Mata Atlântica, Brazil
HEIGHT:
LENGTH:
BUILT:
ENGINEERING FIRM:
▸ PLANNING STAGE
Walkway Updates
THREATS:
- The expansion of agriculture, cities and roads, combined with the exploitation of precious wood, have led to around 92% of the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest being lost.
- These changes have led to over 2,000 trees endemic to the Atlantic Forest (82%) now being at risk of extinction, also affecting many animals, fungi and other organisms associated with those trees.
OPPORTUNITIES:
As the international spotlight shines on Brazil
for hosting the United Nations’ 30th Climate Change Conference in 2025, it is a crucial time and opportunity to emphasize the importance of biodiversity as part of nature-based solutions for tackling national and global climate challenges.
Create one of the first Atlantic Rainforest’s canopy walkways at the Alto da Figueira Reserve to boost biodiversity research and monitoring, as well as educational opportunities.
Use ecotourism, research opportunities, and the resulting sustainable revenue streams to attract hundreds of visitors to the reserve every year.
Through research and discovery, open doors to understanding how different trees host unique life forms – with broad implications for designing forest restoration projects, informing carbon and biodiversity credits, and prioritizing the protection of remaining old-growth forests.
GOALS:
Develop a walkway and tower that is accessible to researchers and visitors alike to learn more about the amazing biodiversity of birds– this is the precise site selected by BBC to record Life of Birds with David Attenborough in the late 1990s! – mammals, plants, fungi, insects and other types of species and life forms (several still unknown to scientists) that are hosted by two intertwined giant trees.
Establish the walkway as a key element of the core world-class research facilities that are currently being developed at the Reserve.
Raise $1.7 million in funding to support the construction and marketing of this unique reserve, through the International partnership team of the Antonelli Foundations for Biodiversity Research and Conservation, the TREE Foundation, and donors who want to make a meaningful contribution toward environmental sustainability.
Mata Atlântica: a Biodiversity "Hot Spot"
With less than 10% of this exceedingly diverse tropical rainforest remaining, it’s a race against time to document, understand, and protect its beautiful and unique biodiversity. Much of this diversity is hidden in the treetops, and is waiting to be explored.
The globally outstanding levels of diversity, combined with high conservation threats, have led to the formal designation of the Atlantic Forest as a global biodiversity hotspot. Protection of the remaining forests, and restoration of those that have already been degraded, can lead to substantial benefits to biodiversity (by decreasing the threats to species), climate (by capturing and storing carbon), and people (by preventing landslides, providing communities with clean water and air, pollination services, non-timber forest products, income from ecotourism, and much more). The walkway and associated tree tower will be constructed as part of a newly developed biodiversity research and monitoring station in Alto da Figueira Reserve, a 120-hectare privately-owned reserve covered with primary rainforest near Nova Friburgo (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and highly accessible to national and international visitors.
