EXPLORE WILD HOPE

Making and spreading seed balls (also called seed bombs!) like those seen in “Rebuilding a Forest” is a fun and easy way to kick-start a local rewilding project and help out native wildlife. Native flowers and grasses are essential building blocks that benefit the entire ecosystem — by attracting pollinators and providing the cover of […]

In Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, Mauricio Ruiz has turned his love for nature into action by working with the community to reforest a critical stretch of the nation’s most endangered forest, and by using drones to help him reach his goal of planting 15 million trees.

In order to scale up reforestation, Mauricio Ruiz and his organization ITPA have partnered with the drone fleet at MORFO. Each drone can plant up to 50 hectares of forest per day, which is 50 times faster than planting by hand.

Mauricio Ruiz grew up in the Atlantic Forest—one of the most biodiverse and threatened on Earth. At just 14 years old, he founded ITPA to fight back against rampant deforestation.

Planting native trees, grasses, and flowers is a great way to bolster biodiversity. Plants provide food and cover for animals and fungi, proving the foundation for healthy ecosystems.

Among the many benefits of healthy forests is their incredible ability to act as natural water filters. They do this in several ways. Leaves and branches in the forest canopy interrupt the fall of rainwater, slowing its progress and decreasing rainwater-driven erosion.

As a photographer, Rejane Duarte da Costa opened paths in her work in the environmental world as a field assistant and a hard worker. Seed collection and fire control were part of Rejane Duarte's daily routine until an opportunity arose to work in the nursery of the Instituto Terra de Protection Ambiental (ITPA).

Mauricio Ruiz is a political scientist and environmentalist renowned in Brazil. He is a winner of the Muriqui award, dedicated by UNESCO to personalities with great influence in the fight for biodiversity conservation.

In the past 40 years, golden lion tamarins became a symbol of conservation success when 150 zoos worldwide assisted a breeding and reintroduction program that brought their numbers in the wild from 200 to over 3700. Then, yellow fever jumped from humans to the primates and began to decimate their population—taking a third of the population in just two years.