The story of the Serra Bonita Reserve,
by its founder Dr. Vitor o. Becker.
“The Serra Bonita Reserve is a private initiative to protect and study Atlantic Rain Forest remnants, in the cacao growing region of the state of Bahia, Brazil.
The Brazilian Atlantic Forest originally covered approximately 1.3 m square km along the Atlantic coast. Fast deforestation in the last 50 years, farming, industrialization, urban growth and other human actions, have reduced the Atlantic Forest to less than 8% of its original extension: about 100.000 km² in disperse fragments.
The Atlantic Forest is a hotspot: the Planet’s second most threatened biome. 171 of the 627 endangered species listed by the Brazilian Ministry of Environment belong to the Atlantic Forest, 11 already extinct. Its biodiversity is little known: some species join the “endangered” list as soon as they are discovered, such as the Parana antwren and the golden-headed lion tamarin. Other species disappear even before being described by scientists.
However, the Atlantic Rain Forest is still one of the richest biomes on Earth, with 3,500 animal and 20,000 plant species, of which over 500 animal and 8,000 plant species are endemic. It also supplies fresh water to 80% of the Brazilian population.
Since 2003, the Brazilian government has carried out a national program to protect and link Atlantic Forest fragments through biodiversity corridors, established public policies, a legal framework, and expanding nature reserves in the 2 most significant remnant areas: the Corridor of Serra do Mar, in the States of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, and the Central Corridor, in South Bahia and the State of Espírito Santo, harboring exceptional biological richness, diversity and endemism. But since much before these government measures, my wife and I had considered creating a reserve.
My wife Clemira is an educator dedicated to social and political causes, who throughout her carrier created, implemented and developed numerous projects on education and social inclusion, making the University of Brasilia, where she worked as a public server, a national reference. As for me, I am an entomologist interested in the taxonomy of New World tropical moths. Along my years of public service at a Brazilian research institution, EMBRAPA, I managed to gather, identify and describe over 1 million specimens of New World moths and butterflies into the Becker Collection, which became a global reference in this field of Science, and is my object of research.
Clemira and I often went on field trips together, saw the forests disappearing, and came to the conclusion that there is no point to preserve dead specimens in museums if nothing is done to protect them in nature. So, in 1997, when the kids were grown up and time came to us to retire, we decided to leave Brasilia, where we had settled In 1974 and where we worked until retirement, and looked for a place where urgent environment protection was needed.
We chose the Serra Bonita mountain, in the municipality of Camacan, almost 2,000 km from Brasilia. It is in the cocoa region of Bahia, and currently the heart of the Central Biodiversity Corridor.
Cocoa used to be grown under the forest, in a system locally known as “cabruca”, established by cleaning the understory and cutting out the smaller trees, leaving the taller ones; a system that delays deforestation. Is used to be an extremely profitable commodity, whose monoculture kept local economy in very high standards for almost 100 years.
But, in the 1980´s, a disease called the witch broom almost decimated the plantations. This disease is caused by a fungus to which no control method is known. It develops on the young shoots, stimulating multiple branching (the reason for its popular name) and in the fruit, rotting the beans, the commercial product.
The witch broom disease caused the total bankruptcy of local economy in less than 10 years and forced the population to migrate. The ones who remained, out of minimum livelihood options, turned to the forest as a means of survival. Large scale illegal logging, intensive poaching, hunting, commercialization of live animal and vegetal species, palm hart extraction, and the replacement of cocoa by farming and cattle ranching, quickly reduced the forest, affecting the populations of plants and animals.
In 1998, with our own personal funds, my wife and I started to purchase land in Serra Bonita, including 1,500 trees from one property whose owner wanted to sell to loggers. Among them were huge jequitibá trees (an endangered species), some of them hundreds of years old. Six months later, we bought the same property, perpetuating the protection of these trees.
By 2001 we had purchased nearly 50 properties, amounting to more than 1,000 ha. In the same year we unified the land titles and applied for the Ministry of Environment to legally recognize the area as a Private Reserve. In the same year, a personal friend of ours (who does not wish to have his name published) bought 3 other properties next to ours, covering another 500 ha, and also applied for reserve legalization. By 2005, together we had over 1,800 ha under protection: the largest privately owned reserve in the Central Corridor.
We soon realized that most funding is not available to private owners, and that it is also be difficult, as private owners, to establish formal partnership with universities and research institutions. So in 2001 we created the NGO Instituto Uiraçu, to enable us to apply for funding and establish agreements with universities and other institutions, in order to protect the whole Serra Bonita mountain, and to conduct, support and promote environment education and scientific research for Atlantic Forest conservation and protection.
We had to learn to run the Institute from scratch, and as it matured, more volunteers and partners joined in, projects grants and donations became possible and we were even able to temporarily hire and train staff. In the last years we bought a few more properties, which are undergoing legalization as reserves to expand the protected area, kept permanent surveillance and carried out numerous activities with the community.
These community outreach activities include field trips to the reserve, technical and environment education courses, cultural activities, public hearings, seminars, lectures, workshops and assistance in creating the Municipal Environment Council, in collaboration with local partners, the Municipal Administration, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and Federal and State Universities who also promote scientific research in and about the reserve.
Currently we have 15 flora and fauna studies being conducted by different institutions. One of them is an inventory of the reserve flora, carried out by the NY Botanical Garden in partnership with the State University of Santa Cruz, which has identified over 1,000 vascular plants, 15 unknown to science. Also, the organization Birdlife International has defined Serra Bonita as an Important Bird Area, with over 300 bird species, 59 endemic, including the recently discovered pink-legged graveteiro. Another new bird was recently found, as well as 2 new species of frogs, one snake and two lizards.
To enable scientists to conduct studies in the reserve, my wife and I sold our house and part of the moth collection, and gathered all our savings to build the reserve facilities: a research center, an 8-bedroom lodge for up to 32 people; a restaurant was planned to be started soon, but we ran out of personal funds!
Now there is still a lot to be done. It is very difficult to run an NGO depending on eventual third party project funding. Since the beginning of our enterprise, our family and many of our friends have worked as volunteers and have played an essential role. But we need permanent paid staff and this is one of our main difficulties since the project is now too big for us to carry out on our own. So, we continue in search of partnerships, in order:
- to protect the whole mountain through land acquisition and conversion into a big consortium of reserves, managed by the Institute through a Management Fund. With this in mind, we have mapped and assessed the mountain and kept a list of priority areas. Also we want to better the reserve surveillance and protection by improving our infrastructure, equipment and staff training.
- to establish an environmental education center for children and the general public, a beautiful project called The Science Park, a place of information, investigation and dialogue directed mainly to the local community, and to improve our services and relationship by helping them find new economic alternatives.
- to continue strengthening Instituto Uiraçu, our network of friends, partners, supporters and staff, and make it self-sufficient.
Just a note about Instituto Uiraçu. It is named after the Harpy Eagle, the Harpia harpyija. In the Brazilian indigenous Tupi language, Uirá (bird) – Açu (big), “big bird”. It is the largest raptor in the New World, reaching 2.2 meters wingspan. It soars high and has acute vision, as we want to be. It is almost extinct in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, but it has been recently sighted at the SBR: it has come back to us!
If you are interested in having your own reserve in Serra Bonita, if you know how we can get funding for our Science Park or other projects, or if you have any questions at all, we will be happy to answer them, or feel free to email us. We are ALWAYS open to discuss partnership possibilities!
We and our special friends from the Serra Bonita Reserve would like to say MANY THANKS for your kind patience, support and attention!”