Caatinga Day: State announces planting of 500 thousand seedlings in seven conservation units | Latest: Pernambuco.com

The State Government launched, this Monday (29), an emergency plan for the reforestation of the caatinga in Pernambuco.

According to the State, R$16 million will be invested to plant 500,000 tree seedlings in seven conservation units in the biome.

During a ceremony held at Palácio do Campo das Princesas, headquarters of the state Executive, in the center of Recife, details of the plan were announced.

In the coming days, the State Environment Agency (CPRH) will launch a notice to hire a civil society organization that will be responsible for the recovery of degraded areas in the semi-arid region.

Among the priority areas are country cities where the biome predominates.

The resources come from a partnership between the state government and the National Development Bank (BNDES) and the Northeast Consortium.

According to the government, this is just the first stage of an emergency plan in which the government invests in actions to try to reduce the effects of desertification.

By the end of Governor Raquel Lyra’s (PSDB) mandate, in 2026, state management plans to plant 4 million seedlings.

Furthermore, the Executive intends to increase the number of conservation units, planning to increase the number of areas preserved and protected by the government to 13, thus totaling more than 8 thousand hectares of living biome.

Important date

The actions were detailed in a ceremony that celebrated Caatinga Day, celebrated on Sunday (28).

The ceremony was attended by governor Raquel Lyra, vice-governor Priscila Krause, as well as state and federal deputies, as well as senior government officials.

According to the CPRH, the civil society organization that will be chosen through a notice will have to have experience in environmental recovery and reforestation.

This entity will be responsible for planting 500 thousand seedlings between the period from November this year to March 2025, which is precisely the period of the seedling planting window in the Caatinga biome.

“For legal reasons, the notice will be released in the next few days. Subsequently, we will give entities a period of 30 to 45 days to submit proposals. We will then have another 30 days to analyze and judge those who may be elected to carry out the work. I want to believe that by July or August we will have the notice resolved”, highlighted the director-president of CPRH, José de Anchieta.

According to him, after the process of choosing the entity that won the notice, seeds from the seedlings will be collected.

“The planting window is from November to March. So, by then, we hope to have everything ready to start planting the 500,000 seedlings. This year, I believe we were able to finish it, as we mapped out all the nurseries where the planting will take place. By the end of the mandate, in 2026, other calls will be made to produce a total of 4 million new seedlings. This is an unprecedented call for the Caatinga ecosystem. process of social inclusion”, emphasized the CPRH manager.

He also highlighted that the notice also covers nurseries in quilombola areas of original peoples, located in the Sertão region of the State.

“To give you an idea, there is a fantastic nursery in the quilombola district of Conceição das Crioulas, in Salgueiro. This nursery has the capacity to produce 200 thousand seedlings per year”, highlighted Anchieta.

Analysis

According to Governor Raquel Lyra, reforestation of the caatinga is a sign of reversal for the legacy of poverty and inequality in the semi-arid region of the State.

“It is a historic feat for our State. Yesterday we celebrated Caatinga Day. Today we launched the notice that will encourage partnerships with non-governmental organizations and local communities so that we can guarantee replanting in our dry forest. The Caatinga is a biome of great diversity and, for a long time, it became synonymous with inequality, hopelessness, cracked soil and poverty. We did work that allows us, today, to open the first notice to guarantee the reforestation of the Caatinga. There will be several other initiatives that will see the government inject investments directly into food production, forest regeneration and population maintenance in the Sertão and Agreste of the State”, highlighted the head of the State Executive.

The Secretary of Environment, Sustainability and Fernando de Noronha, Ana Luiza Ferreira, highlighted that in addition to the Caatinga reforestation plan, state management also plans to increase the number of ecosystem conservation units in the State.

Areas

Currently, there are seven conservation areas and the promise of Raquel Lyra’s management is to increase this number to 13 conservation units. In Pernambuco, in total, 91 units from different biomes are being preserved in the State.

“In fact, today in the State we have a very large concentration of conservation units in the Atlantic Forest, closer to the Coast. And we see that it is extremely important to have an increase in conservation units in the Caatinga as well. So, we are in the phase of carrying out technical studies to create six new units in municipalities in the Caatinga and this will total more than 8 thousand hectares of protected area of ​​the ecosystem”, highlighted the manager.