Photo: Luciano Candisani
Votorantim is the owner of the largest private Atlantic Forest reserve – Legado das Águas, which offers numerous benefits to the environment and to the region in which it is located in the Ribeira Valley, in the south of the state of São Paulo. This reserve corresponds to 1.5% of the remaining 8.5% of the biome in the state of São Paulo, a protected habitat for endangered species such as the puma, the southern muriqui, the white-faced tapir and all the biodiversity present in the Atlantic Forest.
The site has been preserved for over 50 years by the Votorantim Group. According to ESALQ/USP, 75% of the area has a high degree of conservation. It also contains species that are jewels of the Atlantic Forest: centuries-old trees and fig trees, over 800 catalogued plant species and 150 species of orchids, some of which are on the red list.
An important contribution of Legado das Águas to the planet is the amount of carbon that was removed from the atmosphere and is stored there, resulting from the development of that forest over thousands of years. In 2016, the Reserve's Carbon Stock Inventory was completed, which revealed an impressive number. The volume of CO2 removed from the atmosphere and stored in the forest is 6,236,948 tonnes equivalent [1]. As a comparison, it is as if the city of Curitiba had no houses, buildings or people, only trees working to balance the Planet. The value of conserving this carbon stock in the Legado das Águas forests was estimated at at least US$14,328,315.00, according to calculations by the “Social Cost of Carbon[2]” stocked.
What is the Legacy of the Waters?
The history of Legado is directly linked to ecosystem services. In the 1950s, Antônio Ermírio de Moraes, president of CBA (Companhia Brasileira de Alumínio), decided to build small hydroelectric plants (UHE) to generate energy for the CBA factory in Alumínio (SP). Taking advantage of the course of the Juquiá River, six hydroelectric plants were built along the basin, with small flooded areas that are now completely integrated into nature.
Believing in the importance of forests for the rain cycle and the protection of the sources of the Juquiá River, which would guarantee an abundance of water for generating energy in hydroelectric plants, between the 1950s and 1980s, Votorantim acquired 31 thousand hectares of land, which in 2012 would be institutionalized as Legado das Águas – Reserva Votorantim.
The results of this inventory highlight Votorantim's important contribution, through Legado das Águas, by protecting an area the size of the city of Curitiba (PR) for more than half a century. In addition to the undeniable benefits for the threatened Atlantic Forest and for the State of São Paulo, Legado das Águas also contributes to mitigating the impacts of Global Warming in the world.
[1] Equivalents due to the existence of other gases besides CO2 that heat up the atmosphere, then an index is created to bring all gases to the CO value2. For example, methane has the potential to warm the atmosphere 21 times more than CO2, then we multiply the tons of methane emissions by 21 to arrive at the CO calculation.2 equivalent, the same for other gases.
[2] According to the US government study, the Social Cost of Carbon is a parameter that represents the estimated cost of the likely impacts of adding one ton of CO2 in the atmosphere, agricultural productivity and human health, damage to public or private property associated with flood risks, among other impacts that can be estimated and valued monetarily in the context of climate change.
