What we're doing in the Amazon
A summary of our work, and how we’re addressing some key issues in the Amazon rainforest - follow the various links for more detailed information
Promoting sustainable agriculture
It’s not just a concern that huge swathes of rich, biodiverse virgin forest are being removed and the land converted to grazing pasture for beef cattle, or for growing monoculture crops like soya. It’s also that the preferred method of fast forest conversion is to use fire, which belches more CO2 and soot into the atmosphere, which exacerbates climate change.
The whole process also often involves illegal ‘land-grabbing’, which causes difficult social issues and conflict.
How we’re helping
We’re a founder member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and the Roundtable on Responsible Soy, and actively involved in the Sustainable Beef Working Group in Brazil. These initiatives bring together different stakeholders to improve business practices and stop conversion of important forests like the Amazon.
Tackling illegal and unsustainable logging for timber and paper
A lot of the worst offenders are illegal loggers, but even licensed logging isn’t necessarily sustainable. Most of the trees are cut down with little regard to how many or how quickly, or the effect on the environment.
How we’re helping
We’re working with state authorities and local communities to create protected areas across the Amazon, and supporting government-owned forests, like the National Forests in Brazil, where logging concessions are allowed but biodiversity is protected and forestry more carefully managed. We’re also backing the creation of cross-border ‘Pan-Amazon’ protected areas.
Internationally, we’re promoting certification of forest products with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), and asking consumers, retailers and local authorities to get onboard with our What Wood You Choose? campaign.
Better planning for roads, dams and other infrastructure
This kind of development is a consequence of increased trade and economic growth, which can be a good thing for the region - but if it’s not planned carefully and with respect for the environment, it can also be devastating for landscapes, wildlife and vulnerable communities.
A lot of damage is done in and around the Amazon by roads, dams, hydro-electric projects, oil driling and pipelines, power lines, canals and ports. New roads inevitably make previously undisturbed areas more accessible, so the damage often spreads and accelerates.
How we’re helping
We work with the organisations who propose, fund and implement projects like these to make sure they minimise the environmental and social impacts. We’ve developed an information system that highlights priority places for conservation.
Conserving Brazil’s Varzea wetlands
The Amazon river, its tributaries and wetlands, have always provided rich natural resources. But in recent decades we’ve seen the dramatic impacts of intensive commercial fishing, increased river infrastructure such as dams, as well as water contamination from oil production, mining and cattle farming.
How we’re helping
In Brazil’s Varzea floodplain, we’ve been involved for the past 15 years in developing working partnerships between local communities, government agencies and NGOs to co-manage the area’s resources in a sustainable way. For example helping protect and manage fishing of the pirarucu, a huge, iconic but endangered Amazon fish.
Reducing emissions from deforestation to tackle climate change.
A healthy Amazon can help reduce climate change, but climate change could also reduce the Amazon. As the world warms, there’s a serious risk the Amazon could reach a tipping point where the rainforest dries and trees start to die. That would release even more carbon, so the world could warm quicker still. A dangerous feedback loop.
How we’re helping
Persuading politicians to strike a strong global climate deal is the big one, but halting deforestation in the Amazon is crucial too. We’re tackling this through schemes such as REDD+ and our Sky Rainforest Rescue partnership that aims to save a billion trees in Brazil. The key approach is to establish the idea that forests are more valuable standing than cut down, and encourage payments to local people for environmental services that provide alternative livelihoods and don’t contribute to deforestation.
All of us can do our bit to reduce our own carbon footprints too, wherever we live - for instance by making sure our food, wood and other products don’t come from forest-destroying sources. And you can support our campaigns to lobby politicians for urgent changes to carbon regulations at national and international level.
Of course all these issues can and do overlap, and more than one can affect any region. For instance, part of the Amazon might be cleared by cattle ranchers who then move on and sell the flattened land to soya producers. And the access roads laid down by loggers and farmers meanwhile make it easier for other industries and infrastructure to expand further into the forest, legally or illegally.
Most of these issues will bring increased pollution and degradation of the natural environment, with impacts on wildlife and local people. And of course global warming is compounding all the other problems by drying out those once-lush forests and soils.
You can see why we need your help to support our urgent work in the Amazon region.
You can…
Donate to WWF
Sponsor an acre in Acre - support our Sky Rainforest Rescue campaign to save a billion trees in the Brazilian state on Acre
Adopt a jaguar
Choose forest-friendly FSC wood goods
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