For years, women had no voice in community decisions and no rights to the land. Today, women are leading change."
When Ailana speaks about her community in Brazil, she is talking about more than leadership.
After ten years of trying, her community secured credit and improved production and livelihoods. Her experience is one of many emerging from Southern Bahia, one of the world's most important cacao-producing regions.
Across the region, smallholder farmers, Indigenous Peoples and other rural communities are gaining access to finance, technical support, new commercial partnerships and opportunities linked to regenerative agriculture and ecosystem restoration. Together, these changes are helping improve livelihoods while protecting biodiversity.
Our partners are helping answer a simple question: what becomes possible when communities gain access to opportunity?
The answers look different across Southern Bahia, but they all begin with securing land rights and the resources and support communities need to thrive.
Opening doors to credit and financial advice
For many rural communities, access to finance is a critical step. Since 2018, our partner Tabôa has worked with smallholder farmers and rural communities across Brazil, helping unlock more than R$25 million (EUR 4.3 million) in credit. Today, the organisation reaches nearly 5,000 people in 44 municipalities.
But access to credit alone is not enough. As one farmer supported by Tabôa explained:
Receiving credit without technical support is like getting food without knowing how to cook it."
By combining access to finance with technical support, communities can invest in production and livelihoods. In the community of Dois Riachões, farmers who gained access to credit and technical support increased their income by 60%.
Ailana, President of the Nova Vitória Community Association, described the impact in her own community:
After ten years of trying, we secured credit for our community and were able to improve our production and livelihoods."
Forging partnerships for financial support
Opportunity also comes from stronger connections. Founded with seed funding from Porticus through the Good Energies Foundation in 2018, Conexsus helps Indigenous Peoples, traditional communities and smallholder farmers access finance, markets and technical support.
The organisation is also part of a broader initiative to expand access to subsidised rural credit, helping smallholder farmers adopt regenerative agricultural practices. Its work creates connections that help communities strengthen local enterprises and pursue new opportunities.
Fernando Moretti, Director of Socioeconomic Policies at Conexsus, explains:
The financial system was designed for large producers, leaving many rural communities behind. We work with banks and government to make credit more accessible, while our social investment fund helps community businesses grow and thrive."
For the Rio de Cima Indigenous tribe, these connections helped unlock new opportunities:
Before, we were not organised. After some workshops, the cooperative people started to have new ideas, we built new commercial partnerships, and our community thrived."
Accelerating landscape restoration
In Southern Bahia, Belterra works with farmers and communities to transform degraded land into productive, regenerative forests. With support from Porticus’ Good Energies Foundation, the organisation has restored more than 4,500 hectares of land, helped over 200 families access R$10 million in government credit, and supported more than 100 smallholder farms to participate in biodiversity and carbon credit initiatives.
As founder and CEO, Valmir Ortega puts it:
Keeping the forest standing is also excellent business."
With opportunity comes possibility
While the stories emerging from Southern Bahia are varied, they are connected by a common thread.
For some communities, opportunity depends on access to credit and technical support. For others, it comes through stronger connections to finance and partnerships.
Together, these stories show what becomes possible when communities can access the resources, relationships and support they need to improve livelihoods while protecting the biodiversity that makes Southern Bahia unique.
