For People , Species and Planet : A Powerful Partnership in Peru
Peru holds the second-largest expanse of Amazon rainforest in the world after Brazil . Over 60 % of the country is blanketed by thick rainforest that has an astounding degree of biodiversity . Peru is in a close tie with Brazil for being home to the largest number of bird species in the world .
For countless generations , these vast rainforests at the western edge of the Amazon have been stewarded by Indigenous Peoples . But outsiders are grabbing land as fast as they can , legally and illegally , and clear-cutting mature rainforests for megafarms and to sell timber for profit . Once a rainforest falls to mechanized agriculture , habitat and species are completely wiped out and Indigenous ways of life perish along with them .
From 2001 to 2021 , Peru lost nearly 9 million acres of tree cover . The Loreto region in the Peruvian Amazon alone lost more than other regions in Peru , with 1.9 million acres of forest deforested .
Loreto — as big as Montana — shelters thousands of species . Among those are many Endangered species like the Giant Otter , Black-faced Black Spider Monkey and White-bellied Spider Monkey . Other threatened species in these areas include those listed as Vulnerable : the Lowland Tapir , Yellow-spotted River Turtle and Yellow-footed Tortoise .
Rainforest Trust ’ s partner , Centro para el Desarrollo del Indígena Amazónico ( CEDIA ), has been working for over 40 years to help Indigenous and local communities achieve land ownership and management rights through Peruvian law , and to build the strength and capacity of their organizations . Rainforest Trust has successfully partnered with them for nearly 25 of those years , and together we have safeguarded more than 18.8 million acres of Peruvian Amazon rainforest with Indigenous and local communities .
Now we are working together to stop land-grabbing and other threats on 3,825,000 acres in the Loreto region , approximately 90 % of which is highly intact , primary forest . The time is right to move forward with the land titling process because there is significant political will for Indigenous land titling at present . The communities are ready , and the threats are quickly growing . By supporting them , we can also secure a future for the imperiled species surviving in these vast rainforests .
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