More on Conservation Concessions and Conservation Corridors
What is a Conservation Concession?
Conservation concessions and conservation corridors are critical to protecting forest cover and biodiversity across the southwestern Amazon.
It’s a public/private partnership designed to promote conservation, biodiversity, and sustainable development.
This groundbreaking concept– a “conservation concession” – facilitates the participation of private organizations in achieving national biodiversity conservation goals by entrusting the long-term protection of publicly-owned land to not-for-profit institutions in exchange for investments in conservation and sustainable development.
Conservation concessions are essential tools for environmental protection and we’re working with our sister organizations to create concessions throughout the Amazon rainforest.
Today, our Los Amigos conservation concession is among the Amazon’s most active centers for research, natural resource management training, and environmental education. The conservation concession model has now been replicated in other places throughout Peru, and even as far away as China, covering close to 5 million acres.
What is a Conservation Corridor?
Conservation corridors provide freedom of movement for animals and allow for biodiversity and the ecological and evolutionary processes.
A conservation corridor is a native wildlife habitat that is undisturbed by human activity that joins larger areas of similar wildlife habitat. These corridors are critical to maintaining the natural ecological process, allowing the movement of animals throughout their natural space.
Manu – Tambopata Corridor: from Manu National Park to Tambopata National Reserve. The Manu – Tambopata (MAT) Corridor connects Peru’s Manu National Park with Bolivia’s Madidi National Park via ACA’s Los Amigos Conservation Concession and the Tambopata National Reserve.
The last unprotected stretch, a north-south corridor that crosses the Interoceanic Highway to the Malinowsky River, will protect over 518,920 acres (210,000 hectares) of tropical forest. ACA’s Los Amigos Biological Station (CICRA), one of the most productive research stations in the Amazon basin, is located here.
Castaña Corridor: from Las Piedras River in Peru to Manuripi National Reserve in Bolivia. The Castaña Corridor incorporates much of ACA’s earlier conservation efforts to develop the first Brazil nut concessions in Peru. We currently provide technical support and training to more than 420 families in northern Madre de Dios and several in the buffer zone of Tambopata National Reserve. These concessions cover 875,998 acres (354,504 hectares) of primary forest along the Interoceanic Highway.
The Castaña Corridor also protects the habitat of keystone species like jaguars in the Las Piedras River basin.
Yungas Corridor: from Manu National Park to Bahuaja Sonene National Park. The Yungas Corridor is designed to protect an unbroken stretch of forest from lowland valleys to Andean highlands between Manu and Bahuaja Sonene National Parks.
Climate change is expected to force species to migrate to higher elevations, and this corridor will provide a refuge for a genetically diverse population of plants and animals.
Los Amigos Conservation Hub
Amazon Conservation pioneers innovative conservation tools, creating models that others can follow, and, in 2001, Amazon Conservation and Conservación Amazónica-ACCA established the world’s first private conservation concession.
In Peru, as in other countries in Latin America, a substantial portion of the land is publicly owned. Although national conservation policies may contemplate the protection of these areas, governments frequently lack the human and financial resources to implement effective on-the-ground actions.
Amazon Conservation negotiated with the Peruvian government to develop a new way to help protect forests under state control. In Peru, the contracts are perpetually renewable, given for 40 years initially and subject to an evaluation of compliance every 5 years.
Today, the Los Amigos Conservation Concession protects the watershed of the Los Amigos River and 360,000 acres of old-growth Amazonian forest in the department of Madre de Dios in southeastern Peru.
Los Amigos is home to a remarkable diversity of plant and animal species. Bordering world-famous Manu National Park to the east, the Los Amigos watershed forms part of a 20 million-acre block of protected wilderness in southeastern Peru.
The landscape is a mosaic of terrestrial and aquatic habitats, including palm swamps, bamboo thickets, oxbow lakes, and various types of flooded and non-flooded forests. Wildlife is abundant, including 12 globally threatened species and abundant Amazonian fauna including giant otters, harpy eagles, spider monkeys, and jaguars. The area contains 13 species of primates. By way of comparison, all of Costa Rica holds only four.
Los Amigos Conservation Concession Goals
Our ongoing management of the Los Amigos Conservation Concession will:
- Ensure lasting protection of the Los Amigos watershed
- Develop a world-class research center and a model private protected area
- Train a new generation of Latin American ecologists and natural resource managers
- Create sustainable economic and social benefits for local populations
- Develop new watershed conservation models for Amazonian eco-development
- Develop new ecosystem management understanding and practices
- Establish new models for sustainable long-term forest conservation by employing innovative conservation finance tools, such as carbon and biodiversity offset markets
- Monitor and compare pristine ecosystems with those disrupted by logging, mining and agriculture
- Empower a new generation of Peruvians who will act as the long-term guardians, mentors, and conservation planners in the region
ACA thanks theInternational Conservation Fund of Canada (ICFC)for their generous support to create and grow an endowment fund that provides funding for the management of Los Amigos Conservation Concession.
Haramba Queros Wachiperi Conservation Concession
Haramba Queros is an indigenous community of the Wachiperi ethnicity living in the lush rainforests in the foothills of the Andes mountains, located 4 hours east of Cusco, Peru. They depend on their forest homeland for food, shelter, traditional clothing, and natural medicines.
In July 2008, the Haramba Queros Wachiperi Ecological Reserve became the world’s first conservation concession managed by an indigenous group. The Haramba Queros Wachiperi Conservation Concession protects 17,238 acres of highly diverse montane rainforest on the eastern slopes of Peru’s southern Andes.
It provides a buffer against the impacts of climate change, secures the Queros’ water supply and source of medicinal plants, sustains their access to forest products, and helps the community maintain its cultural traditions. These forests also serve as an ecological buffer zone for the world-renowned Manu National Park.
Amazon Conservation and its Peruvian sister organization, Conservación Amazónica-ACCA, provided technical support to the Wachiperi throughout the process of applying for the concession, creating its management plan, and seeking approval from the Peruvian forest service.
We continue to support the Queros community in their management and monitoring of the concession, as well as in the development of sustainable livelihoods activities, such as ecotourism and handicraft production, which help fund the management of the concession.
Conservation Concessions in Peru
Conservation concessions, an innovation written into Peruvian forestry legislation in 2000, provide a unique opportunity for the conservation of large state-owned lands that would otherwise be unmanaged. A conservation concession is a long-term contractual partnership between the national government and a non-government actor, whereby the civil society actor manages state-owned lands for purposes of ecosystem and biodiversity conservation.
In Peru, SERFORdr is the national agency overseeing conservation concessions.
SERFOR is required by law to approve a technical proposal drafted by the applicant organization prior to awarding a conservation concession. Once the technical proposal is approved, the applicant prepares a management plan that includes an investment commitment. The award process involves substantial public consultations with local and regional stakeholders, including local communities, regional authorities, and the private sector.
Once the concession is awarded, the concessionaire provides annual reports and inspections as well as comprehensive evaluation by SERFOR every five years to verify compliance with the management plan, if the concessionaire is found to comply with the management plan the contract is automatically extended for another forty-year period.
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