The seminar “Protecting Biodiversity in the Brazilian Amazon” brought together researchers from Brazil and Norway, who presented their results on the initiatives and effects of reforestation on plants and animals in the study area.

Hydro is committed to preserving and restoring biodiversity in the Paragominas mine area, which is located in the Amazon basin, a tropical forest that serves as a home for thousands of species, in addition to playing an important role in climate change .

During the lectures, participants were able to learn more about topics such as reducing deforestation, increasing reforestation and monitoring the health of species in the study area, especially threatened species.

Domingos Campos, director of HSE and CSR in the Bauxite & Alumina, says that the meeting enabled a more in-depth view of the different approaches to increasing biodiversity.

“For me, the meeting was a unique opportunity to bring together researchers from both Brazil and Norway and have a more concrete idea of how the Norwegian community sees the work being done in Brazil,” he says.

“In addition, it was an important opportunity that we had to illustrate the challenges that projects of this nature face in Brazil, so that people understand the Brazilian reality.”

His colleague, Victor Barbosa, fauna manager at Paragominas, gave a presentation on the rehabilitation work, which has already recovered 14,000 hectares since 2009. Altogether, there are about 65 employees who are involved in the work and the goal is recover one hectare for each hectare affected by mining until 2017.

About Hydro's initiatives in Brazil, Bernt Malme, director of environment at Hydro, stated that “the seminar was an important step forward, a unique opportunity to show interested parties in Norway what we’re doing and get valuable insights from them. ”

“Currently, we are discussing research priorities for next year and developing a more long-term strategy. I see that, since the beginning of the consortium's activities, we are increasingly united and that we enjoy an open, transparent and constructive dialogue between the parties. Our desire is to use the results obtained to improve our reforestation work and, therefore, we need the efforts and results of the consortium partners as well ”, explains Malme.

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