Instituto Terra Highlights
Instituto Terra has completed significant program expansions allowing us to reach the following milestones:
- Instituto Terra was recognized as a top five finalist out of 200 organizations from 55 countries for the $1 million Alcan and Prince of Wales Prize for Sustainability for our innovative sustainability practices that have positive social, economic, and environmental impact. We received $15,000 and a one-year scholarship for a senior staff member to attend Cambridge University for a Postgraduate degree.
- New graduates! We graduated our first class from the Advanced Environmental Center in 2006 - a two-year residency program - as specialists in forestry and sustainable land conservation practices.
- In 2007, 339 courses and 39 events were attended, respectively, by 9,763 students and 17,432 participants.
- Our nursery now has a capacity for 600,000 seedlings per year with a potential for increasing output to 1 million
- We commenced a three-year semester exchange program with students from the College of Santa Fe.
- Water has returned to our river and stream beds which were once bone dry.
- We’ve constructed a new reservoir which captures 21 million gallons of rain water.
- Since 1998, we have trained over 5,000 farmers, public officials, teachers, and forestry professionals as experts in land conservation and restoring forest ecosystems.
- Since 1998, we have planted 1,164,000 seedlings and have restored the forest’s original 1,200 tree species per acre ratio.
- Since 1998, we have reforested 905 acres of Atlantic Forest which is equivalent, as far as carbon emission is concerned, to taking 80,000 cars off the road every year.
Gardens on the grounds of Instituto Terra
Reservoir for capturing rain water
Manoel Rita, making a difference one tree at a time