AFD in action to protect the Amazon

Amazon deforestation continues at record levels. Massive fires have ravaged the world’s largest rainforest. This constitutes a catastrophe in what is home to more than 50% of the world’s biodiversity and up to 20% of the world’s drinking water resources. In an effort to stop this environmental disaster from worsening, AFD has taken action.

Since 2019, Agence Française de Développement (AFD) has been working on the ground to protect a natural environment that is crucial both to the region and to the wider world. With €15.5 million in grants dedicated to Amazonia in 4 countries – Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru – the goal is to foster local dynamics that promote climate action and biodiversity. The projects AFD is supporting complement those conducted by other public development banks, which have long been active in the area.

With funding for nature conservation organizations as well, this action is part of France’s effort to protect the Amazon rain forest, which is effectively the lungs of the planet. It’s a big part of its financial partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank to promote biodiversity in the Amazon basin.

“This is a major issue that France has committed to,” says Bruno Leclerc, AFD’s Latin America Department Director. “We are contributing as a public development bank and seeking to increase our activities in this area in the coming years.”

AFD will be financing the TerrAmaz program at 5 pilot sites in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. The program aims to develop models combining low-carbon economic development and ecosystem conservation for entire territories.

The four-year program will fund the monitoring of deforestation at a local level, promote sustainable agricultural practices to produce certified zero-deforestation products (in keeping with France’s strategy to fight imported deforestation), and support studies for the benefit of stakeholders in these regions.

TerrAmaz will benefit from a grant of €9.5 million from AFD and contribute to France’s commitment to an International Alliance for the Protection of Rainforests.

In the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, AFD has committed €1 million to support the indigenous Kayapo (the tribe of Chief Raoni) and Kapoto tribes.

“These communities are under pressure from farmers and settlers who are seizing land and destroying the forest, says Mathieu Boche, the project team leader with the AFD Agriculture, Rural Development and Biodiversity.

The project – whose implementation has been delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic – is to be run by the NGO, Conservation International, and carried out by organizations representing indigenous communities. It aims to maintain and rehabilitate forest roads and firebreaks, create monitoring stations to prevent the start of fires, and develop sustainable agroforestry activities.

Conservation International is also in charge of a project aimed at promoting the sustainable production of high-quality cocoa in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. It is receiving support of €2.5 million and €5 million from the French Facility for Global Environment (FFEM) and AFD and is working with the organization Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières and with Kaoka, a company specializing in organic fair-trade chocolate.

Original source: AFD