There’s no question that we need to treasure this earth that God has given us, and yet, our forests are being threatened by deforestation. The United Nations has said that around 129 million hectares of forest (which is about the size of South Africa) have been destroyed since 1990, and an area of trees that is about the size of Panama is lost every year.

It’s been said that “forests are the lungs of the land,” purifying the air, providing food and shelter for humans and animals alike. It’s important to preserve the forests as this story below will attest to.

Sebastião Salgado had spent years documenting the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s, only to return to his home country of Brazil to find that it had virtually been destroyed. What had once been a large rainforest was now barren, and much of the wildlife was gone as well. Together with his wife, Lélia Deluiz Wanick, they decided that it was up to them to do something to help revive the forest.

“The land was as sick as I was – everything was destroyed,” Sebastião recalled. “Only about 0.5% of the land was covered in trees. Then my wife had a fabulous idea to replant this forest. And when we began to do that, then all the insects and birds and fish returned and, thanks to this increase of the trees I, too, was reborn – this was the most important moment.”

“There is a single being which can transform CO2 to oxygen, which is the tree. We need to replant the forest,” he continued. “You need forest with native trees, and you need to gather the seeds in the same region you plant them or the serpents and the termites won’t come. And if you plant forests that don’t belong, the animals don’t come there and the forest is silent.”

In just twenty years, Sebastião and Lélia have managed to plant two million native trees to rebuild the forest. The wildlife has returned as well, with 172 bird species, 33 mammal species, 293 plant species, and 30 reptile and amphibian species coming back to the new forest.

“We need to listen to the words of the people on the land,” Sebastião said. “Nature is the earth and it is other beings and if we don’t have some kind of spiritual return to our planet, I fear that we will be compromised.”

Find out more about what this couple did in the video below.