News from Amazonia: Conserving bio-cultural ecosystems

The Amazon is the Earth’s largest remaining rainforest. It provides one-fifth of the world’s fresh water, is home to the planet’s most diverse collection of wildlife, provides life-giving resources to local people and Indigenous communities. And importantly, the region plays a vital role in mitigating climate change. Although the last decade has seen progress in the sustainable management of Indigenous lands and protected areas of the region, significant threats remain. Our panelists will discuss key threats and share how local and national governments, Indigenous communities, NGOs and the private sector are working to conserve the Amazon basin to benefit local and global communities.

Avecita leads the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Andes-Amazon Initiative, which aims to secure the biodiversity and climatic function of the Amazon biome. Since the initiative began in 2001, it has helped conserve and improve management of over 170 million hectares in the Amazon, nearly one-third of the original forest cover. Avecita also led the team that developed the foundation’s forests and agricultural markets work.

Avecita has over 30 years of experience in natural resource use, biodiversity conservation and sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean. She currently serves on several committees and boards, including the Funders of the Amazon Basin, Strategic Steering Committee for the Andes Amazon Fund, the Amazon Biodiversity Center advisory board, and the program team for the Climate and Land Use Alliance. Before coming to Moore, Avecita served as the executive director of the Latin America program at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), where she led conservation programs in 15 countries. 

Rodrigo Botero García is director of the Fundación para la Conservación y el Desarrollo Sostenible (FCDS), an organisation focused on the construction and promotion of territorial peace with a focus on rights and which has a program that specialises in monitoring and monitoring deforestation and its causes, especially in the Amazon region. He has been working for the Amazon for 30 years. From different civil society organisations and public entities, he has led the defence of the territory and the communities of this vast region that we share with nine countries of South America. Originally a zootechnician from the National University of Colombia Rodrigo has a Master's Degree in Sustainable Development of Agrarian Systems, agrarian and environmental sciences from the Javeriana University.

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal is the global leader of Climate & Energy at WWF and interim chair of the IUCN Climate Crisis Commission. He has more than 35 years of experience in environmental law and policy, and served as Minister of the Environment of Peru from 2011 to 2016, and President of the Twentieth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - COP20 in 2014.  Manuel is a board member of Forest Trends, Amazon Conservation Association, Peruvian Society of Environmental Law, CARE-Peru and the Science Based Targets initiative and a member of the Assembly of the World Wide Fund for Nature - Colombia. He is chairman of the evaluation council of the French sovereign Green Bonds and has a law degree from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, where he is a professor.