Instituto regional da pequena agropecuària apropriada no Brasil (Avaclim)

The initiative works on the recovery of the Caatinga with traditional collective pastoral communities that live directly from Caatinga resources.

Pastoral communities raise goats and sheep and extract fruits and fibres on communal lands in the Caatinga biome. In the late 1990s local communities became aware that conservation of the Caatinga provides greater security. With support of technical advice, the traditional collective pasture communities learned how to restore the degraded areas. The term “recaatingamento” was created to describe the full scope of this complex process of regeneration of the natural vegetation.

The initiative created processes of Recaatingamento in order to keep the Caatinga ecosystem productive and healthy. Recaatingamento is an approach for the recovery of degraded areas and the elaboration of a management plan for the sustainable use of the Caatinga for goat and sheep grazing, implemented in partnership with traditional collective pasture communities. The approach consists of :

• Identification and isolation of degraded areas
• Development of a management plan for the territory of the community
• Development of new activities that contribute to food security and income generation
• Involvement of entities, social movements, research agencies and universities in the implementation and evaluation of the actions developed
• Dissemination of the concept of Recaatingamento to various institutions and constituencies (elementary schools and universities).

The initiative was established on 1900 hectares of Caatinga vegetation. The community actively participates in the recovery of the Caatinga – they selected the area and have implemented the management plan. They perform all the activities needed for the Recaatingamento process to succeed and are responsible for maintaining the necessary management regime for at least 20 years. The State has donating the necessary material and equipment and provided technical assistance in order to contribute to combating desertification and mitigating the effects of climate change. NGOs provide advisory support.