Ever thought about volunteering
to save a
Tropical Rainforest?

The Atlantic Coastal Rainforest of Southern Brazil (Mata Atlântica) is facing enormous challenges as the planet struggles to adapt to overpopulation and urban expansion and recent political leadership changes seem to lean toward loosening up on logging restrictions in preserved areas to favor agricultural and cattle ranching initiatives.

The Walker Family Nature Sanctuary (Santuário da Natureza Família Walker) in Piraquara, PR, Brazil, is much like most of the rural vestiges of this area's rainforest land in recuperation... victim of traditional disorganized bureaucratic sluggishness, poachers, clandestine real estate deals, unlawful logging, hunting and trapping, political interests and manipulations, crime, corruption, greed and arrogance.

Help us save what's left of one of the planet's most diverse collections of flora and fauna still in existence.

Conservation and Preservation.

FOCUS!

NOW!

The level of strength and survival of each and every species of plant, animal and mineral form on this planet is directly related to the level of harmony attained among these cohabitants.

We, at the Walker Family Nature Sanctuary, believe that out-of-pocket preservationists and conservationists who own and occupy tropical forest properties all over the world could benefit from considering a configuration which would include the installation of educational and scientific research activities on their properties in order to attract the recognition and support of larger responsible institutions who have the desire, force and where-with-all to guarantee the preservation and conservation of these properties for generations to come.

We also believe that a sustainable conservation movement to preserve the planet's tropical forests can be strengthened by a force that lies within the hearts of many ...waiting to express: the desire to help by Volunteering!

There is so much YOU can contribute to

Rainforest Preservation and Conservation Activities

All Over the World.

Your Time - Your Skill - Your Talent
Your Motivation - Your knowledge - Your Projects
Your Imagination

The Walker Family Nature Sanctuary (Santuário da Natureza Família Walker) is located on a property called Salto e Melança (pronounced: "Sauto eh Melahnssa"). This is the name on our deed.*

Today this region is still (after over 300 years) one of the principle sources of drinking water for Curitiba, PR, Brazil, and its neighboring municipalities.

It is a planetary treasure located within the remaining 7% of Brazil's Atlantic Coastal Rainforest (Mata Atlântica).

All of the original forest on this property and in the region as a whole was cut for planting and pasture land. But, large groves of the native Paraná Pine (Araucária angustifolia) still exist displaying their majestic presence; raising their branches over the forest... sweeping the clouds and whirling mist.

The water which runs through the Walker Family Nature Sanctuary property bubbles up from springs in the middle of the forest. Gravity brings it down the mountain to the houses on the property where it is filtered through ceramic before drinking. It is an incredible privilege for a human being in this day and time to be able to drink from a tap of pure spring water 24/7.

The original Atlantic Coastal Rainforest covered over 1,100,000 km2 in Brazil alone. It stretched from the state of Rio Grande do Norte in northern Brazil, to Rio Grande do Sul in the south and extended over the Uruguayan, Paraguayan and Argentinean borders.

Today the Atlantic Coastal Rainforest of Brazil has been reduced to less than 7% of its original size and has been completely destroyed in many areas. This drastic reduction was due to gold mining and sugar cane and coffee growing activities throughout Brazil's economic history, which resulted in the concentration of over 60% of Brazil's current population in some of its largest cities and industrial centers (responsible today for 70% of Brazil’s gross national product) right in the middle of these forested areas.

These tropical forested regions currently ensure the drinking water for more than 100 million people and are Brazil's largest storehouse of
fertile soil.

Despite its history of destruction and devastation, the Atlantic Coastal Rainforest is still considered the largest and one of the most important repositories of bio diversity on planet Earth and is one of the most important biomes in the world.

It is home to a myriad of ecosystems each characterized by its own climatic conditions and geographical configurations. Four-hundred and fifty-four tree-producing plant species were recently recorded on a single hectare of forest land in the southern region of the state of Bahia and four-hundred and seventy-six species in a sample the same size in the highlands of the state of Espírito Santo.

55% of the tree species and 40% of non-tree species present in the Atlantic Coastal Rainforest of Brazil are endemic ...they are only found in this area.

Impressive specimens of once plentiful tree species (such as the giant jequitibá-rosa, which reach heights of 40 meters and 4 meters round) are still found in what is left of this biome. Grand old members of the pinheiro-do-paraná, cedro, figueira, ipê, braúna, pau-brasil families are still thriving even in the areas which are at higher elevations like Serra do Mar (1,100 meters high) and Itatiaia (1,600 meters high), where there is constant fog and lower temperatures.

39% of the mammal species, and, most of Brazil's endangered animal species live in its Atlantic Coastal Rainforest and are endemic to this area. Members of species populations like the golden lion marmoset, the Brazilian river otter, jaguars, armadillos, small blue macaws, opossums, anteaters, sloths, tapirs, deer, cotias, quatis and others are dwindling faster and faster.

Help us find ways for YOU to help!

*
Salto refers to waterfall. Where? We never found it!

Melança (we thought) might refer to the mushy, slippery soil, produced when the rain, mist and dew from the mountains above seep into the forest floor and flows downward. When this pure filtered water surfaces again in the lower foothills, it forms springs, which at times overflow to create crystalline creeks, streams and rivers or just sits making bubbly silt ponds on the forest floor. Recently we were offered another explanation. Seems the name "melança" comes form the word "mel" which means honey. So melança might refer to the intense bee keeping activity in the area years ago when the forest was cut down for agricultural endeavors.

You can contribute to the preservation of this property by staying with us at the Walker Family Nature Sanctuary (Santuário da Natureza Família Walker) in one of our lovely bungalows.

Click on the pictures below to see more details.

or, when you stay with us at one of our apartments in downtown Curitiba when you need to go into town.

Click on the pictures below to see more details.

These are some of the people and organizations who support us emotionally and strategically and provide us with information we need to ever improve our efforts.

How It All Began

The "Melança Mountains" Community and the Walker Family Nature Sanctuary project are making progress.

Slowly, a few local landowners in the Melança Mountains community have brought in surveyors to measure their properties on their own. Some have gotten legal guidance and funding to start the process towards the legal registration of these properties. An overloaded court system and an uninformed, overwhelmed and partially disinterested local government often, however, holds all this up.

This slowing down of this process ignores and frustrates the opportunities that property owners would have once they acquire legal, definitive documentation for their properties.

Active, competent environmental institutions providing resources, funds, guidelines and technical support already exist on the federal and state levels in Brazil, as well as, in the international community, waiting for property owners to qualify for their services.

The Walker Family Nature Sanctuary and APAVE Núcleo Piraquara, through their persistent involvement in political meetings, conference attendance and the forming of partnerships with other strong environmental associations and entities have recently obtained help from the public sector in 2018 through the then Secretary of Environment of the State of Paraná, Antônio Carlos Bonetti.

Bonetti heard our plea that people who are helping the government preserve its water resources should have the same support as the agriculture and meat production communities who benefit immeasurably from these preservation efforts. He understood that frustrating the access of property owners to resources that would help them participate more effectively in the economic growth of the State of Paraná was counter productive. He articulated the inclusion of one-hundred property owners around the oldest, most well-preserved lake in our region into a program whose goal is to award legal documentation to owners who can prove their rights. The measurement of one-hundred properties in the first phase of this program should be completed by June 2019.

There are other phases of the program which must be negotiated and completed before the final phase of taking everything to the local judge for ratification and the granting of proper documentation. The Walker Family Nature Sanctuary and its partner APAVE will continue accompanying this process and persist in its efforts to awaken the public sector to this most important reality.

Among its other activities, the Walker Family Nature Sanctuary is creating a stronger voice of influence in the mayor's and governor's offices. It is a long process and involves parallel efforts of many individuals from many aspects of our local community coming forth, starting to talk to each other and beginning to understand and deal effectively with the dynamics, problems and politics involved.

The Walker Family Nature Sanctuary is associating with strong conservationist not-for-profit groups (NGO's) and associations who can guide and support with legal advice and common-sense hands-on experience.

Through these efforts, the Walker family Nature Sanctuary now receives funding through its partner organizations by paying a small administration fee. This is a huge step forward.

What we need now!

We need consultants to look at the configuration of properties, the talents and desires of the owners and help define a plan, which would best serve the local, national and international community.

We need partners, who have eco-sustainable projects, that could be inserted into the humidity and coolness of a southerly-situated coastal rainforest. These projects need to be staffed for success and generate resources. Ideally, they would include an educational component, as well, which would inform and support local residents and visitors from Brazil and the rest of the world.

We need individuals and institutions, who would invest in and man: research installations, like, labs, classrooms, meeting rooms, workshop space, etc.: sustainable residency and instructional programs in the areas of art, music and commercially viable/eco-sustainable craftsmanship: eco-sustainable agricultural projects appropriate to the forest environment, such as, permaculture, managed foraging, bee-keeping, animal husbandry, greenhouse activities, seedling production, exotic and native species production, seed preservation and sales, hydroponics, etc.; sustainable community relations projects and community education programs.

We need individuals and institutions who build alternative housing and who would come and offer on-hand workshops on the property leaving behind, as a result, units representative of various concepts of sustainable construction, which could immediately be used to house eco-tourists and the curious, thereby, generating a financially-sustainable structure for the project as a whole.

We need individuals and institutions who would create exchange programs or provide onsite instruction in various aspects of eco-tourism, rainforest preservation, animal habitat preservation, administration, etc. for the local members of the community, thereby, creating a need for preservation in the pockets and hearts of those who have unconsciously favored the preservation of this land for centuries… including the indigenous community, and, the skills to go forward favoring the local community and their children.

We need individuals and institutions who would come in and map the property, create and maintain trails, identify, photograph, create displays and label the flora and fauna habitats onsite.

We need individuals and institutions that would set up and staff proper facilities for the reintegration of forest animals, victims of contraband and captured by local authorities.

These are some of the ideas we at the Walker Family Nature Sanctuary think about. Maybe you have some of your own. We would love to talk to you about your ideas. We are open to take this project in any direction which would preserve this forest, protect this water.

Participate.

Let’s make this happen!