Ganaderia Regenerativa y Restauracion de Selvas (GANRRESE)

The Ganaderia Regenerativa y Restauracion de Selvas (GANRRESE) project is focussed on restoring 18,000+ha of land in the Selva Lacandona and surrounding ecoregion in Chiapas, Mexico. 70% of the Selva Lacandona has been deforested to make room for farmland, principally for cattle ranching and the indigenous communities who own the land are now experiencing problems with land degradation which impacts food security and profitability of farms. The Mexican government introduced the large-scale agroforestry programme of Sembrando Vida to help tackle this problem, but cattle farming still remains the primary source of income for these communities.  These small-scale farmers have extremely limited income and all their land is currently in use making if difficult to restore natural forest on a large scale. 

Regenerative Cattle Farming (Ganaderia Regenerativa) is a method that combines the silvopastoral methods of live fences, fodder banks, and dispersed trees on pasture with improved management of water sources and pasture, and technical assistance to improve animal husbandry as a strategy to make farms more profitable and sustainable. In particular, when the diet of cattle is supplemented with high protein forage from native tree species from the Fabaceae family, cattle require significantly less area for pasture, thus generating land that can be restored to natural forest without negatively impacting on cattle production. 

The rePLANET project aims to create of a network of 9,000ha of forest corridors, made possible by the implementation of regenerative cattle farming on farms whereby improvements to management of pasture and water and technical assistance for animal husbandry applies to the entire farm, and live fences, fodder banks and dispersed trees are introduced on at least half of the farm resulting in a minimum of 9,000ha of silvopastoral systems. Reforestation will follow rePLANET’s innovative accelerator approach using fast-growing pioneer species to provide shade for mid- and late-succession species to thrive. The project will remove more than 4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over its 40-year duration, will significantly  increase the profitability and sustainability of farms and benefit biodiversity due to increased forest cover and connectivity between remaining old-growth forest.