In Brazil’s Ororubá Mountains, Indigenous youth of the Xukuru do Ororubá people are leading a powerful forest restoration effort—reviving native plants, restoring ancestral knowledge, and healing degraded land.
Guided by spiritual guardian Ângela “Bella” Neves Pereira, the community has already grown more than 20,000 native seedlings, many with traditional medicinal value.
Their work forms part of a partnership between the Xukuru, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and Brazil’s AIM4Forests programme, which supports Indigenous-led, biocentric restoration—an approach that places the well-being of the entire ecosystem at its centre.
With new funding from the UK, the initiative is expanding to strengthen community nurseries, restore biodiversity, and improve monitoring of ecosystem recovery.
For the Xukuru people, caring for the forest is not just environmental work—it is cultural, spiritual, and essential to the health of their territory and their future.
