Directly address major threats that endanger biodiversity and people’s well-being, including illegal gold mining and logging, unsustainable road development projects, and climate change impacts, such as fires, flooding and species extinction.
Support governments and communities to establish new protected areas and indigenous reserves, including areas dedicated to sustainable resource use.
Work to protect the territorial rights of uncontacted indigenous groups and the wild lands on which they depend for their survival.
Innovate the management of conservation areas by providing the science and technology needed to make better decisions, detect deforestation, and monitor the health of forests.
Ensure connectivity among key protected areas to keep vast forests intact and enable wildlife to have the space they need to thrive.
Build the resilience and adaptation capacity needed in still-intact ecosystems to reinforce their conservation in the face of climate change.
In 2000, we created the world’s first conservation concession — Los Amigos — which protects more than 360,500 acres of Amazonian forests in Peru. Strategically located on the borders of the Madre de Dios River, a region severely affected by illegal gold mining and logging, Los Amigos provides a crucial buffer for key uncontacted indigenous territories and one of the largest and most biodiverse national parks in the world, Manu. This innovative conservation model establishes a public-private partnership for managing public lands for the purpose of conservation. This unique way of partnering with governments to safeguard forests continues to be replicated across the Amazon and around the world today!
Just in 2019, we supported the local government in Bolivia to establish the Municipal Conservation Area of Bajo Madidi, which spans across 3.7 million acres (1.5 M ha) of pristine savannas, wetlands, and rainforests. Bajo Madidi now protects an area three times the size of the Grand Canyon! This area of major biological significance holds some of the most ecologically-intact savannas in the world and is home to vulnerable species like the maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus), Orinoco goose (Neochen jubata), and the marsh deer (Blastocerus dichotomus). By providing the technical expertise needed for the establishment of this protected area, we helped the government and local communities gather information on the conservation needs of this landscape, develop a plan to protect this land, support the legal process for establishing a new protected area, and now aiding in the sustainable use and management of Bajo Madidi.
Several weeks ago (on December 17, 2022), the Venezuelan government conducted a military operation against illegal mining activity in Yapacana National Park, located in the heart of the Venezuelan Amazon. This operation came just after a high-profile article in the Washington Post exposing the severity of the illegal mining within the park, including on top of the sacred Yapacana tepui […]
At 2022’s COP15 (the United Nations Biodiversity Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity) in Montreal, Peru announced the recognition of Los Amigos Conservation Concession as its first of two Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECM), as part of Peru’s efforts to meet the goal set by the Biological Diversity Agreement […]
On December 20, 2022, with technical support from our sister organization in Bolivia, Conservación Amazónica – ACEAA, the Mayor’s office of Porvenir in the Amazonian department of Pando, established the Natural Area of Integrated Management of the Porvenir Forest. This new protected area will ensure the health and sustainable management of these productive forests with […]