Around 17 percent of the Amazon Rainforest has been destroyed in the last 50 years due to deforestation, jeopardizing important global ecosystem services and threatening indigenous treaties and claims to land.

In 2018, Conservation Strategy Fund (CSF) and our partner Oceana conducted a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to assess the creation of the proposed Nazca Ridge Marine Protected Area (MPA) located off the coast of central Peru. Our analysis estimated the benefits from the creation of a proposed MPA 100 kilometers offshore and found that the benefits to conserving the marine ecosystem far outweighed the costs of management.

El martes 23 de febrero iniciamos, junto al Servicio Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas de Perú – Sernanp, el Curso de Sostenibilidad Financiera. El objetivo de este curso es construir capacidades institucionales para el financiamiento de la gestión de las Áreas Naturales Protegidas – ANP. Busca además fortalecer la adquisición de conocimientos y conceptos claros en sostenibilidad financiera y mejorar el uso de las herramientas económicas y de comunicación básicas para la planificación estratégica financiera.

Road in Brazil. Photo credit: Pedarilhos/Shutterstock.com.CSF has been working with the Moore Foundation, IPAM, and FCDS to identify the relative riskiness of planned roads in the Amazon basin in terms of economic, social and environmental costs. Our goal is to promote better infrastructure decision-making in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru by contributing reliable data to the national road planning process.

Highway in Ecuador. Photo credit: Shutterstock/ Dr. Morley Read.

CSF-Peru's Interim Director José Carlos Rubio taking questions at the forum. Photo credit: Ana Perez/DAR.

Aerial view of a road through the Amazon forest in Ecuador. Photo credit: Dr. Morley ReadInfrastructure investments in the Amazon can support economic and social development, and bring services to remote populations. However, if poorly planned, they can also result in irreversible, destructive change to the environment and ecosystem services on which communities depend, and lead to inefficient use of economic resources.

SENACE course participants Photo credit: Verónica Villarreal Serpa, SENACE

CSF Analyst José Carlos Rubio helping a participant with the cost-benefit analysis exercise. Photo credit: Niki Gribi

Course graduates Marco Bustamente (2014), Sara Mateo (2013), Sofia Vargas (2015), Maria Pia Diaz (2015), and Dora Samaneigo (2014) enjoying the alumni gathering in Lima. Photo credit: Niki Gribi