(May 31, 2010) A group of 360 producers of Baja California, State of Rondonia in the Brazilian Amazon managed to make it profitable to preserve the environment where they live. Many had failed before them. They created a thriving business that lifted them from the poverty situation and brought hope for their children. These settlers, who arrived in the mid-eighties to the Amazon, were tempted to leave a thousand times because of snakes, mosquitoes, malaria, and the great obstacles to produce and market their Amazonian fruit.
Finally they joined serengueiros groups, rubber tappers with whom they maintained a traditional enmity, and formed the RECA project (Joint Consortium Economic Reforestation), with 84 members. Step by step they learned to replant native fruit, that once they had ravaged, in a more dense and productive way, and reforested areas of vegetation destroyed by the migrants themselves.
The RECA project has succeeded in increasing the income of these producers, which is presently 30% higher than that of farmers who work alone and sell their products at local markets..
On June 5 United Nations celebrates World Environment Day, which calls for positive action towards the environment and promotes the ability of people to become agents of change for sustainable development.
In the reserve in Rondonia, each partner delivers its output to a central administration, which adds value to the product before selling it to far away markets.
The key to success lies in professionalization of agriculture and some level of industrialization which allows to produce pulp, jams, oils, butter cupuaçu. Last year 1.3 thousand tons were processed and sold to fruit pulp industries in the Northeast and Sao Paulo.
Given the excellence of the solution, these RECA communities won a prize in the third cycle of the Experiences in Social Innovation contest, organized by ECLAC, with support from the Kellogg Foundation. RECA has also been awarded a prize given by the government of Brazil and the United Nations Programme for Development (UNDP) for their contribution to the Millennium Development Goals
See photo gallery.
(Http://www.eclac.cl/dds/innovacionsocial/e/galeria/DiaMedioAmbiente/album/index.html)
For more information, contact Pilar Bascuñán, pilar.bascunan 
cepal.org email, telephone (562) 210 2315.
To contact the project proyecto Associação dos Pequenos Agrossilvicultores do Projeto de Reflorestamento Econômico Consorciado e Adensado, write to Hamilton Condack de Oliveira, email hcondackyahoo.com.br; Tel (55-69) - 3253-1007 or 3253-1046
