Protecting the Heart of the Amazon

We are responding to the conservation and human rights crisis in the Amazon headwaters with a combination of measures intended to protect biodiversity while promoting strong stewardship and sustainable livelihoods in local indigenous communities. We are committed to working in the most vulnerable areas, where illegal activities and community exploitation often go undetected, despite the logistical challenges, dangers, and high-costs of working in such remote areas.

The Amazon headwaters of Southeastern Peru contains some of the most remote and intact forests in the entire world. Healthy jungle ecosystems support a full spectrum of Amazonian flora and fauna and over a dozen different indigenous tribes including some of the last isolated tribes on Earth. The region’s core is made up of two of the most important protected areas for both biodiversity and indigenous cultures anywhere on the planet: the Alto Purús and Manu national parks. The parks are surrounded by other protected areas including four reserves for isolated tribes, and dozens of titled communities representing 10 different tribes in various stages of contact with the outside world. Living in small familial villages, they survive mainly on subsistence activities like hunting, fishing, collecting forest resources, and tending small gardens. Together these conservation areas and indigenous lands comprise a massive 25 million acre (10 million hectares) mosaic of protected lands roughly twice the size of Costa Rica called the Purús – Manu Landscape. It is among the largest and wildest ecosystems left on Earth.