Seeds are a priority issue in the Institute’s activities. This leading role starts from the idea that occupation and deforestation in Brazilian biomes has been growing, which results in serious environmental problems and reduces genetic variability – putting native forest species at risk. In this scenario, there is a growing need to encourage the production of seedlings and seeds for ecological restoration, forest replacement and urban afforestation.

Among the challenges in the area of seeds is the lack of preparation of many field professionals in relation to the technical and legal context. This interferes with performance and prevents a better development of issues such as: marking forestry matrices, processing, drying, storage and the collection itself. Other conflicting issues are the absence of seedlings for ecosystem restoration purposes, the lack of training, the lack of seeds and the low seed technology in many commercial seed-plots.

Faced with obstacles, Humanize, alongside partners, supports initiatives that contribute to the re-articulation and rescue of community seed networks. We understand that possible solutions to promote this subject are: collaborating in the formation, training and assistance of collectors, as well as seed managers and small rural producers; promoting the mapping of parent trees and the production of seeds on a large scale (for the main species of the biomes); and supporting knowledge exchanges and germplasm banks (enabling the conservation of genetic material from parent trees).