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Historic
SPVS has started from the inquietude of a group of youths - students and newly graduated - engaged in assume the nature conservation cause in a professional basis. By 1984 they created the instituition - in a time when non-governmental organizations in the environment area were still a few in Brazil - and to get resources to invest in nature conservation was a task almost impossible.
The first tasks counted on with the voluntary adhesion of this group and incorporated efforts in order to convey environmental education lessons to the community of Curitiba. Yet in the first years of its history SPVS already enlarged its actions in direction to the seashore cities of Paraná and carried out some projects in partnership with governmental agencies and private companies - the institution already got the mark of more than 100 projects performed in 8 Brazilian states.
From 1991 on SPVS has elected the Environmental Protection Area (EPA) of Guaraqueçaba, on the northen coast of Paraná state, as the prioritary actuation focus. The EPA is inserted in the major continuous Atlantic Forest block, still in a good conservation status, and is characterized by scenic beauty and richness of its biological diversity.
By 1999 SPVS realized an important step in order to strengthen its actuation in the Atlantic Forest. The institution obtained financial support to implement three long-term projects, which includes degraded areas acquisition for the development of forests recovering projects (reforesting with native trees) and, together with the local communities, look for income generation alternatives compatible with nature conservation. These projects also have the purpose of helping in the fight against global warming. Thanks to the photosynthesis process, the growing trees will contribute to remove one of the gases (carbon dioxide) from the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide is the main component that causes the global warming.
In 2003, SPVS started a new focus to its work: protect the Araucaria Forest - an ecosystem which exists only in Southern Brazil. Currently it remains only less than 3% well preserved areas of the ecosystem. The effort made by SPVS in this area is to incentive private sector to adopt well preserved areas owned by local people who, based on reason and love for nature, faced all the opposite forces to keep the Araucaria Forest alive. In 2007, SPVS started a new action to protect this forest: due to the carbon storage in biomass, natural remaining areas serve as greenhouse gases emissions offset tool to companies interested in fight the global warming.
The seriousness of its work and the successful of its trajectory render to SPVS the recognition to be one of the most important NGOs in Brazil which actuates in the nature conservation field. Due to the results gotten in 23 years of its history, the institution is a model to be followed in the efforts for the protection and maintenance of the quality of the natural ecosystems.
For further information, please e-mail us: spvs@spvs.org.br
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