Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

The project‚ purpose is to ensure long-term protection of the cloud forests and extremely high biodiversity of the Cordillera de Col n, which encompasses approximately 360,000 hectares (900,000 acres) of the Tropical Andes in northeastern Peru. 

The overall conservation strategy is made up of four components: strengthening conservation management, conducting conservation research, supporting local sustainable agricultural production, and improving communications systems and environmental education.

The project‚ holistic approach was developed due to the wide range of challenges causing deforestation and preventing effective management of the landscape, which include: unsustainable agriculture and livestock, lack of access to environmental education and the very limited economic opportunities for local people to support themselves through sustainable livelihood options that do not cause deforestation. 

These complex problems could only be solved with a long-term, holistic strategy, which was established from the founding of the project in March 2021.

Holistic, community-based and local-led forest protection is an enormously powerful (and cost-effective) tool to prevent deforestation and its doubly damaging consequences for climate: carbon emissions from deforestation itself and the loss of critical carbon sinks. 

These solutions are overlooked and underfunded, leaving vulnerable rainforest communities without support or the resources they need to effectively monitor, manage, protect, and conserve their forests. 

This project demonstrates a highly effective and replicable conservation model with communities at the core, respecting their agency and recognizing their critical role in preventing deforestation and maintaining one of the world‚ most important nature-based climate solutions: tropical forests.

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This project is at its core and from its inception a community-led suite of actions and solutions; two of the four conservation components of the project‚ conservation strategy are focused on the empowerment of local people and communities (supporting local sustainable agricultural production and improving communications systems and environmental education).

These two components are central to the successful protection of the landscape‚ standing forests because community leadership and participation is absolutely essential to ensure that any solution is viable in the long term. These strategies are about access ‚ to information, education, tools and resources, and economic options to make an income while protecting the landscape, rather than at the cost of the local ecosystems and biodiversity. 

The Colan Mosaic is made up of six conservation units, three of which are owned and managed by local campesino (peasant) communities.

Ground-up, community-led conservation is extremely underrepresented and underfunded despite the large pool of funding for environmental work and despite the absolutely critical role local and indigenous communities play in protecting the forests and landscapes in which they live. These communities are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and to the threats of extraction and exploitation and often have very little external support and very few economic options and opportunities. 

Communities need access to income and basic needs such as food, clean water, and education, to be able to focus on and lead conservation efforts; for this reason, the project involves working with local coffee and sugar cane producers and with community members who carry out ecotourism activities, to both support the growth and sustainability of these enterprises and to share tools to carry out these activities sustainably and while protecting the landscape.

Similarly, the project supports environmental education and communication systems to empower local people with greater access to knowledge and increased capacities to lead conservation actions. The project also included implementation of a Community Life Plan with the campesino community of Copallin. Life plans are a legal instrument that allows the community to plan their development over a period of time. By strengthening the capacities of local organizations and community leaders and expanding environmental education, there is greater understanding of the importance of conservation and the value it brings to communities in this landscape, and local people are more invested in and dedicated to conservation efforts and sustainable production, which ensures that conservation impact will last over time.

The project increases access to environmental education and awareness, sustainable economic options, and management tools that empower local communities to envision, plan, and implement their own projects and plans for the future of their communities and land. With expanding and replicable models, the project directly and indirectly impacts the over 68,000 people who live within the Cordillera de Col n.

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