Amazon Sustainable Landscapes Project Brazil
Start & End Date: 2018-2026
Country/Countries: Brazil
Multilateral Institution(s) Involved: World Bank
The Amazon region hosts a vast amount of the world's remaining rainforests and an extraordinary variety of species. This biodiversity plays a critical role as part of global systems, influencing the global carbon cycle, climate change, as well as hydrological systems, and, thus, South American climate and rainfall. In recent years, threats like deforestation for agriculture and infrastructure development are on the rise that put the Amazon biome increasingly under pressure. Therefore, the concerned countries (Brazil, Colombia and Peru) and partner agencies have joined forces with the Amazon Sustainable Landscapes (ASL) Program to protect this globally significant biodiversity and implement policies to foster sustainable land use and restoration of native vegetation cover. At the country level, the ASL has implemented four national projects by the government agencies in partnership with local governments, research institutions, private organizations and civil society. It is funded through a commitment of $113 million in Global Environmental Facility (GEF) resources drawn from each country’s allocation, a programmatic financial incentive, as well as an expected $683 million leveraged in additional financing from countries’ budgets, NGOs, the private sector, and donors.
The Amazon sustainable landscapes project in Brazil aims to expand the area under legal protection and improve management of Protected Areas, and increase the area under restoration and sustainable management in the Brazilian Amazon. It is implemented by the World Bank Group via the Global Environmental Facility and executed by the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund (FUNBIO) and Conservation International-Brazil (CI-Brazil). There are four components to the project, the first component being amazon protected areas system. This component aims to expand and consolidate an over-60-million-ha PA system in the Brazilian Amazon and advance ongoing efforts to secure its long-term financial sustainability by capitalizing the Amazon Region Protection Areas (ARPA) Transition Fund. The second component is the integrated landscape management. This component aims to promote integrated landscape management in the Amazon through complementary strategies that foster the recovery of native vegetation, develop sustainable productive systems, strengthen productive value chains, and implement innovative management arrangements between protected areas. The third component is the policies for protection and recovery of native vegetation. This component focuses on strengthening the capacity of national and state governments to develop and implement sectoral policies and financial mechanisms to reduce deforestation and promote forest recovery. Finally, the fourth component is the capacity building, cooperation, and project coordination.
As of February 2021, the project has helped to increase the number of protected areas, extend the use of sustainable land management practices and land use planning tools in more areas, consult local people and improve incentive mechanisms for reducing forest loss.