We can save Colombia’s Rainforests

A nature-positive economy bets on building new business models that conserve and rebuild ecosystems. Nature becomes an asset that generates economic returns and improves the living conditions of communities.

The Arbora model helps rural communities to build nature-positive economies in their territories. Landowners form new organizations, they sign up part of their land for conservation and restoration efforts and Arbora compensates them by investing in their communities and local economy.

Most people, no matter where they live, strive to improve their economic situation. Unfortunately in rural communities economic opportunities are mostly limited to traditional agriculture with all its negative effects on nature.

Arbora creates new opportunities that embrace nature and conservation while allowing people to make a living. We are confident that our nature positive approach to rural economies will not only replace harmful agriculture as an income source but will even improve the economic situation of many families.

Intact, native ecosystems are more resilient and capture more CO2 than monocultures of commercial trees for lumber production. A native forest in its natural state is oftentimes the most resilient one, even against wildfires.

In proximity to native forests ecosystems recover faster:

1. Deforested areas such as grasslands can recover their natural state by letting a native forest expand. A process called 'natural regeneration' - requires no human intervention except for fencing off an area and letting nature do its work. Nature does not need our help to recover.
2. Reforestation projects can use a native forests serve as seed banks. Native tree farms can be created in the proximity of an existing forest.
3. In many cases native fauna does not inhabit a planted forest. Planted forests, especially with non native trees, can end up being sterile environments and might not help the ecosystem recover. They can even be a net negative because only an intact, diverse ecosystem will maintain a healthy state in the long term. (Read More)

At the end of last year, Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) reported that Amazonian deforestation hit a 12-year high. The Amazon, the largest rainforest on Earth, once one of our greatest carbon sinks, now pumps CO2 into the atmosphere.

Continuing deforestation and agricultural activity are leaving the remaining forest vulnerable to a process of continued degeneration that we might not be able to revert. The consequence could be a permanent transformation of Amazon rainforests into savannas or even deserts. (Read More)

Yet, not all is bleak. If we take 1970 as a baseline, 80% of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest and 50% of the Colombian rainforest are still intact as of 2022. Saving the remaining forests will prevent billions of tons of CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere and eventually allow the forests to expand and recover.

If we act fast we can still save Latin America's rainforests from collapsing and make a huge contribution to mitigating climate change.

Let's face reality. Governments in the Amazon region are failing to protect the land. Most deforestation is already illegal, yet still happening on a massive scale. Even world heritage sites like the Chiribiquete national park in Colombia are not safe from human intervention (Read More).

So how would buying more land change that? Should we also deploy a private army to protect all the land from illegal logging and cattle farming?

The only sustainable way is to give rural communities new ways to coexist with nature and to receive economic benefits from protecting nature - the Arbora way.