VEDAC is Turning Trees into Art and Forests into Futures

Author: Paula Padrino Vilela, Programme Management Officer, G20 GLI | August 1, 2025

Photo credit: VEDAC
Deep in the Amazon, Jessica Dalmaso is proving that preservation and progress don’t have to be at odds. As founder of Vedac (Vestígios da Amazônia), she’s building a model of forest management that brings together sustainable development and community empowerment.

Wooden tray and pine on water

VEDAC Product: Vitoria Regia

A Voice for the Amazon at the heart of the Northeast region largest start up and innovation event

Jessica’s story took center stage during the G20 Global Land Initiative (GLI) session at NEON 2025 in Teresina, Piaui. She shared how she is building a model that generates income in some of Brazil’s most vulnerable regions, without cutting down the future.

“Six of the ten municipalities with the lowest Human Development Index (HDI) in Brazil are located deep in the forest, in the North,” she said at NEON 2025 in Teresina.

“How can we help these municipalities improve their HDI while keeping the forest standing? By using the forest in a sustainable way and bringing economic opportunities to these regions. Beyond preserving the planet, it’s about enabling socio-economic development — a just and inclusive development,” she posed.

Jessica presented during the G20 GLI session titled, “Startups that Regenerate and Innovate: Leading the Restoration Economy.”

Jessica Dalmoso Paula Padrino and Jessica Dalmoso

Jessica Dalmaso (left); Paula Padrino and Jessica Dalmaso (right) during the talk “Startups that Regenerate and Innovate: Leading the Restoration Economy”

Forest Management as a Tool for Inclusion

Jessica has worked with manejo florestal—the science of forest management—for over eight years. For the past four, she has run VEDAC. Her company works on public forest concessions, where the federal or state government (in this case, Pará) allocates areas of forest for sustainable use. The goal is not just economic. It’s also about enabling people to stay in the forest, creating attractive and safe options to work, earn a living, and care for the land.

“Forest management is a science. It’s taught in universities. You study the forest structure, understand the biodiversity, and work in a way that preserves it while using the wood responsibly,” Jessica said.

By working directly with forest communities, Jessica has seen first-hand how this model can shift lives.

In one project, she helped bring energy access to 69 families, by using income generated through forest management. The project installed solar panels in the community, and increased the dignity and safety for the beneficiary families.

Crafting Design with Purpose

VEDAC transforms harvested Amazonian wood into high-end design pieces—from furniture to architectural elements. Each item carries the identity of the forest it came from.

What sets VEDAC apart from other companies, is its commitment to transparency. Each piece comes with a QR code that allows customers to trace the source of the wood. It shows exactly where it came from, how it was managed and by whom. This is a powerful way to connect the final product to the forest, reinforcing the value of responsible sourcing and community stewardship.

But these are not just products; they are also stories. Every table, chair, or panel carries a narrative of sustainable forest management, of traditional knowledge meeting contemporary design. VEDAC partners with local artisans and designers to create pieces that appeal to both national and international markets, while staying rooted in Amazonian culture.

In a sector where sustainability is often seen as a trade-off with aesthetics or scalability, VEDAC proves otherwise: good design can regenerate, not deplete.

VEDAC products with QR code

VEDAC Products and use of QR codes tracing the origins of the wood.

G20 GLI in Brazil: Scaling Up the Restoration Economy

The panel session organized by G20 GLI marks the start of our Initiative’s national engagement with the start-up community in Brazil.

The G20 GLI is planning to work with local accelerators, innovation hubs and public institutions to support hundreds of ecopreneurs such as Jessica, who are using the land sustainably.

Brazil’s significance is clear. Home to six unique biomes and with over 22 million hectares committed for restoration by 2030, it is both ecologically critical and economically fertile ground for start-ups such as Vedac.

By mapping and strengthening Brazil’s land restoration startup landscape, GLI is supporting the ecosystem to help ventures to scale and thrive.

The goal is to restore land, tackle inequality, and build an economy that serves both people and the planet.

wooden table coffee tables and pine

VEDAC Product: Vitoria Regia

Director's Message

The year 2024 was pivotal for the Global Land Initiative. Land degradation and restoration remained prominent on the global policy agenda throughout.

The UN Environmental Assembly, G7 Leaders’ Summit, G20 Environment and Climate Change Ministers’ meeting, and BRICS Leaders’ Summit addressed land degradation and committed to scaling up land restoration efforts.

The European Union passed a new Restoration Law mandating quantitative targets for land restoration. The UNFCCC, UNCBD and UNCCD Conferences of the Parties (COPs), held during the last quarter of the year, reinforced land restoration as a crucial solution to combat land degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change.

Building on this favorable policy momentum, the Global Land Initiative continued to develop and deliver a robust program. In collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), we completed a database on Global Restoration Commitments by countries under the UNCCD, UNCBD, UNFCCC and the Bonn Challenge.

Representing a significant increase in global commitments since 2021, the total global commitment now stands at 1.2 billion hectares, with 30 countries, including 11 G20 members, pledging to restore over 10 million hectares each.

The UNCCD, with financial support from the Global Land Initiative, published the first global restoration economy international report, titled, Investing in Land’s Future: Financial needs assessment for UNCCD. The report defines the private sector’s growing role in land restoration and its potential for creating green jobs.

The study outlines key recommendations to support the growth of the restoration economy, which has an associated market survey valued at $37 billion globally, growing at 8.2% annually and is projected to reach $70 billion by 2031. Together, these studies stressed the need for focused policy action to encourage private sector investment and engagement in the restoration economy.

Working with the International Trade Centre (ITC), the Global Land Initiative launched the first cohort of the “Global Ecopreneurs Program,” training 100 young entrepreneurs from restoration startups. These entrepreneurs received training on improving business plans and pitching to investors. We plan to scale this program regionally to reach 10,000 ecopreneurs by 2029.

Training remained a cornerstone of the Global Land Initiative, with programs on the restoration of mining areas, of urban lands, of lowland-based systems, of drylands and with biosaline agriculture. These trainings consistently attracted more applications than available slots. To accommodate this high demand and broader participation, we also conducted online webinars on these topics, in English, Arabic and French.

The first University Curriculum Course on Sustainable Agriculture for Land Restoration was launched this year. It reached over 400 university teachers, with over 100 trained on implementing the curriculum. A university module on urban land restoration is in its final stages.

Representatives from 25 countries attended the second Global Changemaker Academy for Parliamentarians held in Bonn. With the European Union Restoration Law’s passage, global best practices can now be discussed and adapted to national contexts.

The Global Land Initiative’s visibility surged with participation in the G20 Environment and Climate Change Working Group meetings in Brazil, the COPs of the UNCBD and UNCCD and 7 other international exhibitions. In December, the Initiative, in partnership with Germany’s Federal Museum of Arts and Sciences, opened the Save Land: United for Land Museum Exhibition, the first museum exhibition on land restoration, which will run until June 2025.

Online engagement grew, reaching over 35,000 newsletter subscribers and over 14,000 followers across social media platforms, and a global reach of nearly 400,000. The Global Photography Festival, which attracted 17,000 entries from 154 countries, further boosted visibility.

The Global Restoration Information Hub was launched in July 2024. It is a compilation of globally available data on land restoration from credible sources. The site provides information on global best practices, restoration commitments, best practice legislations, documentaries, restoration actors and other databases.

The Initiative issued a global call for communities and NGOs to submit their restoration projects for small grant support, receiving over 600 submissions from 100 countries. Forty-one projects from XX countries were selected for funding.

[Statement on faith, if the faith report is finalized]

The G20 Global Land Initiative Steering Committee was kept informed of developments through regular communication. It met in July and continues to provide guidance on program implementation. It received the work plan for 2025-26; an exciting period of action is ahead.

Executive Director's Message

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