What is BNDES Forests?
The world has a natural, powerful, and widely available technology to face climate crisis: forests. These largest terrestrial carbon sinks regulate rainfall, stabilize temperatures, protect communities from natural disasters, and ensure the livelihood of millions of people. But this technology is under threat. Since 1990, the planet has lost 420 million hectares of forest cover. Reversing this trend is urgent—and the Brazilian government and BNDES have made this commitment.
With the goal of restoring 12 million hectares by 2030, Brazil is repositioning its native forests as pillars of sustainable development. The BNDES Forests initiative articulates a set of interconnected actions that mutually strengthen each other. In addition to promoting reforestation, they focus on activating the forest economy with productive inclusion, income generation, and the leading role of local communities. The BNDES strategy combines financial instruments, technical support, technological innovation, institutional coordination, and the attraction of private capital to unlock bottlenecks and scale up restoration.
Nurseries supply projects in the surrounding area, collector networks strengthen productive chains, and technical assistance qualifies professionals in management, reforestation, and socio-biodiversity. The projects interconnect with each other, reduce risks, multiply impact, and leave a legacy in water, soil, carbon, and biodiversity. Their results are already concrete: in less than three years, BNDES has mobilized BRL 7 billion in investments in almost all Brazilian biomes, according to the map below, which will result in 280 million planted trees, 168 thousand recovered hectares, 70 thousand generated green jobs and 54 million tons of captured carbon.
BNDES Forests integrates three essential dimensions: climate, by consolidating Brazil as a carbon reservoir with real and diverse capture projects; socio-environmental, by valuing traditional communities and ecosystem services; and economic, by showing that restoration generates value, employment, and innovation. The challenge is immense, but the opportunity is even greater.
From Brazil, to the planet.