Introduction

The coastal rain forest of Brazil is a long, narrow strip of tropical forest which has been deeply eroded by small-scale and large-scale agriculture over many years. Around the large conurbations of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte the damage is especially severe, but pockets of virgin forest still remain which are of interest and in need of conservation. We have been working over the past ten years on a 1000 hectare estate near to Novo Friburgo in the upper Macae valley. The object of the part-time project has been to create a self-supporting reserve with little or no destruction of natural resources except the use of specific woods for building purposes. To achieve this, three main fund raising methods have been used:

1. A farm has been constructed for the laying, hatching and rearing of pheasants, duck, partridge and guinea fowl.

2. Tour groups from the UK and USA have been invited to stay and study orchids in their natural habitat with ourselves as guides.

3. A business has developed in the UK to germinate, grow and sell orchid seed and seedlings, and to provide information collected in the field about lesser known orchid species.

Game Farm

After numerous problems, the farm now produces around 1000 guinea fowl and 1000 pheasants per annum. The problems arose from the lack of electricity for hatching large quantities of eggs and the unreliability of the substitute, gas.