NCI is developing the ambitious Program for Conservation, Management, and Sustainable Use of Biological Diversity in the Region of Loreto (PROCREL) to help conserve the extraordinary biodiversity of Loreto, Peru’s largest department with 92 million acres of Amazon forest. Loreto also contains elements of Andean ecosystems in its western extremes and part of the biologically diverse Cordillera del Condor in the northwest. This assembly of habitats overall harbors a very high diversity of species, some of them found only in Loreto.
The first two areas were created in 2007: the "Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo" RCA of 420,000 hectares in March of 2007, and the Ampiyacu-Apiyacu RCA of 433,100 ha in December of 2007. Both conserve over 1 million acres of Amazon rain forests with the support of the local communities, the government and non-profit groups.
NCI carries out this Program with the Regional Government of Loreto, the Institute for Investigation of the Peruvian Amazon, and other local stakeholders. We are attempting to implements a strategy of “production conservation,” in which local populations are trained to manage and conserve their natural resources. This approach is intended to conserve biodiversity of the region as a resource for present and future generations of local people, while substantially improving their livelihoods of the current generation.
PROCREL proposes to achieve these results through the designation and management of several new Regional Conservation Areas, identification and management of key ecological processes essential for health of Amazon ecosystems, and development of related community-based resource management and conservation practices.
NCI has joined with governments and local stakeholders on a regional conservation system. |
The Regional Government of Loreto, led by Ivan Vasquez, has officially approved the program through a Regional ordinance, and articulated a vision of development in the entire region based on the sustainably managed use of natural resources, instead of the current highly destructive alternative of unsustainable timber and resources exploitation. The results of the PROCREL program have led to other Regional governments in Peru to declare in March 2007 their intent to use PROCREL as a model for their Regions.
Overall, the Project will aim to create functional and sustainable protected areas and will promote a strategy for the conservation and management of natural resources in the areas immediately around them. It will aim to:
(i) institutionally strengthen the Regional Government of Loreto for the management of the system of Regional conservation Areas and priority ecological processes;
(ii) supporting the creation and establishing the management of a number of additional regional conservation areas;
(iii) support local communities around RCAs to help mange the areas and develop sustainable economic alternatives for the management of natural resources and biodiversity;
(iv) develop a strategy for the management and protection of the evolutionary and ecological processes of the Region, prioritized by ecological and economic importance; and
(v) strengthen other related institutions in the region of Loreto, like indigenous and communal organizations, government agencies involved in renewable natural resources’ management (fisheries, timber, water).
The Program is coordinated with other institutions working in Loreto on conservation matters, including INRENA, PromPeru, PromPex, Institut de Bien Comun, Wildlife Conservation Society, Rainforest Conservation Fund, Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (SPDA), the Field Museum, AIDESEP-ORAI, CEDIA, CEDISA, Greenlife, WWF, TNC, ProNaturaleza, and CANATURA.
