The Xokleng Indigenous people of Santa Catarina state of southern Brazil have planted nearly a 100,000 seedlings of a critically endangered native tree, Mongabay contributor Letícia Klein reported.
The Brazilian pine (Araucaria angustifolia), or araucária, can grow more than 50 meters (164 feet) tall and has a straight trunk with a broad crown of branches near its top. Araucária pine forests historically covered large swathes of southern Brazil, but their range declined by roughly 97% in the last century.
“Just as our pine is endangered, my people are also endangered, and consequently our language and culture are endangered,” Carl Gakran, executive director of the Zág (pronounced zā) Institute, told Klein. The institute was founded in conjunction with Isabel Gakran, his wife, to organize and expand the replanting effort.
Carl Gakran began the restoration effort in 2016 after he learned that the Brazilian pine was listed as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List, the global conservation authority. He initially planned to grow just 10 trees on his own property. But the idea gained traction with the community, and they began the project the following year.
Araucária pine trees produce edible nuts called pinhão, a staple food in the culinary tradition of southern Brazil. They are also eaten by at least another 22 animal species. Project organizers and volunteers harvest the seeds but leave at least 40% behind for wildlife.
“Following our elders’ knowledge, we speak to the seeds, explain what’s happening, and perform harvest rituals. We harvest 60%, no more than that, respecting the tree and the animals that feed on it,” Gakran said.
To date, the team has planted Brazilian pines across more than 1,000 hectares (nearly 2,500 acres) of their 37,000-hectare (91,400-acre) Ibirama-La Klãnõ Indigenous Territory, home to about 2,000 Xokleng, Guarani and Kaingang people.
The territory is only a third of the way through the demarcation process to legally secure the land for the Indigenous groups; the process often takes years. The replanting effort, Gakran said, also helps to strengthen their claim to their ancestral land.
Zág now routinely works with about 30 to 40 volunteers to collect seeds, grow seedlings and restore degraded areas. Participation rises to about 60 people during harvest and distribution periods.
In the 10 years since the project began, the institute has produced more than 140,000 seedlings of the endangered tree.
The institute also removes nonnative trees such as slash pines (Pinus elliottii) and species of eucalyptus that they replace with native trees.
“Brazilian pines are sacred to us,” Gakran said. “You can’t tell the story of our people without speaking of them. Our creation myth says the protective animal was made from that tree, so it appears in the very first story.”
Read Mongabay’s full story here.
Banner image: Carl and Isabel Gakran, leaders of the Zág Institute, with their daughter Zágtxo, on the Ibirama-La Klãnõ Indigenous Territory. Image courtesy of Anderson Coelho.
