Brazilian ecological park races to save endangered plant species

China

Brazilian ecological park races to save endangered plant species

2025-06-05 20:28 Last Updated At：23:57

A Brazilian ecological park has launched a campaign to save endangered plant species, exemplifying the country's efforts to regreen logged-out areas of the Atlantic Forest.

The Atlantic Forest, one of the most ecologically-diverse ecosystems on Earth, stretches across Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.

In recent years, due to deforestation and other reasons, the Atlantic Forest has been severely damaged and thousands of tree species have been listed as endangered species.

In Ekoa Park in Morretes, the state of Parana, Brazil, jucara palm is on display at a noticeable place.

The palm, which is native to the Atlantic Rainforest, has been illegally harvested for its delicious heart of palm, or Palmito.

"Many Palmito collectors enter the forest and illegally cut down the palm trees, taking away forest resources in bundles. It is now listed on the red list of threatened species and is at risk of extinction," said Tatiana Perim, executive director of Ekoa Park.

As part of the efforts to save jucara palm and other endangered plant species, Ekoa Park has cooperated with environmental protection organizations and enterprises to launch a themed project, under which a team of experts regularly enters the forest to collect seeds of about 50 endangered trees.

"We go into the forest and identify these trees, which is not easy, mainly because they are endangered and there are not many individuals. Once identified, we tag them with GPS. Then we store all the coordinates of these trees in a database and check the registered areas once a month to collect seeds," said Victor Paul Lynette, a forestry engineer.

The team will then cultivate the collected seeds, and when the seedlings meet the conditions for transplanting, they will be distributed to 200 registered volunteers to plant across multiple locations.

Before planting a seedling, volunteers will write down information about the tree on a piece of paper and leave it right at where the seedling is planted.

After planting it, volunteers will record the location and other information on a mobile app.

So far, under the project, nearly 6,800 seedlings have been distributed to volunteers to plant across the states of Parana, Santa Catarina and Sao Paulo.

Iranian foreign minister says situation "fully under control," accuses Israeli intelligence of stoking unrest

Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said on Monday that the situation in Iran is "under total control" following violence linked to protests that spiked over the weekend.

Addressing foreign diplomats in Tehran, the foreign minister noted that armed terrorist groups had infiltrated the protests, attempting to divert them from their legitimate course. He claimed that evidence has been gathered showing Iranian security forces being shot at, with the aim of causing further casualties. He accused the United States and Israel of exploiting the unrest to interfere in Iran's internal affairs.

Araghchi further stated that the government is closely monitoring developments on the streets, emphasizing that "the situation has come under control." He also affirmed that internet services, curtailed during the unrest, would be restored after coordination with security agencies.

The government has engaged in dialogue with merchants and protest representatives and initiated reforms to address grievances related to price hikes and currency depreciation. Iran has taken a series of actions and measures to respond to the demands of peaceful demonstrators, the foreign minister said.

Earlier on Sunday, Araghchi said that clear evidence links recent riots and vandalism of public facilities in Iran to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. This came after former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mentioned Mossad agents operating on Iran's streets in a social media post. The Iranian foreign minister asserted that police are being attacked by "terrorists" acting under the direction of Israeli operatives, whom Pompeo publicly acknowledged.

The protests initially erupted over a sharp depreciation of the rial and sweeping subsidy reforms. Iranian authorities have blamed the unrest on foreign-linked agents and U.S. sanctions.