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Pan-Amazon Protected Areas

Protected areas are essential to conserve the wildlife and the natural resources of the Amazon. We want to expand and strengthen a network of protected areas across the whole Amazon region.

Toucan

Why we’re involved

Protected areas are key to:

  • conserving species and natural resources
  • maintaining natural processes that are vital for a healthy environment
  • helping the rainforest withstand the impacts of climate change.
Each of the Amazon’s countries has a national protected area system. These include areas of strict protection, and sustainably managed areas – where forest-based communities can harvest natural resources such as timber, rubber, Brazil nuts, fibres and resins.

But the Amazon faces big challenges, from climate change to growing demand for natural resources. There’s an urgent need to strengthen and expand protected areas throughout the whole Amazon region.

Howler monkeys, Juruena National Park, Brazil

How we’re helping

In Brazil, through the Amazon Region Protected Areas (ARPA) programme, we’re working with federal and state governments to create a network of protected areas. By 2013, we aim to safeguard 600,000km2 of Amazon rainforest - an area more than twice the size of the UK.

We’re working together with many partners in all the Amazon countries to help create a conservation vision for the Amazon rainforest as a whole. Together, we’re looking at how we can extend and improve the existing system of protected areas, indigenous people’s territories and sustainably managed areas.