🌿 Empowerment Part 2: Course on Botanical Identification and Monitoring at the RESEX Rio Preto-Jacundá
In practice, the community members of the RESEX Rio-Preto Jacundá have already started to use the knowledge acquired in the Botanical Identification Course for monitoring flora species and reducing forest impact. The course also reinforces the importance of information for community development and reducing deforestation in the area of the RESEX Jacundá REDD+ Project.
In our latest post, we told you about the Botanical Identification Course offered to the residents of ASMOREX (Association of Residents of the Rio Preto-Jacundá Extractive Reserve), the area where the RESEX Jacundá REDD+ Project operates. The activity was carried out based on the needs identified by the residents involved in the sustainable management of the region, and the knowledge acquired has already begun to be applied.
“This course is very important, especially for the community. We, who work with the management and recovery of degraded areas, have difficulties with botanical identification, especially in an area where we have so much diversity. The added value for me of the course, as a graduate student, is to know how to identify species in order to have valid and concrete data that represent our Western Amazon, which is the focus of my studies.” – says Ariane Cristina, Forest Engineer.
Erisson Medeiros, a collaborator from the New York Botanical Garden, explains that the objective of the course was for all the students to leave there with the necessary resources to carry out the collection and identification of a plant or, in case they are not able to carry out the correct identification with total reliability, to have the resources and contacts to bring this identification.
“Before, we used to recognize them by sight, mainly by the bark. Nowadays we can identify them by the flower or by the leaf as well. It will make a difference to me because last year I started to work with botany and didn’t know much. Now with this course we are getting knowledge” – comments Ludbre de Oliveira, a resident of ASMOREX.
Watch the video and see what some members of the Association have to say about the action:
The RESEX Jacundá REDD+ Project is the first REDD+ project developed in a state conservation unit, in Rondônia, and the only one in operation with validation and verification in Verra’s VCS and CCB standards with this profile. In addition, the project is made possible through a partnership between Biofílica Ambipar and the Association of Residents of the Rio Preto-Jacundá Extractive Reserve, ASMOREX.
Since the beginning of this partnership, ASMOREX practices, in parallel to the REDD+ Project activities, low impact forest management and is an example of how to develop the community in a responsible way within the forest, based on several environmental services.
A model to be followed by other communities, mainly because it understands that forest conservation goes beyond environmental issues, structuring the tripod of sustainability, together with the socioeconomic cause – the same tripod that is the basis for REDD+ projects and explains their success.
When the community finds ways to develop in the forest, they are encouraged and understand the importance of natural resources, they conserve and support the reduction of deforestation.
It is an achievement for us to follow the ongoing progress of the project and we thank our partners and their collaborators who helped make the course possible: ASMOREX, Rioterra Study Center, UNIR (University of Rondônia Foundation) and New York Botanical Garden.
Get to know the RESEX Jacundá REDD+ Project and its activities that make deforestation reduction feasible,
generate carbon credits, and neutralize emissions of the world’s largest companies.
