The black jaguar is not the focus of the foundation but its icon.
The Black Jaguar Foundation’s initial goal was to make a documentary about the black jaguar in the wild — a dream of initiator Ben Valks. However, while encountering no jaguars during his numerous expeditions, all Valks saw instead was the drastically deforested Amazon. That is when the mission was re-envisioned and expanded to the restoration of the Araguaia biodiversity corridor — a 2.600 km long and 40 km wide corridor of land, along the Araguaia River in the heart of Brazil. It links two of the most precious ecosystems — the Amazon Rainforest and the Cerrado Savannah.
With an ambitious goal of realising one of the largest restoration projects in the world, the organization’s mission is to plant and grow around 1.7 billion native trees to restore 1 million hectares, ecologically restoring the region’s precious land, and making the longest biodiversity corridor on Earth. Its capacity will amount to 262 million tons of carbon captured and sequestered.
By planting 1.7 billion native trees in Brazil, the Black Jaguar Foundation is in support of all the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, including but not limited to:
