Key Partnerships and Ambitious Targets Through 2031
Earth’s largest remaining rainforest, the Amazon provides one-fifth of the world’s fresh water, is home to the planet’s most diverse collection of birds, mammals, freshwater fish and plants, and serves as an immense carbon sink, making it a vital part of regulating climate and mitigating change. Equally important, the region provides life-giving resources and ecosystem services to local people and national societies. Today, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announced a $300 million extension of its Andes Amazon Initiative through 2031.
Since 2003, the Moore Foundation has funded work focused on the creation and effective management of Indigenous lands and protected areas, with supporting strategies centered on capacity building, science, public policy, and addressing infrastructure development. There has been measurable progress. A comprehensive external evaluation released late last year underscored the importance of the foundation’s work in the region, yet it also sent a clear message that there was more work to do. To avert an approaching ecological tipping point and conversion of forest ecosystems to savannas in the Amazon region, experts agree the next decade will be critical.
“Projections continue to suggest that to safeguard the resilience and health of the Andes-Amazon region’s ecosystems, at least 70 percent of its historic forest cover must remain intact,” said Avecita Chicchón, Ph.D., program director for the Andes-Amazon Initiative. “Even with the progress made, we know the time requires we act boldly. That’s why these new initiative targets are so ambitious. Some might even say risky. But if we hit those targets within the next 10 years, we will actually exceed that all-important 70 percent threshold.”
These are the critical targets for success in our next chapter:
- Ensuring that 50 million additional hectares of Indigenous peoples and local communities lands are effectively managed.
- Ensuring that 50 million additional hectares of freshwater/forest ecosystems are effectively managed.
- Redirecting and reducing the drivers of habitat change in five countries.
- Strengthening the institutional framework necessary for success.
The Andes-Amazon Initiative so far
The Amazon biome offers a wellspring of hope on a rapidly changing planet, but the resilience and health of its ecosystems require that the bulk of its interconnected watersheds and forest cover remain intact.
The initiative was originally shaped to ensure the long-term ecological integrity and climatic function of the Amazon basin. Since inception, the initiative has promoted conservation and sustainable development by working with and supporting NGOs, Indigenous organizations, research institutions, governmental agencies and committed private sector partners.
In the last 20 years, new protected areas and Indigenous lands, sustainable land-use policies, and improved management have combined to slow the rate of deforestation dramatically.
“We’re grateful for our grantees’ extraordinary completion of our protected area strategy – as well as their success conserving over 400 million hectares in the Amazon — or about 50 percent of its original forest cover,” said Aileen Lee, chief program officer for Environmental Conservation at Moore. “None of it would be possible without our in-country partners and leaders and the work they do on the ground – as well as the sustained leadership of the Indigenous peoples and local communities of the Amazon.”
Toward a healthy planet and healthy people
Since cases of COVID-19 were first reported in early 2020 and subsequently spread around the world, messages about the urgency of conservation have understandably had to compete with important public health announcements and news of the pandemic’s effects on global economies.
“In the wake of COVID, there is now an opportunity to educate constituencies about the very real links between climate, forests, biodiversity, and health,” added Chicchón, “and with an ecological tipping point looming, these are serious conversations that need to take place.”
This extension of the Andes-Amazon Initiative will bring the foundation’s projected investment from 2003-2031 to more than $800 million.
About the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation fosters path-breaking scientific discovery, environmental conservation, patient care improvements, and preservation of the special character of the Bay Area. Follow @MooreFound or visit www.moore.org.
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