AMAZON CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION

Our vision is simple: we work toward creating a thriving Amazon that sustains the full diversity of life. We use our holistic approach focusing on people, nature, and innovation to create enduring conservation solutions to protect this vital place for all of humanity.

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 9.3 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.

Amazon Conservation has been a pioneer in conserving forests since 1999, and has a proven track record of empowering people, protecting wild places and putting science and technology to work for conservation.

Our founding program provided support for Brazil nut harvesters in Peru as an incentive for protecting the forest. Amazon Conservation is responsible for creating the world’s first private conservation concession in 2001, a 360,000 acre reserve on government land that Amazon Conservation protects and manages for conservation. Amazon Conservation also supported the creation and management of Peru’s first conservation concession managed by an indigenous community. In total, we now protect over 9.1 million acres of forest.

Our 3 research stations act as hubs for science and discovery in the Amazon. They also protect over 10,000 acres of Amazonian forests, much of which is also designated protected conservation areas, and buffer critical protected areas in the landscape. These stations provide us with a constant presence where it’s needed most - in the field - that few international nonprofits possess.

Amazon Conservation’s vast technology for conservation programming has become essential for deforestation monitoring and on-the-ground responses to threats against the Amazon. We have developed over 145 publicly-available reports and over 150 confidential reports to provide real-time deforestation analysis to policymakers, local authorities, and the general public, empowering them with the information and data needed to take action.

Our extensive work in the region has provided us with a network of local partners within multiple government agencies at the local, regional and national levels that are essential to achieving conservation goals. Through our partnerships, we have created new protected areas; prevented, minimized, and stopped deforestation; supported sustainable livelihoods that earn communities an income while protecting forest; and supported scientific research projects that measure everything from climate change impacts to bird behavior.

We operate as an alliance with two sister organizations in Peru and Bolivia who implement our projects on the ground. Through this alliance, we have built invaluable long-term relationships with local stakeholders and became part of the Amazonian communities we support. With 101 employees across 7 offices in the US, Peru and Bolivia, we ensure that our local solutions are serving the unique needs of the western Amazon while keeping an eye out for new technology and scientific discoveries on a global scale.

Amazon Conservation has a 20-year history in the region, strong local and regional support, and an unwavering commitment to continuing to work in this vital area, making us well-positioned to continuing and scaling our conservation efforts across the Amazon basin.

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 9.3 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.