Family plants 840,000 trees to bring tapirs back to Brazil
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In Brazil, Nicolas and Raquel Lok and their family restored habitat in the Guapiacu Reserve, allowing South American tapirs to return to an area where they had not been seen since 1914.
Starting in 2021, the family planted around 840,000 trees across 607 hectares of former pastureland. Their work included planting native plants, restoring wetlands, and creating corridors to connect fragmented forests.
Researchers altered the landscape by building earth dams and redirecting streams, which created lagoons that attracted capybaras, broad-snouted caimans, herons, and waterfowl. The reserve reports that they have planted over one million seedlings and now protect 710 hectares of land. Simply replanting trees was not enough to bring back all the lost animals.
Because of roads, farmland, and fragmented forests, tapirs could not return on their own, so the family reintroduced them in 2017, tracking them with radio collars and camera traps. The tapirs adapted to the restored habitat, eating local plants and spreading seeds, and researchers later observed offspring born in the wild, showing the animals were able to reproduce without human intervention.
