About us

Find out more about Iracambi...

Iracambi's mission is to work with the community to make conservation of the rainforest more attractive than its destruction. Located in the Serra do Brigadeiro, in the highly endangered Atlantic Forest area of Minas Gerais, where most of the forest is privately owned by smallholders, we face the same challenges as our neighbors: how can we make a sustainable living while conserving our globally important biodiversity? Iracambi has evolved as a result of these challenges. From its original roots as a farm, Iracambi has set up a Research Center, a private forest reserve and an NGO. We work with people from across the country and across the world, searching for solutions to the problems caused by unsustainable land use. These links will give you more information our aims and our research priorities.

Three organizations make up Iracambi in Brazil:

Amigos de Iracambi is a non-profit organization (NGO) dedicated to helping forests and forest people survive through better management of forest lands. Supported by work carried out at the Research Center It supports the research carried out at the Research Center, the NGO works with students and volunteers from many countries on training and education, forest conservation and restoration and generating forest incomes. Amigos de Iracambi is supported by its sister organizations in the US and in the UK and its network of partners and donors.

Iracambi Atlantic Rainforest Research Center focuses on biological and social sciences, and its research priority areas are land management, forest restoration, income generating alternatives and community understanding and engagement. A wholly owned subsidiary of Iracambi, the Research Center provides a comfortable base for students to undertake their own studies or to join our core programs. Iracambi's own forest reserve, its dedicated agroforestry area and its forest nursery provide a living laboratory where students and volunteers can get to grips with the urgent question of conserving valuable forest resources while ensuring that forest people can make a living. At Iracambi you can put your research to work in a real life working community.

Iracambi Recursos Naturais Ltda is a natural resource management company that runs Iracambi's own lands and manages the Research Center. Its commercial activities include cattle and fish raising, a timber plantation, and a program of reforestation with native species. From the moment when it was founded, Iracambi has always been closely connected with the local community, acting as a catalyst for community development and forest conservation. The Directors of Iracambi Ltda are Robin Le Breton and Binka Le Breton.

More information is available on our individual programs for researchers and volunteers, as well as ways to get involved with our project, and kids can join in, too. You can also return to our home page, but we hope you'll come back soon.

You can find us on some maps we have made, and take a virtual tour of the area. If you want to know more about the local area or about rainforests in general, we have made a list of some useful links. Of course, the best way to find out more is to ask us, by mail or (better) by e-mail.