This project aims to raise awareness about the Caatinga biome, a unique Brazilian ecosystem with diverse endemic flora and fauna species and a complex food chain, including multiple jaguar and leopard species. Despite its richness, the region is often seen as dry and arid due to decades of deforestation and hunting. The success of this project can not only bring attention to our biome, but reward many communities who want to preserve these forests but lack incentives or financial returns, serving as a model to be replicated in the neighbouring communities who are partners of Instituto Anjos do Sertão. The project is located in Fazenda Santa Fé (5500 ha), where Anjos do Sertão Headquarters are. A history of cotton and cattle farming as well as timber harvesting and hunting have resulted in a highly degraded ecosystem. Some secondary forests are present, but with many missing tree species and much lower diversity than the original primary forests. The project intends to regenerate this land towards a primary forest state using a mix of planting and assisted regeneration while creating sustainable revenues from native non-timber forest products and empowering neighboring communities in a very impoverished area of Brazil. Additionally, the territory has been changing a lot in the last few years and it is now being threatened by the arrival of big soy producers and cattle farmers, whose intentions are to take out any remnant of standing forests, resulting in a big loss of biodiversity. Anjos do Sertão Institute's work in the territory is exactly to create a sustainable way of living alongside standing forests, finding mechanisms to generate wealth while preserving the Caatinga and disseminating those practices to the neighbouring traditional communities of the region. Finally, the area of the project is very close to one of the biggest National Parks in Brazil, Serra das Confusões, and it can serve as a buffer to protect the park from the harms of traditional farming.
