Context
Peru has the second-largest area of Amazon rainforest within its borders. The encroachment of agriculture, illegal logging and the impacts of climate change represent a massive threat to the tropical rainforest. Deforestation is responsible for some 47 per cent of Peru's carbon dioxide emissions.
Around 15 per cent of the 126 conservation areas, which cover a total of 22.1 million hectares, are community reserves. Together with the surrounding buffer zones, they are part of the traditional habitats of the indigenous population. So far, ten community reserves with around 2 million ha of protected forest are co-managed by the state and the local population. The natural resources are directly utilised by the local population in these areas.
To date, co-management has not been very effective. The instruments and resources needed to implement nature conservation measures and sustainable forest management in the buffer zones are lacking. The agents representing the local population (Ejecutores de Contrato de Administración con el Estado, ECA) are unable to fulfil their function adequately as partners of SERNANP, the state agency responsible for managing the conservation areas.
Objective
Co-management aimed at protecting and sustainably managing biodiversity is implemented successfully in selected conservation areas and their buffer zones.
Approach
To achieve efficient co-management, the existing concept needs to be updated and developed further. The legal requirements need to be revised, partners strengthened and participation mechanisms improved.
1.A financial basis must be established for the representatives of the local population (ECA). Cooperation between the co-management actors must be improved.
2.Context-adapted and culturally appropriate instruments are being developed to improve nature conservation. They are being applied by the institutions and organisations participating in the co-management.
3.Along value creation chains, the local population use the forest products in the buffer zones on a sustainable basis in order to generate additional income. This creates an incentive to preserve the natural resources.
4.Partners share experiences, disseminate the improved co-management concept as an effective nature conservation approach and feed it into the nature conservation reform process. In this way, co-management is embedded in institutional structures.
Results achieved so far
All stakeholders have jointly analysed the existing regulations in working groups and workshops and have drafted ideas for an updated version. The analysis of the co-management guidelines has made the issue known far beyond the confines of the project. It has been discussed within indigenous organisations and institutions, among other forums.
Eighteen indigenous village communities succeeded in generating additional income from the processing and sale of sustainably managed forestry products in 2013. Other villages have improved the production and quality of cacao with the participation of the women, which will improve incomes from the year 2014 onward.
The local employees of the state agency responsible for nature conservation, SERNANP, and the directorate of the ECA are better informed and able to perform their roles as co-management partners more effectively. Their legal, management and financial administration skills have been upgraded considerably through advisory services, courses and workshops. These skills are important prerequisites for more efficient management and administration of their organisations.
An information management system jointly developed with the nature conservation agency is being established to promote cooperation between the co-management actors.
Employees from the Ministry of the Environment, SERNANP and three regional governments have been trained in applying a newly developed method (MARISCO). It enables them to analyse the sensitivity of protected areas and natural forest ecosystems to climate change, which is an important basis for climate adaptation strategies.
Along an altitudinal transect in Yuyapichis, a biodiversity monitoring system is operating with five monitoring categories (vegetation, birdlife, amphibians, tree trunk growth, climate) and five measuring stations at different elevations. Universities and research institutions in Peru, the US, the UK and Germany have formed a research and monitoring network and are participating in data collection, processing and analysis.
The schools in the buffer zones have been involved in the co-management efforts of the community reserves as part of an intercultural environmental education approach. Competitions and workshops on biodiversity conservation have been conducted on an exemplary basis in 13 indigenous villages with a total of around 2,000 students, teachers and school administrators, and their methodology has been improved.
Newly approved forest management plans will allow an additional 4,159 ha of forest to be protected and sustainably managed in the future. The partial implementation of forest management plans on 23,221 ha of forest has enabled six indigenous village communities to sell rubber, timber and copaiba. This has created economic incentives for biodiversity conservation.
The village communities have received advisory services and support from the project in preparing and authorising forest management plans and in harvesting, processing, storing and selling the products. The project has supported the forestry service in simplifying the procedures for preparing and officially approving management plans, which benefits the indigenous population in the whole country.