The GEF’s work in the Amazon focuses on improving the management and financial sustainability of protected areas strengthening sustainable forest management reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and incorporating biodiversity management principles (both conservation and sustainable use) into selected sectors that are drivers of deforestation (i.e., agriculture, extractive industries, and infrastructure) through policies, sectoral agreements, and/or instruments that engage private sector actors. The program builds on over a decade of work in the Amazon to strengthen biodiversity conservation, reduce deforestation, and improve community livelihoods. The GEF established the Amazon Sustainable Landscapes Program in GEF-6, with participation of Brazil, Colombia, and Peru that together span 75% of the Amazon basin. The major threats to the Amazon biome include transportation infrastructure (roads), extractive industries (mining, oil, and gas), water infrastructure (dams, extraction, usage, waterways), and agricultural expansion driven primarily by commodity production, all of which, in direct and indirect ways, contribute to deforestation. About 33 million people live in the Amazon watershed, deriving their livelihoods from rivers and tributaries, including fisheries. Less extensive areas include savannas, floodplain forests, grasslands, swamps, bamboos and palm forests. The area is predominantly covered by dense moist tropical forest, while 14 percent of the Amazon is wetlands. ![]() The Amazon includes 610 protected areas, as well as 2,344 indigenous territories that cover 45 percent of the basin. ![]() Still, land conversion and deforestation in the Amazon release up to 0.5 billion metric tons of carbon per year, not including emissions from forest fires. The Amazon contains 90-140 billion metric tons of carbon, the release of even a portion of which could accelerate global warming significantly. Amazon forests help regulate temperature and humidity and are linked to regional climate patterns through hydrological cycles that depend on the forests. The Amazon basin is one of the largest and mostly undisturbed forest ecosystems that still has the potential to be conserved and managed sustainably.Įqually important, the Amazon plays a critical regional and global role in climate regulation. The river and its more than 1,100 tributaries also contain the largest number of freshwater fish species in the world. Critical to the rainforest’s health and rich biodiversity, the Amazon river flows for more than 6,600 km and contributes more than 15% of the world’s total river discharge into the oceans. ![]() The Amazon accounts for more than 40% of Earth’s remaining rainforest and is home to at least 10% of the world’s known species.
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