Colombia

Colombia’s Amazon region spans close to 48 million hectares (twice the size of Oregon), of which 48% are legally recognized indigenous territories and another 20% are National Natural Parks, leading to a remarkable, globally important wealth of biological and cultural diversity. Yet, most of this natural hotspot faces a big threat. 75% of Colombia’s total deforestation rate comes from the region. This loss is especially concentrated in the departments of Caquetá (45,9%) and Guaviare (9%), which combined represent more than half. Caquetá, one of the six departments that compose the Amazon region in Colombia, had the country’s highest deforestation rate in 2018, with a total of 46,765 hectares.

The Nature Conservancy is working on the Agroforestry for Conservation project, promoting strategic multi-stakeholder arrangements that bring together local communities, governments and other influential stakeholders, supporting the alignment of forest conservation and restoration, with sustainable production and land use planning. By aligning the interests of key stakeholders within a conservation strategy, TNC achieves multiple wins: increased forest and biodiversity protection and connectivity; increased carbon storage contributing to climate change mitigation; and increased productivity and profitability for local farming and indigenous communities that depend on forests.

Planting trees in this region can have supply chain management issues due to scarcity of certain native plants or lack of infrastructure. By supporting TNC’s work in the Colombian Amazon you bring support to plant nurseries and other providers that may prove vital in our efforts to protect these invaluable forests. A billion starts with one.