Restoring waterways for jaguars in the Peruvian Amazon

A jaguar walks through water

Madre de Dios, a region in southeastern Peru known as the country’s biodiversity capital, covers 19.3 million acres (7.8 million hectares) of forest—15% of the Peruvian Amazon—and is home to endangered species like the jaguar. Despite its rich ecosystems and vast network of rivers and lagoons, the region faces increasing threats from prolonged dry seasons, droughts, fires, and climate change.

These pressures weaken the Amazon’s resilience to climate stressors and degrade water sources for wildlife and communities. For decades, both people and wildlife have relied on the area’s streams for water and with intensive use, deforestation, and fires, these riparian zones have become progressively degraded. Furthermore, water scarcity in the region has intensified conflicts between humans and wildlife, especially in livestock farming areas where competition drives negative interactions with jaguars.

To address these challenges, WWF Peru and the Wildlife Adaptation Innovation Fund are creating two climate-smart and conflict-free “safe zones” for jaguars to access water. These safe zones, which are known jaguar hotspots with approximately two jaguars per 38 square miles (100 square kilometers), will be traversed by 40 acres (16 hectares) of restored streams. Restoring the streams and riparian areas that run through the safe zones will improve hydrological function and increase water availability for jaguars and other wildlife. Restoration techniques vary from active methods like replanting native species to passive strategies such as installing protective electric fencing along adjacent livestock pastures. The electric fences are designed to allow for the stream’s natural regeneration by preventing livestock encroachment and damage with low voltage shocks. These fences serve a dual purpose of deterring jaguars from entering livestock farms as well, further reducing human-wildlife conflict. To prevent injury to small wildlife that may travel beneath the fence, such as tortoises, and those that may perch on top, like monkeys, the bottom and top wires will remain unelectrified.

Livestock farmers and community members living near the safe zones will also be engaged and trained in the monitoring and oversight of the interventions. Camera traps will be installed in the safe zones to monitor jaguar presence, prey dynamics, and potential interactions with livestock. Community members will also help oversee the enforcement of conservation measures in the safe zones, ensuring their long-term sustainability. Financial mechanisms will also be developed to sustain the long-term maintenance of the electric fences, ecosystem restoration efforts, and riparian habitat protection, such as payments for ecosystem services, conservation agreements with livestock producers, and partnerships with ecotourism supply chains. Partners such as the Tahuamanu Livestock Association, local technical institutes, and universities will support implementation, knowledge-sharing, and future scaling of this nature-based solution.