within Brazil and one of the country's most degraded and least-protected ecosystems. Using an elongated-root seedling technique developed with a university restoration-ecology lab, the group achieves roughly 70% seedling survival versus about 30% for conventional planting in the semi-arid region. The organization's restoration work, which won the UNCCD's international Dryland Champions Brazil award, has restored 264 hectares of degraded Caatinga with over 272,000 native seedlings since 2005, alongside creating dozens of private and public conservation reserves.