The Andes-Amazon region is home to more than 30 million people, 20 percent of the world’s fresh water and an estimated ten percent of the Earth’s species. Approximately the same size as the continental United States, the Amazon is the world's largest remaining rainforest. It’s important to conserve this treasure not only for the present and for proximate communities, but long into the future, for our planet's health.
Since 2001, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Andes-Amazon Initiative has dedicated more than $380 million in grants to ensure the long-term ecological integrity and climatic function of the Amazon basin. We also continue to support work by organizations in the region who are ensuring that a core set of protected areas are managed effectively.
Brazil accounts for 74% of the total area protected in the world between 2003 and 2008. This high rate of protected area creation has been most prominent in the Brazilian Amazon. One initiative that has contributed to a significant impact on this front is the Amazon Regional Protected Areas (ARPA) project.
"ARPA is the world’s largest conservation and sustainability initiative on tropical forests and represents the main biodiversity conservation strategy for the Amazon biome."
ARPA links public and private entities and supports the creation, consolidation and maintenance of protected areas. A recently released report details the effectiveness of these strategies. The strategies align with those of the foundation, aiming to support and inform communities, science and public policy to strengthen indigenous lands and protected areas.
Initial analysis indicates that ARPA has had significant impact on bolstering protected area conservation in the Amazon. Overall, sustainable financing for protected areas has proven to result in greater levels of management effectiveness, which in turn, better allows protected areas to achieve their conservation objectives, providing society with a variety of goods and services essential for well-being and income generation.
Image of map: courtesy of WWF Brasil and Funibo, The Impact of the ARPA Program on the Management Effectiveness of Amazon Protected Areas report
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