Landscape Laboratory and Brazilian institutions create International Technical Cooperation Alliance for the Atlantic Forest

The Supereco and Pro-Muriqui institutes, from the state of São Paulo, Brazil, and the Landscape Laboratory, with renowned conservation and socio-environmental activities, have formed an ‘Alliance for International Technical Cooperation and Interinstitutional Support for the Atlantic Forest’.

The aim of the Alliance, which has now been formalised, is to collaborate in the sharing of knowledge and methodologies for the design, implementation and evaluation of socio-environmental projects and initiatives, conservation and planning of sustainable landscapes in the Atlantic Forest, one of the richest biomes in biodiversity in the world, but currently with less than 12.5% of its original remaining area and one of the most threatened and priority conservation hotspots on the planet.

There are plans for collaborative work, exchanges of researchers, students and environmental education technicians, events such as seminars or workshops that contribute to training, dissemination of challenges and good practices, collaboration on scientific projects, and/or joint applications for funding and networking with other institutions working in the Atlantic Forest. Interested parties should contact the Alliance’s founding NGOs.

For the President of the Supereco Institute, Andrée Vieira, this alliance ‘brings to a global scale the importance of exchanging research, methodologies and good practices for the recovery and conservation of one of the richest biomes in terms of biodiversity, environmental services and prosperity for all communities of life on the planet’.

Adelina Pinto, president of the Landscape Laboratory, emphasises that this alliance, which brings Portugal and Brazil together, ‘is very beneficial for the entities involved, because of the sharing it will provide, both in terms of environmental education and research, especially in the area of biodiversity. This is also an affirmation of the Landscape Laboratory as an increasingly international reference and a recognition of the excellent work it has been able to promote over the last decade.’

All three organisations are non-governmental, non-profit organisations. Laboratório da Paisagem, founded in 2014, is based in Guimarães, Portugal, and bases its work on research and development and environmental education. The Supereco Institute, with operational headquarters on the coast of São Paulo, Brazil, has existed since 1994 and is a reference in the development of educational, social, environmental and cultural programmes, especially in the Atlantic Forest. The Pro-Muriqui Institute, founded in 2000, with operational headquarters in São Miguel Arcanjo, São Paulo state, carries out scientific research applied to the biological conservation of the Muriqui-do-Sul, a primate in critical danger of extinction in the rainforest and an agent of water protection.