Over the last few years, the Brazilian forestry sector has gained notable visibility due to the evolution of its management techniques, including relevant investments in environmental conservation programs and projects.

Breaking the barriers of basic compliance with environmental conditions and certification principles, Bracell Bahia has been building, for 10 years, a range of environmental programs to maintain and promote biodiversity on the northern and rural coast of Bahia. There are no less than eight environmental programs, aimed at conserving fauna, flora and water resources, including initiatives aimed at promoting environmental education, especially among communities neighboring conservation units.

Since they were created, such programs have been continually improved with new techniques and technologies. An important movement in this direction was the One-to-One Commitment, through which Bracell is committed to helping conserve one hectare of native forest for every hectare planted with eucalyptus.

This commitment, which relies on partnerships with state governments, involves its own and public areas. The company's goal is for equality to be achieved by 2025 in all areas of Bracell's operations in Bahia, Mato Grosso do Sul and São Paulo. Another important measure is the launch of Bracell 2030, a strategic environmental, social and corporate governance agenda with 14 new commitments and goals for the next seven years, with pillars involving climate action, development of sustainable landscapes and biodiversity, sustainable growth and empowering lives.

To be more specific, I highlight the Biodiversity Monitoring Program for the Conservation of Fauna and Flora and the Environmental Regularization Program, both started in 2015 and 2016, which assumed a strategic role within the company. Due to the importance they have demonstrated, these programs have been successively redesigned in order to achieve even bolder objectives, in order to contribute, ever more and more, to a better understanding of the relationship between forest management and biodiversity.

Monitoring fauna and flora has the main objective of understanding the impacts of forest management on biodiversity and suggesting mitigating actions to reduce them. Since 2019, the program has followed the same sampling design, obtaining a history of results referring to the fauna and flora communities of the northern coast of Bahia. This design covers eight areas distributed in the Atlantic Forest, Caatinga and Cerrado enclaves biomes, four of which are considered to be of high conservation value, following certification criteria. To date, 641 species of fauna and 336 species of flora have been recorded in them, 44 of which are threatened.

Observing the data over the 5 years, we verified that there are no significant impacts on variations in communities due to the dynamics of the managed landscape. The high biodiversity of the region demonstrates in a collector curve that richness continues to increase, now with less intensity, but with rare and threatened species being added to the graph. Maintaining sightings of threatened, endemic and migratory species is an important conservation indicator when compared to the activities carried out by our management.

Derived from the biodiversity monitoring program, the Fauna Sighting Program and the registration of Wild Animal Release Areas have become important tools for maintaining local fauna, environmental education, rescue and reintroduction of native species.

Aimed at all of the company's own and third-party employees, the Sighting Program brings these people implications of wildlife conservation for their daily lives. More than 2 thousand animals have been registered since the launch of the program and improvements have been adopted, such as the development of an intelligent form for rapid data capture and analysis.

In turn, Asas is a voluntary program with the environmental agency that registers conserved areas for the reintroduction of species. The first area registered was the Lontra Private Natural Heritage Reserve (Itanagra, Bahia), in 2021, and then the Fazendas Reunidas Marcanair (Jandaíra, Bahia) and Cachoeira (Entre Rios, Bahia). Together, to date, these three areas have welcomed and given a new chance of survival to more than 700 wild animals, including birds, mammals and reptiles.

The initial product of environmental conditions for our operation, the Environmental Regularization Program covers two important vectors: ecological restoration and the eradication of exotic species. Designed far beyond legal regulation, the Environmental Regularization Program has received extensive improvements based on reasoning based on the ecological complexity of native forests.

A restored forest needs to address a complex network of fauna-flora interactions with the environment. The design used favors natural dynamics and its potential for resilience. In this context, functional species for food, places for refuge, fallow and reproduction of wild fauna become great allies, while the fight against degradation factors is always the biggest challenge, along with erosion, infestation of exotic species, fires and invasion by cattle.

The aspects evaluated in the Restoration Program led to an important reduction in costs per hectare, the superior quality of the seedlings and the choice of the correct species, resulting in a lower mortality rate. The eradication of exotic species with standing death, based on local and controlled chemical application, reduced the impacts on native vegetation and the cost when compared to the clear cutting of pine and eucalyptus individuals amid native vegetation. To date, more than 8,000 hectares have been restored thanks to the efforts of Bracell Bahia, although there are still many challenges in maintaining the fragments and controlling degradation factors.

Despite being distinct initiatives, the Monitoring Program and the Environmental Regularization Program complement each other at all times. Through the results of fauna and flora research, it is possible to observe the species necessary for planting seedlings and the interactions to be reconnected in the environment under restoration.

Knowing the environment present in the area of influence well provides us with robust knowledge about communities and their web of interconnections in the quest to contribute to the maintenance of a complex, dynamic, resilient and sustainable environment.