STRenGTHenING INDIGenOUS CONSERVATION CAPACITY IN THE YURUA REGION OF PERU

General

The purpose of this project is to ensure the long-term protection of the Yura region of Peru located within the Purs-Manu Landscape, a 10-million-hectare (25 million acre) mosaic of conservation areas and indigenous lands that contains some of the most remote and least disturbed forests in the entire Amazon basin. It is one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, rich in native fauna and flora, and includes one of the highest concentrations of isolated people anywhere on Earth. The Yura is among the most remote and inaccessible parts of the Purs-Manu Landscape, where intact plant and animal communities sustain members of six indigenous tribes in various stages of contact with the outside world and at least two still living in voluntary isolation. While still largely intact, the region is threatened by several deforestation drivers including illegal logging, an expanding agriculture frontier from Brazil and, most concerning, a partially constructed illegal road which threatens to open intact forest with potentially devastating impacts on the ecosystems and the people who depend on them.The project will build indigenous conservation capacity to protect species and habitats and prevent illegal intrusions that threaten to open intact forest with potentially devastating impacts on the ecosystems and the people who depend on them. In doing so, it will protect several rare and threatened species such as the yellow-spotted sideneck turtle (Podocnemis unifilis), the South American river turtle (Podocnemis expansa), the bald uakari primate (Cacajao calvus ucayalii) and the arapaima fish (Arapaima gigas) while providing alternative income sources to unsustainable resource use. Specific activities include: (1) creating a new conservation alliance between three indigenous associations, Perus Park Service (SERNANP, acronym in Spanish), and the Upper Amazon Conservancy (a division of Multiplier) to consolidate and strengthen local opposition to illegal intrusions;