Decades of soy expansion, cattle ranching, and fire had pushed the forest back, dried up springs, and silted rivers. The Lagoa de Parnaguá, once the economic center of the region, had lost more than 94% of its water extent. Rivers that fed it, including the Paraim, were disappearing.

SamaÚma has been working here since 2022, with a focus on the river's riparian buffers, permanent preservation areas around the Paraim and Lake Parnaguá, and the springs that sustain both. Restoration combines direct seeding and seedlings from SamaÚma's own nursery, prioritizing native species suited to the semi-arid conditions of the Cerrado-Caatinga ecotone. Small farmers and rural communities are central to the operation, hired through socioeconomic criteria and trained in ecological restoration techniques. In a region where Piauí's poverty rate reached 44.6% in 2020 and formal employment has always been scarce, the work carries direct economic weight alongside the ecological.

Restoring riparian vegetation in a landscape prone to desertification does more than recover tree cover. It stabilizes riverbanks, reduces erosion and siltation, recharges groundwater, and protects the water sources that family farmers depend on for irrigation and subsistence. In southern Piauí, where 7,760 km² of land has already been classified as degraded by INPE, that work is not restoration for its own sake. It is the difference between a river that runs and one that doesn't.

1.9 million trees have been planted across the corridor, in partnership with SEMARH, the Federal Institute of Piauí, and rural extension networks active across the region.