By Lucas Guaraldo*
Carmem Lúcia Barbosa da Silva lives in the community of São Francisco do Poraquê, in the municipality of Mojuí dos Campos, in western Pará. Since the beginning of 2026, she has been restoring 89 hectares of her property by planting açaí, cumaru, cacao, pequi and species native to the Amazon rainforest, as part of the Regulariza Rural project. On March 11, she took part in the exhibition “O Brasil das Florestas: 20 anos do Serviço Florestal Brasileiro”, held in Brasilia, where she was recognized as an example of initiative, proactivity and sustainable production in the Amazon.
“The recovery of my area is recent, but it has already changed everything in my life and that of my community. We haven’t had a return yet, but I’m already aware that we’ll have a higher and more sustainable income. Here in Brasilia, I was able to come and find new paths for us and also to show the challenges that small producers face in the Amazon. It was very rewarding,” says the farmer, who now also employs staff in her area.
The initiative, funded by KfW (German Development Bank) and IICA (Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture), as well as having the support of the Brazilian Forestry Service and the Pará Environment Secretariat, aims to restore deforested environmental liability areas on small rural properties in Pará, as a way of recovering vegetation and generating income for family farmers. The project has already benefited 68 producers in three regions of the state and has recovered 600 hectares that were previously occupied irregularly.
“Our minds change a lot. We learn how to really plant. I already had some seedlings, but it was the project that gave me the final push. At first, the people who live with me thought it was just talk, that it wouldn’t be worth it, but now we all have a different view and realize that it is possible to produce by recovering the area and without deforestation. Now people come up to me asking how to get started and how to organize themselves to carry out the restoration,” she says.
In addition to the environmental damage, these illegally deforested liability areas on small properties block these producers’ access to credit and rural assistance programs. Previously unassisted and unable to invest in their productions, the producers now see the recovery of areas and sustainable production as an opportunity to keep their properties profitable while protecting the region’s environmental services.
“The reality of the region is beef cattle farming. As well as being much more labor-intensive and expensive, this practice ends up generating more environmental consequences and, because of the irregularity of these areas, the producer can’t even sell to certified slaughterhouses. That’s why restoration with productive and native plants is much more practical, profitable and safe for these people and, thanks to new state laws, allows for productive restoration that also regularizes these lands,” explains Taiany Liborio, IPAM’s research analyst.
According to data from the Forest Code Thermometer, Pará has 17 million hectares of Legal Reserve liabilities. Productive restoration experiences, which combine the recovery of an area with forest and fruit species, such as cacao and açaí, have shown positive results in controlling deforestation and generating income in rural Amazonian communities.
“This Legal Reserve area generates income, but it doesn’t compare to a larger area with consolidated production. It serves more as an incentive for producers to extend this production model to other areas of their properties. We’ve seen a transition: people who used to work only with cattle and had never planted anything are now broadening their vision and training themselves for new forms of production,” says Taiany.