“In the absence of laws, it is up to us to act. This is how we can change Brazil,” says Alcides Peixinho Nascimento, a 70-year-old farmer determined to save the vast Caatinga from desertification. biome of the northeast of the country.
His method: relying on agro-ecological practices to grow original vegetation and cultivate food to meet its needs.
The Caatinga, which extends over the poorest region of Brazil, is a biome with unique characteristics in the world, with its thorny shrubs adapted to the semi-arid climate.
But it has lost 40% of its original surface area due to agricultural and mining expansion and the installation of wind farms, according to the NGO MapBiomas.
La Caatinga also suffers from increasingly severe periods of drought, which experts attribute in particular to climate change.
Brazil’s first arid zone was recently identified in northern Bahia, one of ten Brazilian states that host this biome.
Unlike the Amazon, which is the focus of global concern, Caatinga attracts little interest, even though it too is rich in biodiversity, with vegetation that helps absorb carbon emissions.
“Preserving the Caatinga means keeping these lands alive,” sums up Alcides Peixinho Nascimento, his face weathered and his machete on his belt.
The septuagenarian admits that, although forty years ago he would never have imagined such deterioration, today he sees the effects of global warming “very easily”.
According to a recent study, nine out of ten species of flora and fauna in Caatinga could disappear by 2060.
Local authorities estimate that nearly 38 million Brazilians could suffer the effects of desertification, which could extend over 140 million hectares, more than double the size of France.
– “Guardians of the Caatinga” –
To regenerate his land, near the town of Uaua, in Bahia, Mr. Nascimento plants mandacaru, a cactus that can measure up to six meters high and whose fruits can feed both animals and humans.
With their thorns which repel predators, these cacti are particularly planted around land where other native species and foods such as black beans, an essential food on the Brazilian plate, are grown.
And the excess mandacaru production is sold to a French cosmetics brand, to make creams and soaps.
Enough to provide for the needs of your family while providing the soil with vegetation that protects it from the extreme climate.
“The Caatinga is preserved in areas where traditional communities live” that adopt these agroecological practices, assures Luiz Almeida Santos, of the Regional Institute of Appropriate Small Agriculture (IRPAA), a local NGO. “They are the guardians of the Caatinga.”
One of IRPAA’s missions is to teach local communities how to manage water use, so that reserves last until the most critical periods of drought.
– Vital tanks –
On her land in Malhada da Areaia, a rural town near Juazeiro, a town in northern Bahia, Maria Gonçalves dos Santos, 60, shows the path traveled by rainwater, collected on a concrete slab to flow into a cistern.
“Here, all the water is reused,” she explains. Including wastewater, which is used to water animal fodder after being filtered.
Ms. Gonçalves measures the level of the 16,000-litre tank installed by the government with a ruler and keeps a record in a notebook so that she can measure her consumption correctly.
Nearly a million tanks like this have been installed in the region since 2003.
After a drastic reduction in these facilities under the mandate of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), the program was relaunched by the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
But beyond the drought, the region’s survival is also threatened by the rural exodus.
This is why IRPAA has set up a training centre near Juazeiro which has already welcomed around 200 young people to teach them agro-ecology methods.
Anderson Santos de Jesus, 20 years old, did not hesitate to travel 200 kilometers to reach this center, from the quilombola village (community descended from fugitive slaves) of Curral da Pedra.
“In our region, we don’t have many opportunities, you have to travel to get knowledge. I am happy to be able to contribute to the well-being of my community when I return,” he confides.
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