The Ministry of the Environment (Minam) will implement a project to properly conserve the terrestrial and aquatic wild ecosystems of our Amazon, by valuing biodiversity for food security and biobusinesses.
For this purpose, a grant of US$1,441,560,000 will be provided by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), along with counterpart funding from the Ministry of the Environment (Minam), the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (Midagri), the Ministry of Production (Produce), the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism (Mincetur), the regional governments of Loreto, Ucayali, and Junín, and private companies, among others. The project has three implementing agencies: FAO, IFAD, and UNIDO, and Profonanpe as its operational partner.
This initiative will directly benefit 11,000 people and strengthen the protection and sustainable use of the Amazon rainforest in the intervention areas, promoting and generating environmental benefits such as the conservation and improved management of 7,989,260 hectares; and including the creation of 80,000 hectares of new protected areas.
At the launch event held this morning, the Minister of the Environment, Albina Ruiz, stated that "Peru is a country of Amazonian forests and as a State we are committed to taking measures to protect our Amazon," she emphasized.
He added that the aforementioned project will allow Peru to meet the commitments and challenges it assumed at the Amazon Summit, held in Belém do Pará, Brazil, an event in which our country had a prominent role.
At that event, the FAO representative in Peru, Mariana Escobar, warned that “extreme weather conditions are threatening food security and the livelihoods of communities that have lived in harmony with these ecosystems for centuries, so any conservation and sustainable use initiative requires the active and effective involvement of the local population.”.
As the operational partner of the project, Profonanpe has been designated to support the Ministry of the Environment in the joint execution of activities, ensuring effective technical, administrative and financial management of the project, as well as ensuring adherence to regulations and procedures.
In that context, Anton Willems, CEO of Profonanpe, mentioned that "at Profonanpe we are very proud to be able to be that ally, we will support the challenges, the accountability that the implementing agencies demand of us every single day that we work with them, but ensuring, together with the Ministry of Environment, that these resources and these activities reach where they are meant to go."«
Landscape management
The implementation of this project will positively impact the proper management of landscapes across 15,000 hectares and enable the restoration of 7,900 hectares. These goals, set over a five-year period, will contribute to improving soil, water, and air quality, as well as ecosystem services.
The areas where intervention will take place are: the Tigre Marañón Landscape in the province of Loreto (8,453,536 hectares) and the Alto Ucayali Inuya Landscape, which encompasses the provinces of Atalaya, in Ucayali; and Satipo, in Junín (5,911,286 hectares). Together, they total 14,364,823 hectares that will be properly conserved.
This aims to preserve ecosystems in healthy, functional and climate-resilient conditions, maintaining important carbon reserves, avoiding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and generating human well-being for local populations in the Peruvian Amazon.
This project is part of the second phase of the Amazon Sustainable Landscapes (ASL) Program, which is a GEF-funded initiative to improve integrated landscape management and ecosystem conservation in priority areas of the Amazon (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Suriname).
Source: Ministry of the Environment
