Suzano, the world's largest pulp producer and a global leader in the manufacture of eucalyptus-derived bioproducts, and the Ecofuturo Institute have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ekos Brasil Institute and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Through this cooperation, an Integrated Management System for Protected Natural Areas will be created as part of the Suzano's Nature Strategy.
The Integrated Management System will designate more than 1.1 million hectares of Suzano-owned land for conservation, establish differentiated management guidelines, strengthen governance, and integrate and prioritize monitoring indicators aligned with State of Nature metrics.
This cooperation will help to support a transition away from fragmented management of protected areas and towards an integrated approach that recognizes and maximizes biodiversity conservation, ecological connectivity, the provision of ecosystem services, and the generation of value in these areas.
In this context, the proposal for the construction of the management system will be based on a methodology that integrates elements of landscape ecology, systematic conservation planning, and adaptive management. It will incorporate, as a background and source of information, other approaches, methods, and results of processes already applied by Suzano, such as the IUCN RHINO (Rapid High-Integrity Nature-positive Outcomes) approach, designed to support companies to act in a concrete and measurable way for the conservation of biodiversity.
The initiative is part of the rollout of Suzano's Nature Strategy, a key focus of which is on strengthening the management of its protected areas in conjunction with strategic partnerships.
At its core, the Strategy aims to enable Suzano to generate value through nature, recognizing that its growth and innovation are directly linked to the health of ecosystems. Developed in partnership with IUCN and based on science, the Strategy adopts the mitigation hierarchy, which allows for the prevention of impacts, minimizing risks and promoting the regeneration of ecosystems.
"In addition to strengthening biodiversity conservation, this initiative represents an important advancement in Suzano's environmental governance, by further qualifying our decision-making and promoting effective integration between conservation, planning, and business strategy. The system also expands the visibility of our conservation, restoration, research and monitoring actions, reinforcing the company's role in the sustainability agenda," says Caio Zanardo, Sustainability Director at Suzano.
Under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the four institutions will share knowledge and experiences, in addition to engaging relevant conservation stakeholders throughout Brazil, with the aim of consolidating recommendations aligned with the latest metrics on the State of Nature and IUCN international standards.
"IUCN is pleased to put its global knowledge of protected and conserved areas at the service of strengthening conservation practices in one of the most biodiverse countries in the world," says Susanne Pedersen, Director of the IUCN Science and Knowledge Centre.
"The formalization of this partnership represents a fundamental step to ensure the consistency, credibility and applicability of the management system, by bringing together different expertise around a common goal: to strengthen the management of protected natural areas based on science, data and international best practices," says Giordano Automare, director general of the Ecofuturo Institute.
The Ekos Brasil Institute, a long-standing member of IUCN recognized for its expertise in monitoring and evaluation of protected areas, will be responsible for leading the knowledge exchange methodology, while IUCN will contribute scientific guidance based on the performance of its World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) and the guidelines of the Green List Standard, contributing to Suzano being the catalyst for important conservation actions in Brazil.
"Brazil's private natural areas play an essential role in landscape connectivity and biodiversity resilience. This collaboration gives us the opportunity to contribute to its management being based on the best scientific evidence and the highest standards of conservation" declares Gabriel Quijandria, Regional Director, IUCN Regional Office for South America.
The collaboration was celebrated during an event at Parque das Neblinas, Suzano's environmental reserve managed by Ecofuturo, and marks an important step forward in the consolidation of practices aimed at the conservation of biodiversity and the sustainability of the territories. The initiative reinforces Suzano's commitment to the protection of biodiversity, consolidating a model that connects solutions based on technical and scientific knowledge, aligning environmental conservation and sustainable development.
