Brejao do Negros Mangrove Restoration
Brejao dos Negros is a quilombo, or community of formerly enslaved people, in Brazil. It's located in Brejo Grande, Sergipe and Marechal Deodoro, Alagoas
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Guardians Worldwide partners with Maria Aparecida Vieira and Chico Vieira, leaders of Associacao de Pescadores Quilombos do Brejao dos Negros, in Alagoas State. This Terra Quilombola, or traditional Afro-descendent community, is devoted to restoring a natural lagoon in the riverside village of Resina, through the reforestation of a local mangrove forest. The effort is vital for the regeneration of a highly eroded coastline at the mouth of the mighty Sao Francisco River, and to combat both deforestation (due to industrial shrimp farms) and rising sea levels.
The project is helping restore 350 hectares of highly degraded coastline in Alagoas state
The initiative attempts to recover the mangrove, as well as the livelihood and local traditions of mangezeiros, traditional mangrove communities of Northeastern Brazil.
Mangroves create ecosystems above and below water providing food and shelter to a wide array of species.
Mangroves grow in areas where land meets the sea. They can tolerate water that's up to 100 times saltier than most other plants. ​Mangroves protect coastlines by slowing tidal movements and building up sediment. They support biodiversity and help with climate change because they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in their roots and soils. Mangroves are being lost at a rate of 1–2% per year, which is faster than any other type of forest. Human development is the main cause of mangrove loss
Mangroves are vital to sustain the local biomes, and the entire food chain. The mangrove forest is thus the basis of economic livelihood for those who live nearby, as local fisherman Batista explains.
Batista: "This is where everything starts."
Terra Quilombas are lands that , similar to Indigenous Territories, enjoy special legal protection by Brazilian law. Quilombos are areas where Afro-descendent communities have preserved African and diasporic cultures, livelihoods and social structures for centuries. Maria Aparecida and her husband Chico draw on the values of their ancestral culture and spirituality to protect their local mangrove forest.
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