Large scale forest restoration projects start long before planting starts and demand a vast amount of information, decisions, and actions that occur over decades. Thus, detailed planning, continuous monitoring, and strategic information management are fundamental for guiding each step of the process.
At Biomas, digital systems, operational indicators, and technological monitoring tools, like drones, help organize the data produced by the teams and help track operation development over time.
This is the setting that Carolina Soldera works in. Soldera is our Forest Planning Consultant and her job consists of organizing and structuring the inputs produced by the different operational areas involved in the planning and implementation of projects.
Carolina explains that one of the differentiators of our business is the large amount of information we work with. “The data collected helps guide planning and strategic decision making,” she affirms.
Our forest management system organizes operations and guides each stage of restoration
Project planning involves organizing activities that will occur in each area and structuring the information needed to guide the operation, from pre-planting through the maintenance of the forest over the years.
Some of the activities involved include soil clearing, logistics organization, pest control, and the actual planting, as well as the maintenance and monitoring stages that support the healthy development of the forest. To structure this process, we use a forest management system developed by INFLOR, which centralizes operational data and gathers records of the observed areas, activities performed, inputs used, and results achieved in the field.
“Today, the management system acts as the eyes of the operation. All of the areas and activities are recorded in this system,” Carolina says. Based on these records, the system guides the execution of tasks in the field, indicating which operations should occur in each area, which resources will be used, and at which moment each step should occur.
Daily records of field activities inform indicators that allow us to evaluate the progress, quality, and costs of operations.
The system also allows us to track the implementation of activities and evaluate their quality. Our field team monitors daily what has been done, reporting the area worked, supplies used, and results. This data informs a database that is reviewed and consolidated in technical meetings.
The analyses focus on three main areas:
- Physical progress of the operations and adherence to the schedule;
- Quality of the activities carried out;
- Operational costs.
Each action carried out in the field has specific, technical criteria. During the area restoration tracking, for example, aspects like seedling density, spacing between rows, and survival rates are observed. When the mortality rates exceed the normal metrics, the team investigates the causes and adjusts procedures.
Seedling loss can be associated with climate issues, ant attacks, competition with other plants, or even factors external to the areas. “We don’t just look at if the seedling died. We also seek to understand why it died, because this helps us adjust how we manage future planting,” Carolina highlights.
The use of drones expands monitoring capabilities and allows observation of forest development on a territorial scale
A few months after planting, we begin monitoring with drones. These aircrafts record images that help assess forest development and the differences between the restored sections, allowing us to observe growth patterns, track vegetation growth, and identify potential problems.
In Project Muçuunga, which is restoring more than 1,200 hectares of Atlantic Forest in southern Bahia, drone use has been especially useful given the dispersed nature of the areas. “The drone can cover the entire field, offer a spatial view of forest development, and the data collected helps guide technical adjustments,” Carolina explains.
The lessons learned from Project Muçununga contribute to consolidating methods and processes that can be replicated in future projects
The learning process from Project Muçununga is especially rich because each area presents its own characteristics. Within a single polygon, there can be stretches of pasture, forest fragments, and bodies of water.
This requires detailed planning and specific solutions for each situation, since “each field winds up being almost a small project within a larger project,” according to our Consultant of Forest Planning.
While this initiative progresses, we structure processes that can be replicated in future operations. The management system and analysis flows form a robust operational base applicable to different areas. “We already understand how to organize the planning, track the data, and structure the indicators. This learning will help our future projects,” she adds.
The long term monitoring combines technology, data, and analysis to guarantee the health and sustainability of restored forests.
This combination of tools is also essential for monitoring forest development long term. Restoration projects have a time horizon of decades and continuous monitoring is an essential part of this process.
Technology like drones and satellite images can track the vegetation development, recognize changes in the landscape, and help guarantee that the restored forests are healthy. “The technology helps us understand if the project is going well and quickly identify any deviation from what was expected,” says Carolina.
Planting is only the most visible aspect of restoration. Behind it lies a planning structure and analysis that sustains the forest’s development over the years. It is this combination of technical knowledge, data, and technology that allows us to transform degraded areas into resilient and long-lasting forests.