Brejao do Negros Mangrove Restoration
GWW is working with local women to restore 350 hectares of highly degraded coastline within a Terra Quilombola (traditional Afro-descendent land) in Northeastern Brazil.
Brejao dos Negros is a quilombo or traditional Afro-descendent land located in the border between Alagoas and Sergipe in Northeastern Brazil. It is affected by industrial shrimp farming, overexploitation of crab and major coastal erosion due to tidal surges.
Maria Aparecida (left) and the leadership of the mangrove restoration campaign in Resina, a women led reforestation program
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Guardians Worldwide partners with Maria Aparecida Vieira and Chico Vieira, leaders of Associacao de Pescadores Quilombos do Brejao dos Negros, in Alagoas State.
This Terra Quilombola, or traditional Afro-descendent community, is devoted to restoring a natural lagoon in the riverside village of Resina, through the reforestation of a local mangrove forest.
The effort is vital for the regeneration of a highly eroded coastline at the mouth of the mighty Sao Francisco River, and to combat deforestation due to industrial shrimp farms, as well as rising sea levels.​
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The initiative attempts to recover the mangrove, as well as the livelihood and local traditions of mangezeiros, traditional mangrove communities of Northeastern Brazil.
Mangroves create ecosystems above and below water providing food and shelter to a wide array of species.
Mangroves grow in areas where land meets the sea. They can tolerate water that's up to 100 times saltier than most other plants. ​Mangroves protect coastlines by slowing tidal movements and building up sediment. They support biodiversity and help with climate change because they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in their roots and soils. Mangroves are being lost at a rate of 1–2% per year, which is faster than any other type of forest. Human development is the main cause of mangrove loss
Successful plantation of mangroves at the Brajao dos Negros mangrove restoration project
Restoring mangroves is notoriously difficult because young seedlings struggle to survive once replanted in coastal mud—their fragile roots are susceptible to high salinity, strong tides, storms, predators, and pollution.
Despite these challenges, mangroves play an irreplaceable role: they buffer shorelines from erosion and storm surges, create vital nursery habitats for marine life, and sequester carbon at rates far exceeding tropical forests
Funding dedicated mangrove replanting projects like the Brejao dos Negros Mangrove Restoration is essential—not only to overcome the uphill battle of seedling survival, but to safeguard coastal ecosystems, support local communities, and help mitigate climate change impacts.
Mangroves are vital to sustain the local biomes, and the entire food chain. The mangrove forest is thus the basis of economic livelihood for those who live nearby, as local fisherman Batista explains.
Batista: "This is where everything starts."
Terra Quilombas are lands that , similar to Indigenous Territories, enjoy special legal protection by Brazilian law. Quilombos are areas where Afro-descendent communities have preserved African and diasporic cultures, livelihoods and social structures for centuries. Maria Aparecida and her husband Chico draw on the values of their ancestral culture and spirituality to protect their local mangrove forest.
Maria: "My husband and I started planting mangroves, while everyone else had given up."