Amazon Conservation Association

Results: Amazon Conservation measures its impact across the land we protect, awareness we build, communities we serve, and research and education we provide. Some highlights of our success on the ground include: - Protected 9.1 million acres of forests and wild places in the western Amazon through helping create and maintain conservation areas. - Benefitted over 17,000 individuals who live in the 30+ conservation areas we helped create and maintain. - Established the Los Amigos Conservation Concession, the world’s first conservation concession, protecting 360,000 acres of forests and creating a conservation model that is now implemented in other areas of the Amazon and the world. - Helped establish the Haramba Queros Ecological Preserve, the world's first indigenous conservation concession managed by an indigenous group. - Trained over 1,000 harvester families in the sustainable harvesting of Brazil nuts and their post-production. We also have assisted communities as they formed associations to sell Brazil nuts and other forest-friendly products and handicrafts. - Developed a program to address human-jaguar conflicts in Bolivia, providing education and outreach programs to nearly 500 adults and children to dispel myths and create wildlife management alternatives. - Built Peru’s first permanent research center focused on Andean cloud forest ecology, Wayqecha Biological Station. - Launched a new Wildlife Conservation Laboratory at our Los Amigos Biological Station in Peru, which aims to carry out wildlife health and biodiversity monitoring using the latest technology. This lab gathers vital data on zoonotic diseases and transmission risks in the region in a first step toward creating a replicable decentralized, locally-based One Health laboratory network. - Created a real-time remote monitoring system using satellite technology to detect, analyze, and expose deforestation and fires as they happen. Our Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) uses cutting-edge satellite data from a variety of sources, including NASA, to analyze and share deforestation information that enables local authorities to take action against forest crimes. - Developed the Southwest Amazon Drone Center, which has trained over 150 community members, government officials, and forest users in using drone technology to find and expose illegal deforestation. - Collected data about mammal, bird, insect, and plant species in our three research stations in the Peruvian Amazon, registering over 7,000 species within their borders. - Partnered with indigenous communities in Peru and Bolivia as well as local partners supporting indigenous groups in Ecuador to improve their capacity to protect their ancestral lands. - In key protected areas we support, we worked to establish climate resilience and adaptation plans to address the impacts from a changing climate including fires and flooding.

Geographic areas served: across the most biodiverse places of the Amazon, focusing at the headwaters where the rivers of the entire Amazon basin begin

Programs: Amazon Conservation employs a holistic approach focused on protecting wild places, empowering people, and putting science and technology to work for conservation. 1. Protecting Wild Places Currently, we safeguard over 9.1 million acres of wild forest in the most biodiverse place on Earth. The altitudinal range of this area provides a living laboratory for understanding and mitigating the effects of climate change. We protect this forest by creating and supporting a network of public and privately owned lands, which maintain the connection among vital habitats and increase the chance for species to survive. 2. Empowering People As a trusted partner, we work hand-in-hand with communities, governments, and indigenous peoples to provide technical support, innovative tools, and technology to ensure enduring conservation solutions. We help communities implement profitable and sustainable forest-friendly businesses. Finally, we train the next generation of conservationists at our three research stations and beyond. 3. Putting Science and Technology to Work for Conservation Science informs our conservation actions. We harness the power of satellite and drone technology to detect and stop deforestation across the entire Amazon basin. We manage one of the most important networks of biological stations in the tropics, which are hubs for research and discovery. Our science provides key information that governments and communities need to make decisions and take action.