Reforest the Amazon Basin
In the southwestern Brazilian Amazon, the choice has long been framed as cut the forest or stay poor. That false binary has driven decades of deforestation across Rondônia and the surrounding states, and it has driven labor exploitation too, with workers pulled into illegal clearing operations on the frontier of the rainforest.
The Amazonia Rioterra project has been working since 1999 to write a different option. Over four million trees planted across extractive reserves, smallholder farms, and the Rio Madeira watershed, with deliberate choices about what gets planted. Cocoa, cupuaçu, açaí, Amazon nuts, and andiroba are all native species that produce real income for the families who tend them. The forest grows back as a productive landscape, not a fenced-off one.
Not For Sale supports Reforest the Amazon Basin because conservation lasts when the people who live there can earn a living from a standing forest. A tree that feeds a family is a tree that doesn't get felled.
Field updates
Posts from the planting team14 Aug 2025
Some of them are obtained from seedlings that germinate naturally within the forest itself. One example present in the Amazon Basin Reforestation Project is the Caroba (Jacaranda copaia). In the image, you can see how these seedlings are collected directly from the forest. This process requires great care to avoid damaging the roots. After harvesting, the seedlings are transferred to containers in the nursery, where they receive the necessary care until they reach the ideal stage for reforestation.
11 Aug 2025
This tropical species, with sweet fruits and versatile pulp used in jellies, soft drinks and ice cream, is strategic in reforestation, as it nourishes local communities and the region's fauna.
11 Aug 2025
In the image, a fallen tree blocks access to seed-supplying trees, illustrating the difficulties encountered in everyday life.
28 Jul 2025
With careful hands and ancestral knowledge, they transform seeds into hope, daily cultivating the forest of the future. Our deepest thanks to all these inspiring women.
28 Jul 2025
They are the ones who, with dedication and sensitivity, produce the seedlings that help reforest our planet. Gratitude and recognition to these great protagonists!
28 Jul 2025
🌼🌱 With hands that plant tomorrow, women nurseries in the Amazon play an essential role in the forest restoration chain. Your work is strength, it is care, it is resistance. Today and always, thank you very much!
30 Jun 2025
Thousands of seedlings of native species are ready to head to reforestation fields in the Amazon basin.
30 Jun 2025
We are satisfied with the results.
5 Jun 2025
The Amazon is fundamental to the global climate and biodiversity, but suffers from deforestation and uncontrolled fires. On this day — and every other day — we need to remember the importance of preserving this biome to guarantee a sustainable future.
23 May 2025
Seeds of life and regeneration 🌱✨ In the image, the seeds of the rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis), a tree that is a symbol of resistance and usefulness. In addition to restoring degraded areas, the latex that turns into rubber is extracted from it, and its seeds, rich in oil and nutrients, are the basis for paints, resins and even supplements.
7 May 2025
Watching cocoa germinate is like witnessing the transformation of nature in real time. In just a few months, these little seedlings will be ready to bring life and biodiversity back to the Amazon reforestation fields. 🌱
7 May 2025
New generations of native trees are being cultivated to restore life and hope to degraded areas of the Amazon. Together, we can rebuild a greener future! 💚✨
Sowing Water
The Cantareira System supplies water to São Paulo, the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere, and to the millions of people and farms downstream. That system runs on the Atlantic Forest watershed, and the Atlantic Forest has been cut down to less than ten percent of what it once was. The droughts that have hit São Paulo in recent years are the direct consequence.
The Sowing Water project rebuilds the watershed where it matters most. Restoration focuses on Permanent Preservation Areas, the riparian buffers along streams and springs that filter and hold water for everyone downstream. Around them, the project works with landowners to shift to ecological pasture management, native-species silviculture, and agroforestry, so the working land between the forests stops draining what the forests are trying to refill.
Not For Sale supports Sowing Water because water security is what holds a region together. When a watershed fails, the first people displaced are the ones with the fewest options, and the cascading instability reaches every level of society. Replanting a riparian forest is also rebuilding a kind of social insurance.
Field updates
Posts from the planting team23 Jun 2024
The purple ipê (Handroanthus impetiginosus) is a deciduous species that is full of flowers at this time of year, providing a spectacle of color and beauty, in addition to the immense supply of food for pollinators. This tree has medicinal properties, its wood is strong and very valuable, which makes it vulnerable to extinction in natural ecosystems. Thanks to its size and longevity, the species is widely used in urban afforestation and ornamentation.
10 Jun 2024
The Sowing Water Project's environmental education team works to involve children and youth in climate change mitigation activities, but the broader community does not contribute. In the background, in the image on the right, you can see the smoke from one of the fires that occur daily in the municipality of Nazaré Paulista and throughout the region. These fires represent even more carbon being released into the atmosphere, in addition to the loss of biodiversity and poor air quality, causing discomfort and the worsening of respiratory diseases. We need to strengthen climate environmental education not only for children and young people, but also for adults, to maintain global temperatures and avoid extreme weather events
27 May 2024
The May flower is a cactus native to the Atlantic Forest that does not have thorns and has this name because it always blooms at this time of year. It is a plant widely used to decorate houses and gardens, but in nature the May flower grows on tree trunks without harming them, just benefiting from the scarce lighting within the forest.
12 May 2024
Contemplating the landscape in the Atlantic Forest is always enchanting, as the variety of species and flowers provide different spectacles throughout the year. We are already in May, in autumn and the temperatures should already be milder. However, the endless sequence of heat waves in the southeast region of Brazil is causing the "manacá-da-serra" (Tibouchina mutabilis) to bloom out of season. The tree can reach 12 meters in height, its flowers are white when they open and change color, going through pink until they turn purple.
4 May 2024
This is what we call the owners of land where part of the Sowing Water Project trees are planted. They receive trees on their land for ecological restoration in watershed areas and for the composition of multifunctional forests, with species of economic interest such as "jussara" (Euterpe edulis). The jussara fruit is very similar to the açaí from the Amazon. With it, incredible juices, ice creams and desserts are prepared. In addition to being beautiful, they are much appreciated by birds and other animals in the Atlantic Forest.
22 Apr 2024
To plant, you need to curl the branches into a circle. Sweet potatoes are a short-cycle agricultural crop, important for increasing carbon concentration in the soil. For those who practice physical activity, it is one of the best sources of complex carbohydrates, with a low glycemic index, which guarantees energy and satiety for longer.
9 Apr 2024
When you learn how to plant an agroforest with a class of more than 20 people, 3 teachers and the Sowing Water Project team it's much cooler!!! It happened last week at the Institute for Ecological Research. People from different municipalities at the meeting had two intense days of theoretical and practical classes such as preparing the soil and planting more than 10 different species of plants, some with seeds, others with branches, stems and seedlings of trees native to the Atlantic Forest. Quite an experience, from the technical knowledge that was acquired to the interpersonal relationships, stories, laughter and friendships.
5 Apr 2024
Interactions between land use and soil type drive soil functions, highlighting water recharge potential, in the Cantareira System, Southeast of Brazil...
27 Mar 2024
Deforestation, pollution and misuse of water in all parts of the world increase water risk, which is heightened by climate change. Floods and extreme droughts are examples of how climate can directly affect people. In tropical forests, each tree can release hundreds of liters of water per day into the atmosphere, which is essential for the supply of water in territories much wider than the forests themselves. Burning and felling trees for other land uses impact water supply and climate regulation for millions of people, not to mention other ecosystem services that are also lost. We hope that World Water Day is a good reason to think about how to conserve and restore ecosystems around the world. After all, who can live without water?
11 Mar 2024
Each food is the result of a series of processes from soil preparation, planting, care and irrigation, harvesting, storage and distribution. It is always important to choose foods that were produced locally, as they emit fewer greenhouse gases during transport until they reach the fair or market. Food is not just products. They contain the efforts of many people, as well as ecosystem services such as water, climate and pollinators. In the image, the Sowing Water Project team is promoting an agroforestry planting effort with employees from companies in the Cantareira System region and Petrobras
4 Mar 2024
The objective is to subsidize the work of teachers so that there is never a shortage of activities on environmental topics to offer students. The material is free and available for download on the Sowing Water Project website. The last two editions are about "ecosystem services" and "forests on rural properties"
25 Feb 2024
She produces ornamental and edible flowers in her agroforestry system. Sandro is a barista and his brand of agroforestry coffee pays homage to his ancestors. The two rural properties are located in the Cantareira System region and are supported by the Sowing Water Project. In addition to planting native fruit species on these properties, the project plants trees to recover degraded forest areas and the springs that produce water for millions of people
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