The Amazon basin plays an essential role in regulating the climate and providing other ecosystem services, and it is home to the largest and most diverse forest on earth with rich biological and cultural diversity. Its protection, conservation, and sustainable management are essential to guaranteeing the social, environmental, and economic well-being of the Amazonian people and communities, states, and the rest of the world.

The Amazon Sustainable Landscapes Program (ASL) is an initiative funded by the Global Environment Facility with an ambitious goal: to protect globally significant biodiversity and implement policies to foster sustainable land use and restoration of native vegetation cover. The Program applies an integrated regional landscape approach by working at the local, regional, and national levels and includes three countries in its first phase: Brazil, Colombia, and Peru.

As ASL initiates a second new phase that will bring together almost all the countries across the basin, the Program has a unique opportunity to coalesce different actors to share experiences and leverage successes toward its common goal. Promoting multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral collaboration and sharing among beneficiaries, partners, and stakeholders will be essential to achieving the ASL goals.

Source: Alvaro Gaviria

The ASL, under the World Bank’s leadership, builds on efforts by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to track and understand donor investments for Amazon conservation and seeks to advance knowledge and foster greater collaboration. This study extends the analysis of donor conservation funding for the 2016-2019 period, providing a more recent view of how much money has been invested in conservation across the Amazon basin and the strategies donors are using. Together these three studies have identified nearly US$4.8 billion that has been invested in promoting the protection and preservation of this region since 2007.

This study aims to provide a starting point for donors, countries, and civil society to understand the current funding scenario, begin critical conversations on how these investments can be enhanced, and explore how donors can work together to strengthen and coordinate their efforts.

The author and ASL team thank all the donors and their teams for helping to provide these data and for their engagement in our efforts to drive collaboration and innovation that protects valuable biodiversity and promotes sustainable land and water use in the Amazon.

Valerie Hickey

Practice Manager, Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy Global Practice