We work together with local communities, governments, indigenous groups, and other NGOs to build sustainable and resilient livelihoods that protect standing forests.

How We Empower People

Improve Livelihoods

Help communities and concessionaires develop and improve the sustainable production of forest products, such as Brazil nuts and açaí berries.

Protect Natural Resources

Support forest users to protect their lands and resources from threats like illegal logging and gold mining.

Apply Technology

Provide the technology and training that communities and governments need to better monitor and manage their natural resources.

Strengthen Environmental Governance

Provide tools and build the capacities of governments and communities to work together to reduce threats to the forest, improve the context for conservation, and apply the law.

Train Tomorrow's Conservationists

Create opportunities for the next generation of conservationists by supporting research and providing scholarships for young biologists and deliver environmental education programs to school-aged children.

Protecting local forests and growing economies with açaí berries

Through supporting sustainable livelihoods that keep forests standing, we are empowering local communities like Santa Rosa del Abuná in Bolivia. We’ve partnered with them to improve how they manage the açaí berry – the popular palm fruit dubbed as one of the ten new superfoods in the world. Using our expertise and technology, we developed a GIS program to locate and manage their açaí trees, designed an innovative safety harness to make harvesting berries less dangerous, and taught best practices for transforming the fruit (which only lasts a few days after being harvested) into pulp and storing it to generate higher profits. Working together has improved incomes across the community, making their lives better and their forests healthier.

Inspiring the conservation heroes of tomorrow

We partner with five educational institutions in Madre de Dios, Peru – an area heavily affected by illegal gold mining and deforestation – to get children to connect with and learn about the forests they call home. We deliver a unique environmental education program for youth aged 10-16 years, where they learn how to use camera trap technology to monitor and understand the wildlife with whom they share a forest. After analyzing information from camera trap images and videos, the students present their findings to community groups, including local government officials. By engaging students on environmental protection topics early on, we not only inspire and train these conservationists of tomorrow, but help them become the messengers of today by sharing this knowledge at home, affecting a change in attitude across all generations.

Help us empower more people to conserve their forests!

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The Latest from the Amazon

Inauguration of Cacao Processing Plant and Andean Bear Interpretation Center in Peru

Over the past month, Amazon Conservation inaugurated two new critical facilities that mark important milestones for our conservation efforts in Peru. The first is a new processing plant, which is fundamental in our Productive Forests program that supports sustainable, forest-friendly livelihoods under our Empowering People strategy. The second is a new Interpretation Center, dedicated to […]

Interactive Games Show Consequences of Human Activity on Amazon’s Chemical Makeup

In the Bolivian department of Pando, Amazon Conservation through our sister organization Conservación Amazónica–ACEAA held workshops in the communities of Holanda, Empresiña, San Antonio, and Luz de América to spread awareness about the impacts of human activities on the Amazon rainforest. These workshops, part of the PRODIGY project financed by the German Ministry of Research […]

Research Finds Chagas Disease in Pando Not Linked to Local Açai

On June 28, at a meeting of the Inter-Institutional Platform for Connection of Amazon Fruit Products (PICFA) in Cobija, Bolivia, we presented a study that corrects misinformation about the link between açai and the parasite causing Chagas disease in the region. While the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi has been found in the primary açai species produced […]