The State of Parana in Brazil undertakes a major reforestation project
Riparian Forest Programme
Riparian Forest is a program developed by the Government of Paraná (State from the South Brazil). This program started beginning in November 2003. The purpose of the program is restoration of the native forest in state. The program coordination is done by General Headquarters of the Environment and Hydrology Resources of Paraná. The programme’s priority is restoration of the vegetation in the rivers margin of the State.
This is the fourth year consecutively, that the project is being carried out on Tree Day (which falls on 21st of September each year) as a massive campaign for forest restoration. The target of this year is to plant 8 million seedlings . The seedlings plantation is concentrated on the period from 21 to 26 September 2007 in all 399 municipalities of Paraná. More than 600 stakeholders among technicians (EMATER Institute) and partners are already recorded for the planting activities. Its means approximately 2,000 km of rivers restored during this week. The seedlings were produced in 20 regional nurseries of the Environmental Institute of Paraná (Instituto ambiental do Paraná - IAP). Beside these nurseries, there are 347 partners’ nurseries. These are a network to complement the seedlings production. Each partner receives the full structure of a nursery from IAP. Different segments of the Paraná society is involved as a partner. Among the partners are municipal bureaus, agricultural high schools, cooperatives, universities, charities, prisons and young rehabilitation centers, among others. Paraná state has the infrastructures to collect seeds and seedling production for 25 million native species. These seedlings are specific for the distribution in the different 7 bio-regions of the State.
The effort of the government's team already allows the verification of 64,251,273 native species planted. This action was taking by 60,008 
local people from rural and urban areas in all the 399 municipalities of Paraná. Complementary studies show that Riparian Forest Program provided 370,519 tons of CO2, as additional result to forest restoration.
According to Rasca Rodrigues, Environment Secretary of Paraná and Vitor Hugo Burko, President of Environmental Institute of Paraná/IAP, one of the challenges of Riparian Forest Program is to promote the forest restoration in pasture land by isolation, monitor after the planting actions for carbon capture and maintenance of genetic structure of restored forest compared with the natural stands.
The Program has its own resources and resources from partnerships as well. These incomes maintain the continuity of the work next years and its improvement of the technical aspects for seedling production, restoration of riparian forest by fenced area, besides the seedling growth monitoring, in other words the forest restoration itself.
In June 2007 the Riparian Forest Program was included as official partner of UNEP “Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign”, which is one of the main partners nowadays. Only in the year of 2007, until the current date, the State Riparian Forest Program already registered the plantation of 8,359,127 native seedlings.
For more information, please contact:
Sérgio Mudrovitsch de Bittencourt
Riparian Forest Program – Technical Responsible
Técnical Coordinator
Instituto Ambiental do Praná
Tel: 55 41 3213 3891
Email: sergiomb@pr.gov.br