Instituto Terra

Instituto Terra is a non-profit civil organization founded in April 1998. It is focused on environmental restoration and sustainable rural development in Vale do Rio Doce. The region was originally covered by the Atlantic Forest and encompasses municipalities in Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo bathed by the Rio Doce Hydrographic Basin.

Instituto Terra is the result of the initiative of the couple Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado and Sebastião Salgado, who, faced with the scenario of environmental degradation in which the old cattle farm acquired from the family of Sebastião Salgado was located - like the many other rural units located in the city Aimorés mining company –, made a decision: to return to nature what decades of environmental degradation had destroyed.