This new project aims to strengthen the enabling conditions for the participant countries to manage the shared freshwater ecosystems of the Putumayo-Içá basin in the Amazon region. Financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), it is being implemented/supervised by the World Bank, executed by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and led by the Ministries of Environment of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, and the Secretary of Environment from the Brazilian State of Amazonas. Stakeholders in the four countries (many of whom are involved in the ASL projects) will benefit from knowledge sharing in key elements of the project such as fisheries management, mercury contamination, value chains for aquatic products, and multisectoral/multi-country governance.

The launch took place during the first project mission February 14–16, which introduced the core team members and identified future activities with other partners working in the region on initiatives that can be scaled up. The project’s steering and technical committees also met to provide strategic and technical guidance.

High-level representatives from the four governments participated in the event and highlighted the project’s strategic relevance. The project will help address environmental issues that threaten the integrity of the watershed, improve living conditions and social/cultural well-being for the basin’s inhabitants, and enhance governance and promote dialogue between different nationalities, sectors, ethnicities, and institutions. The project will set up a knowledge management system to generate lessons to improve implementation, contributing to potential scaling up and for other similar initiatives.

This month we celebrated International Women’s Day. While we recognize the valuable contributions of all women in the Amazon region, we would like to highlight the journey of two remarkable women.

Jani Silva, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, has been a longtime advocate of community-led conservation and development in the Colombian Amazon. She is the president of the Association for the Integral Sustainable Development of the Amazonian Pearl (ADISPA) and the legal representative of the Amazonian Pearl Farmers Reserve Zone (ZRCPA). Under Jani’s leadership and together with a group of women, also members of the group Mi Nombre es Mujer Perla Amazónica (MEMPA), ADISPA has had much success implementing conservation and restoration activities, as well as peace building. Photo by Jose Luis Osorio Sanchez.

Shirley Mori is an agroforestry engineer from the Indigenous group Shipibo-Konibo working for the communities in Ucayali, Peru. Shirley was chosen by the Federation of Native Communities of Ucayali and Affluents (Feconau) to be part of the team of specialists who led the design of the life plans for the Shambo Porvenir and Santa Clara de Uchunya communities in Nueva Requena. To contribute to closing gender gaps, Shirley seeks to reinforce what she calls gender solidarity—the mutual support between men and women, as conceived by the Shipibo-Konibo culture. Photo by UNDP/Beatriz Schippner.

You can read more inspirational stories about Amazon women and their contributions to gender equity in conservation and sustainable development interventions in the study “Women’s Solutions: Lessons for Conservation and Sustainable Development of the Amazon,” prepared by the ASL regional project, along with a series of visual stories.

The Amazon rainforest is critical to the health and well-being of the planet and its people. It offers critical ecological functions including carbon sequestration, climate and water regulation and purification, biodiversity, as well as nutrient cycling. Furthermore, it’s home to a wide variety of animal and plant species, representing a critical source of subsistence and medicine for the region’s inhabitants.

In celebration of the International Day of Forests, learn more about several plant species from the Amazon rainforest and find out how they have been used as treatments and health supplements.

The Amazon basin is home to the most extensive and diverse freshwater habitat in the world. Amazon wetlands include glacier-fed streams, floodplain lakes, flooded forests, and floating herbaceous communities, as well as the largest river in the world, the Amazon River. Wetlands in the region support major fisheries, food, water, and other resources critical to local populations.

Learn more about seven important wetlands in the Amazon region in this infographic.

With support from the Heart of the Colombian Amazon ASL project, a five-day course: "Strengthening Self-Government and the Transmission of Knowledge for the Formulation of Projects," was put in place for 50 representatives of the Nonuya, Muinane, Uitoto, Andoque, Matapí, and Miraña communities. Its objective was to contribute to the discussion—building on knowledge from Indigenous women—of key elements related to integrated care of the territory, cultural identity (recovered via stories to be shared among generations and transferred in activities such as handcrafts, art, and use of medicinal plants), autonomous government, and women’s leadership.

Communities and institutions have joined forces to conserve and restore the forest’s natural dynamics through the design and management of biodiversity corridors in the Colombian Amazon. With support from the ASL project Sustainable Amazon for Peace, farmer families—some of whom are signatories of peace agreements—together with environmental institutions, have made important progress to protect, monitor, and restore the connectivity of the jaguar trails in the department of Guaviare and the Yarí Savannas in the Caquetá and Meta departments.

The Sustainable Productive Landscapes Project in the Peruvian Amazon (PPS)—led by the Ministry of the Environment, organized an experiential internship from November 12–18 in Tomé-Açu, Brazil, where a delegation of 25 smallholders, technicians, and officials from the regional governments of Huánuco and Ucayali learned about the integrated management of cocoa and oil palm farms with agroforestry practices.

Agroforestry for oil palm cultivation is an innovative practice in Peru being introduced by PPS and its implementation partner the International Center for Agroforestry Research (ICRAF) through demonstration units in the landscape. The initiative supported by the project seeks to demonstrate the potential of these systems to diversify production, make more efficient use of the cultivated area, and increase the income of palm-growing families. For Abel Savino Plácido, president of the Cooperativa Agraria de Cacaoteros de Curimaná, Curicoop, Ucayali, the most important lesson he took home was the added value of following an environmentally friendly production process: "Biodiversity conservation has been the key point of this internship. We also work in the jungle, and the articulated and adequate management by applying good practices in agricultural cultivation is something we want to encourage in our producers...because without preservation we will not have sustainability." (Photo credit: Ana Vilela, ICRAF, Brazil)

Led by the Securing the Future of Peru’s Natural Protected Areas ASL project, this exhibit involving the Peruvian artist Marjorie Diez showcased from January 24 to February 24 in Lima and drew contributions to support the management of protected natural areas like Tingo María National Park. Diez’s paper craft sculptures that represent the beautiful fauna that inhabits the Peruvian Amazon, including the puma, morpho butterfly, taricaya turtle, and scarlet macaw.

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