In a landscape once used for cattle pasture, young native trees are growing into a very different habitat. In the hills of Rio de Janeiro state, the Locke family has spent more than two decades restoring parts of the Atlantic Forest through the creation and expansion of the Guapiaçu Ecological Reserve, known as REGUA. What began as an effort to protect the forest on the family's land has grown into a long-running restoration effort across degraded pasture, wetlands and fragmented forest. The scale of the change is striking. According to the World Land Trust , REGUA has planted about 840,000 trees on degraded land, mostly former pasture, restoring about 607 hectares, or 1,500 acres, to forest. The restored areas also help reconnect isolated forest fragments.
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