Faces of Restoration Bruno Mariani: From Banker to "Tree Whisperer"

Bruno Mariani's company, Symbiosis Investimentos, uses scientific silviculture—including genetic improvement and cloning—to restore degraded pastureland in Bahia, Brazil, with native Atlantic Forest species. By treating native tree cultivation as a high-productivity business, the model aims to provide an economic alternative to low-yield cattle ranching, offering a 14% annual return on investment while enhancing biodiversity and sequestering carbon.

• Symbiosis Investimentos, founded by Bruno Mariani, implements a business model that reforests degraded pastureland using native species from Brazil's tropical Atlantic Forest to produce high-quality hardwoods. The company aims to balance economic return with conservation by putting 60% of its land under production and conserving 40%.
• Symbiosis utilizes 'silviculture'—a scientific approach involving genetic improvement and cloning—to increase the productivity of native trees. Genetic improvement involves selecting 'matrix trees' with desirable traits and breeding descendants to optimize wood volume, growth speed, and water efficiency. Cloning is used to ensure uniformity and scale, with expectations that genetically improved trees planted in 2021 would be 20–30% more productive than unimproved ones.
• The company's research indicates that planting multiple tree species together is superior to monoculture, as the latter increases susceptibility to pests and disease while reducing productivity. A mixed-species approach allows for diversified income, as faster-growing trees can be harvested while slower-growing hardwoods continue to mature, ensuring the land is never fully deforested.
• A 2019 study by WRI Brasil and the Brazilian Coalition on Climate, Forest and Agriculture identified significant research gaps in native species silviculture and recommended advancements in eight areas, including cloning, genetic improvement, and forest management. The study's economic modeling suggests that every $1 invested in such research could generate over $2 in returns over 20 years due to productivity gains.
• Native tree silviculture is presented as a more profitable and labor-intensive alternative to cattle ranching on Brazil's 65 million hectares of degraded pastureland. An evaluation tool from the VERENA project showed an annual return on investment of 14% for native tree farming, which exceeds the returns from low-productivity cattle ranching.
• Reforestation with native species provides environmental benefits including improved soil and water quality, increased water infiltration, carbon dioxide removal to mitigate climate change, and the creation of refuges for endangered species like the seriema bird.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Faces of Restoration Bruno Mariani: From Banker to "Tree Whisperer". https://www.wri.org/faces-restoration/bruno-reforestation-brazil

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Faces of Restoration Bruno Mariani: From Banker to "Tree Whisperer". n.d. https://www.wri.org/faces-restoration/bruno-reforestation-brazil.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Faces of Restoration Bruno Mariani: From Banker to "Tree Whisperer" |url=https://www.wri.org/faces-restoration/bruno-reforestation-brazil |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendfaces, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Faces of Restoration Bruno Mariani: From Banker to "Tree Whisperer"}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/faces-restoration/bruno-reforestation-brazil}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }