About Amazon Conservation
Amazon Conservation Association (ACA) works to conserve the biodiversity of the Amazon basin through the development of new scientific understanding, sustainable resource management, and rational land-use policy.
The principal objective of the organization is to develop field research sites ranging from high elevation cloud forests to the lowland of Amazonian forest. It is this altitudinal gradient that harbors the greatest known richness of species on the planet. At the ACA field sites, university students and researchers are brought to study and observe this diverse ecosystem.
Key takeaways from the session
On September 22, Amazon Conservation hosted the webinar panel “Building a Forest-Based Economy in the Amazon.” International speakers discussed what it takes to build a profitable bioeconomy that keeps the Amazon standing for generations to come. Local community members, Indigenous Peoples, and international experts covered three main topics:
- Production Capacity and Market Connections
- Scaling Up
- Building Climate Resilience and Adaptation
Download the presentations (original presentation languages only).
John Beavers, the Executive Director of Amazon Conservation, opened the session by affirming how a forest-based economy is a key conservation and development method. “From our view, the local & national economy can sustainably optimize the use of healthy forests as a path to a just and prosperous way of life, and for the effective conservation of the Amazon at scale through a great bioeconomy.”
Thomas Lovejoy, a renowned conservation biologist nicknamed “the Godfather of Biodiversity”, reminded viewers of the ecological importance of the Amazon, highlighting that it makes half of its own rainfall and we are at a tipping point close to where there isn’t sufficient moisture for the Southern and Eastern Amazon to support rainforest.
“The solution,” he said, “is to bring back the capacity of the forest to generate moisture, which relates to the new vision of forest-dependent Amazon economies that do not require replacement of forests by large-scale plantations.”
