Incredible Pictures Of 20-Year Reforestation Project Of More Than 2.7 Million Trees

If magic is real, this forest is that. If wizards are real, Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado and Sebastião Salgado are the wizards Earth needs. Salgado is a photographer and he, together with his wife, started Instituto Terra with a strong determination of bringing back the vibrant life that once existed in Aimorés, a town in Brazil's state Minas Gerais.

Salgado was utterly devastated when he returns from a morbid assignment of the rampant genocide in Rwanda. He dreams of returning to heal his soul with what he once remembered as a kid to be a beautiful landscape with green trees and wide-diversity of animals there. What he saw, was just as horrendous - a dry patch of land with little trees. Salgado and his wife made the first step of replanting trees and find partners to do so. They raised funds, and the institute was discovered in 1998. Over 2.7 Million trees have been planted, and the result tells us one thing.

When celebrated Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado took over family land in the state of Minas Gerais, rather than the tropical paradise that he remembered as a child, he found the trees cut down, and the wildlife is gone.

He was devastated. It was 1994, and he had just returned from a traumatic assignment reporting on the genocide in Rwanda.

Salgado’s wife, Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado, thought to replant the forest. When they started to do that, all the insects and birds and fish began to return.

Salgado and his family recruited partners, raised funds and, in April 1998, they founded the Instituto Terra and have now planted over two million trees, entirely transforming the environment.

The Instituto Terra committed itself to the recovery of the 1,502 acres of rainforest in the Bulcão Farm in Aimorés, Minas Gerais. The farm was utterly devastated when, in 1998, it received the title of Private Natural Heritage Reserve (PNHR). The former cattle ranch initially covered 1,740 acres. The first planting was carried out in December 1999, and since then, year after year, with the support of essential associates, it's been possible to plant over two million seedlings of over 290 species of trees, recreating a forest of arboreal and shrub species native to the Atlantic Forest.

From the moment they founded the Instituto Terra, Lélia Deluiz Wanick and Sebastião Salgado, saw the institute as serving as a beacon to raise environmental awareness of the urgent need to restore and conserve forest land.

Recognizing education and research as critical components of this strategy, on February 19, 2002, the Instituto Terra created the Center for Environmental Education and Restoration (CERA).

Through CERA, new technologies are shared, throwing fresh light on existing models of development. The aim is to engage new participants in the battle to achieve sustainable development.

By December 2012, over 700 educational projects had been developed, embracing 65,000 people in over 170 municipalities of the Valley of the River Doce, covering both the states of Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais. Some projects have reached as far as the states of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro.

References: The Guardian, Humanity World, Instituto Terra