Gracie Abad Maximiano, a 2007 Watson International Scholar of the Environment, is technical manager of the Parana Biodiversity Project, Secretary of Planning of Parana States, Brazil. This project aims to conserve biodiversity and sustainably manage natural resources in three different environmental areas of Paraná State. The project focuses on restoring connections from the Conservation Unities to forest fragments, making natural corridors with riparian forest and recovering 20 percent of forest cover in each property as requested by law. Supported by the project, the local community is involved in recovering forest vegetation and adapting its land use system to clean agriculture. Maximiano also works in the Paraná Mapping Project, which is validating the land cover map made for all Paraná.