Volunteering is one the most relevant instruments of mobilization for the conservation of biodiversity. IPÊ has been encouraging these actions in partnerships with NGOs and the corporate world. In the month of the environment, 22 employees from Alpargatas/Havaianas (an IPÊ partner for 18 years) participated in a volunteer action at the Jaraguá State Park, in the city of São Paulo. The activity involves a lot of hands-on work, with the identification and division of 28 species from seedlings and seed collection, organization of the nursery, transplantation of 550 seedlings of Juçara-palm, an endangered species, and planting of tree seedlings.

The program began early in the morning with a presentation by Gustavo Lopes do Espírito Santo, manager of the Jaraguá State Park, about the Conservation Unit (UC) considered a World Heritage Site by Unesco. The park is home of one of the last remnants of Atlantic Forest in the São Paulo Metropolitan Region and is part of São Paulo Green Belt Biosphere Reserve.

Next, Andrea Peçanha, coordinator of the IPÊ Business Unit, highlighted corporate volunteering as strategic for the conservation of biodiversity.” The potential for companies to involve employees in an initiative like this reinforces corporate values and a sense of collectivity and belonging. After all, we can all contribute to the conservation of protected areas and biodiversity. Bringing employees together at the UC reinforces the maturity of this relationship between IPÊ and Alpargatas/Havaianas, which can inspire other companies to follow this path, with a position that mobilizes employees to act for the conservation of our parks and protected areas”, she says.

Maria José de Martini, head of Sustainability and Reputation at Alpargatas/Havaianas, explains how volunteering is applied within the company. “In the area of social responsibility, we promote inclusion through education, social entrepreneurship and volunteering, one of the main pillars of the global strategy”, comments.

Most of the volunteers from Alpargatas/Havaianas participated for the first time in an action like this. “This was our first major delivery within the new global strategy, the first of many. And there is nothing better than starting with a partner (IPÊ) with whom we have worked for 18 years. Many employees had never done a voluntary action. Some were already volunteers and loved the new initiative with nature, it was an incredible day. We already have collaborators interested in the next editions, wanting to participate, asking when the next action will be”.

The actions at the nursery were guide by professionals from the Park and two technicians from the IPÊ, Gustavo Brichi and Paulo Roberto Ferro. The team also planted seedlings and hiked to Pico of Jaraguá, which gives its name to the unit, with an altitude of 1135 meters. The word Jaraguá, Tupi origin, means “Lord of the Valleys”.

For Gustavo Lopes do Espírito Santo, manager of State Park of Jaraguá, initiatives like this reinforce volunteering as a strategy to engage society through nature. “It was an enriching activity, without a doubt the opportunity to expose the importance of protected areas to engaged and committed groups, it contributed to improving the services offered to the public and awake a feeling of affection and belonging to the space. No doubt serving as inspiration for new actions”. On the day, the 22 volunteers totaled 130 hours of volunteering dedicated to the conservation unit, 6 hours of each participant.

Andrea Peçanha emphasizes that the initiative exceeded the expectations of the collaborators. “Everyone was positively impressed with the receptivity of the Florestal Foundation team that works in the Park and with the management in the Unit. The interest was so much that the participants were already planning the next opportunity to visit the place.” 

Collective good, in the end we are all biodiversity.       

The action of volunteers contributed to the revitalization of the nursery that produces native of Atlantic Forest seedlings for the restauration of degraded areas within the UC, which is essential to help protection of this important remnant and its biodiversity, as explained Angela Pellin, researched which coordinates Volunteering front for Conservation, at IPÊ. “It’s the type of initiative where everyone wins: The Park, which received support from volunteers and materials donated to revitalize part of the nursery, the volunteers who have a different day, in contact with nature and a lot of learning, and Alpargatas, which has the opportunity to carry out an integrative action with its employees, which reflects the company’s commitment to the environment”, emphasizes.

Ten volunteers from different cities in Brazil and with different professional experiences participated on the last holiday (June 15th to 19th/22) in a different action: supporting entrepreneurs in the Amazon to improve the results of their businesses through the exchange of ideas and clarification of questions related to the topic. The activity is part of the “Project Navigating Entrepreneurial Education in the Amazon”, carried out by IPÊ - Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas, in partnership with LinkedIn, the biggest professional social media in the world.

After a research during 2021, IPÊ found that the Puranga Conquista Sustainable Development Reserve (SDR), located in Manaus' rural areas (Amazonas) and which protects almost 100 thousand hectares of the Amazon, has about 147 entrepreneurs, who work in more than 330 small business in the territory. This is the largest study on the topic about the region. Besides fishing and agriculture, which are subsistence activities, most of the 17 studied communities have tourism as a source of income, along with activities that are part of this entire chain, such as handicrafts, accommodation, food, hiking services and cultural experiences. All these activities were severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and, consequently, so the income of several families. The state of Amazonas, the epicenter of the pandemic in Brazil, recorded a 66% drop in revenue from this sector, directly reflecting tourism within protected areas, compromising this socioeconomic activity and other chains associated with tourism indirectly.

Based on this diagnosis, the Institute and its partner LinkedIn selected 47 projects with growth and development potential, which underwent a new screening. Now, 21 businesses are guided by volunteer professionals who are supporting entrepreneurs in challenges related to logistics, communication, marketing, infrastructure and accounting.

“Economic activities that generate income within the Amazon territory are important for socio-environmental conservation, as they can be allies for residents to settle in their territories, developing sustainable practices that conserve biodiversity, and reducing the need to look for work in Manaus – which is generally risky and can lead to conditions of social and economic vulnerability”, says Nailza Porto, the project coordinator.

It is important to mention that riverside communities are not fully covered by socioeconomic and environmental policies. In addition to the current Brazilian scenario, aggravated by the dismantling of environmental policies, it is necessary to promote mechanisms and strategies aimed at community-based conservation, particularly seeking to overcome extreme events due to the climate crisis. Therefore, it is necessary to create innovative and more circular arrangements in face of the current moment, adopting strategies to awaken a systemic view of the importance of a healthy environment as a natural barrier to environmental and climate crisis events.

Volunteers in action

One of the volunteers was Gabriel Leal de Barros (photo), chief economist at Ryo Asset, an investment company in Rio de Janeiro. The opportunity to get to know the project and the lower Rio Negro brought new perspectives to the professional, who was able to help entrepreneurs in essential topics such as accounting, pricing and the legal and bureaucratic issues involved in the development of a business. “Entrepreneurship in Brazil always has its challenges, they can be bureaucratic, capital, etc. In the Amazon, even with all the challenges – energy, logistics, seasonality – this is already happening and I could see it here, talking to these entrepreneurs. But I believe that the main point for us to achieve efficiency for the business is in the coordination of all this, so that the entrepreneur can have his business in a profitable way, that the product can reach the final consumer in a viable and, of course, in a sustainable way.”, said Gabriel.

Over the course of the four-day activity, the volunteers went from being teachers to mentors. Each one of them will closely monitor, over the course of a month, the businesses supported by the project, acting as sponsors of the initiatives. The goal is to assist in the business plan and action proposal for each project for the coming months. There are those who want to expand their ventures, others need financial adequacy, or even purchase instruments and equipment, in addition to facing issues of logistics and supply of energy and internet, major bottlenecks in the region.

To reach the communities, IPÊ uses its School Boat, the Maíra I, where the volunteers spent every day during the meeting days. The institute has owned the boat since 2003, it was a donation from the Martins Group, and it was renovated in August 2021 after the approval of the new project.

The experience gave the volunteers a new look at nature, helping professionals to get to know a region of Brazil that is often not included in tourist itineraries, although it is extremely rich in biodiversity, culture, and natural attractions.

The “Project Navigating Entrepreneurial Education in the Amazon” also has support from the LIRA/IPÊ project – Integrated Legacy of the Amazon Region.

The history of IPÊ is closely linked to the history of conservation of the black-lion-tamarin (Leontopithecus chrysopygus), a species that is a symbol of the state of São Paulo and that only exists in its west. It was there that the institute began its first scientific research project to save the species form extinction, still in the late 1980s, and expanded its complementary studies for the sustainable development of the region, with reforestation, environmental education and income for the population. Leading this movement were Claudio and Suzana Padua (pictured), who together with students and young professionals, officially founded the institute in 1992.

The institute, which started with less than 10 researchers, currently has 30 projects/year carried out by around 100 professionals in four biomes. As a Brazilian non-governmental organization to complete three decades is full of meanings, and, even in the face of many challenges, the IPÊ reinforces the principles and values that guide all actions since the beginning. All IPÊ studies are carried out in the field, in search of solutions to the challenges of society, especially rural producers, traditional and indigenous communities, with benefits that go beyond the limits of the territories in which we operate.

For the institute, form the beginning, it was evident that, in order to preserve biodiversity it was necessary to mobilize communities, students, local leaders, public authorities and arouse the interest of potential supporters and founders. In this direction, IPÊ established a model that has in Environmental Education and in the formation of partnerships, allies of scientific research of practical application. Every year, IPÊ benefits 12,000 people directly with our actions in the Atlantic Forest, at the Cerrado, Pantanal and the Amazon.

We work in a network

We are very proud of our network, after all we do nothing alone. Donors, funders, supporters, advisors, peer institutions and communities have always been and are fundamental in this process that involves growth, evolution and results. The partnership in the history of IPÊ – with public agencies, universities, the third sector and the private sector – is a central issue for gaining scale with results that benefit everyone, after all, we share only one planet with biodiversity.

With the private initiative, we have around 20 partnerships. In 18 years, we launched together with Havaianas, seventeen collections for adults and four for children, which value Brazilian biodiversity. So far, 57 species of Brazilian fauna have been collected. Initiatives like this reinforce our actions and take the message of how strategic it is to conserve our biodiversity to an ever-widening audience.

Our trajectory and next steps

As a way of contributing to the gain in scale that actions in the sustainable area in Brazil and abroad, IPÊ created ESCAS – School of Environmental Conservation and Sustainability with short courses, of postgraduate and professional master’s degrees (concept 4, CAPES, 4-5). It was the first NGO to have a master’s degree in the biodiversity conservation area, in 2008. More than 7,000 professionals have already graduated from ESCAS courses.

The 50 national and international awards won by the researchers and the institute – among them the Whitley Gold Award (2020,2015,2008), Social Entrepreneur Folha SP and Schwab Foundation (2009), UBS Visionaris Global (2019), Ford Awards (2009), Best NGOs to Donate to (2017) – reinforce that we are on the way.

Next steps

In view of the results obtained so far, we have expanded our goal, check out the results we hope to achieve in 5 years: 20 thousand people directly benefited/year, reach 9 thousand professionals trained by ESCAS, benefit 380 families/year, train 300 masters.

Our main goals are also to remove all the species with which we work directly from the red list of endangered species or improve their classification on this list. Furthermore, in 30 years, we want to reach the mark of 150 million trees planted.

Restoration of forests, protection of water courses, conservation of species and sustainable development are all measures that add to efforts to combat climate changes and contribute to the balance of the planet, which became even more evident in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.