With the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
Consolidating conservation around the Serranía de Chiribiquete National Park
The main objective of this project is to consolidate three specific areas of the Chiribiquete Complex (10 million hectares surrounding the northeast, east, and southeast borders of the National Park) by reducing growing external pressures, through effective planning and the coordination of indigenous reservations (resguardos), campesinos, and the protected areas and their respective authorities.
To the north and west of the Serranía de Chiribiquete National Park, the project’s specific objectives are to consolidate two new protected areas and empower neighboring indigenous and campesino communities. These tasks include the collection and dissemination of high-quality information on biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as circulating information from these areas’ management plans.
To the south, the objective is to stabilize the southern flank of the Chiribiquete Complex, supporting the consolidation of the conservation corridor and indigenous lands on both sides of the Putumayo River on the Peru-Colombia border. Securing this southern area is now crucial, because of the increasing threats posed by illegal mining activities that are starting to accelerate and move northward.
At the same time, work must go ahead to influence the most serious external drivers of deforestation throughout the buffer zone of the Chiribiquete Complex, such as agriculture and road construction, to be developed in such a way that they do not compromise forest connectivity.
The last – but by no means least important – objective is to engage in capacity building with indigenous communities and indigenous land managers to ensure that these groups, of which there are 10 or more, and their campesino neighbors, have long-term access to healthy forests and rivers on which they all depend.
