Promoting integrated sustainable management of the Peruvian Amazonian landscape Madre de Dios

The GEF-funded project, “Promoting Integrated Sustainable Management of the Peruvian Amazonian landscape Madre de Dios” aims to promote the conservation and sustainable use of priority ecosystems in the Madre de Dios Basin to help slow deforestation, prevent biodiversity loss, promote biological connectivity and carbon neutrality and improve the livelihoods of its Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.

The target landscape includes the Madre de Dios River basin, primarily located in Madre de Dios department in southern Peru. The basin is home to 37 native communities belonging to at least six indigenous people. It encompasses five protected areas - the Alto Purus National Park, Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, Tambopata National Reserve, Manu National Park, Bahuaja Sonene National Park – along with their buffer zones, some of which extended partially into the Cusco, Ucayali and Puno departments.

The landscape possesses extraordinarily rich biological and cultural diversity, featuring vast tracts of standing tropical forest - 11.7 million hectares, representing 15% of the Peruvian Amazon. It also includes a well-established network of protected areas, indigenous territories, and areas with forest-based economies, forming one of the largest and most intact tropical forest biomes in the Peruvian Amazon.

Through its execution, the project will improve the effective management of 4.7 million hectares of protected areas, restore 300 hectares of degraded lands, enhance the biodiversity management of over 107,000 hectares, avoid 6.64 million of metric tons of CO2e equivalent (MTCO2e) and directly benefit over 2,582 people with a strong focus on gender and youth inclusion.