The sixth episode of our Growing Stories web series #HistóriasCultivadas takes place in Curiúva, Paraná, and shares the story of João Bento, who received saplings from the planted tree sector to plant where he lives with his family. These trees help restore the native vegetation in the region and make water more available.
What a delight, this water, so natural. It’s completely uncontaminated, no chlorine, no nothing. Totally natural.
We had already thought about preserving the spring, since water is life, right? We can’t live without it, and also for the future, since we have our grandchildren, and we want to leave this for them.
JOÃO BENTO – Resident in the region
OLIMPIA SANTINA ALVES – Reisdent in the region
When we first got here, there was only the bare land. No trees.
Then we heard about this project… here in the region there is company, and they gave us the seedlings for the trees.
The presence of this industry in the region encourages recovery of the native vegetation.
Because if you don’t have trees at a spring, how will it survive? That spring in the hot sun, out in the open? The trees there protect the spring.
Today, the industry preserves 5.6 million hectares of natural forests.
So we prepared the soil, planted the trees there, and took care of them, right? Because you need to weed around there and also care for them, if you just put them there and leave them, they won’t survive.
Today, we have reforested the area around the spring, it has been five years. It’s a treasure, don’t you think? The forest is there, and it’s preserving the spring.
So this water here, from where that first tree is, goes fifty-five meters through the trees and natural area.
Now you can see, there is the noise of the water that wasn’t there before, since it emerged there, protected in the ravine. Now look…
Proper management of planted trees makes water more available, improves soil quality, and preserves biodiversity.
After the trees were planted and established, if the spring used to produce a thousand liters of water per hour, it started to produce two thousand. And with it came the forest, where birds can come and feed, there are guabiroba and feijoa trees.
Look what an amazing tree this is. Look at the birds… they’ve already started to appear.
Production is not the only important thing, nature is also important. It is so gratifying to give back to the earth, for us to cultivate it.
While we are still alive and strong enough to carry on, we are going to keep on planting. For our grandchildren, so in the future they can say: My grandfather planted this.
