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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 BRASILIA 000770 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT PASS USAID TO LAC/RSD, LAC/SAM, G/ENV, PPC/ENV 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SENV EAGR EAID TBIO ECON SOCI XR BR
SUBJECT: ANDEAN ORGANIZATIONS TELL THEIR STORY AT THE 2ND MEETING OF 
THE INITIATIVE FOR CONSERVATION IN THE ANDEAN AMAZON 
 
 
BRASILIA 00000770  001.2 OF 004 
 
 
¶1.  SUMMARY.  The USAID-funded Initiative for Conservation of the 
Andean Amazon (ICAA) brought together 75 participants for the Second 
ICAA Partners Meeting, held in Quito, Ecuador from May 18-23, 2008. 
ICAA is a five year program (2006-2011) based in the Amazon regions 
of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru to build constituencies and 
local capacity for sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity 
and environmental services. The ICAA program promotes a regional 
vision of conservation and economic development by strengthening 
environmental management, enhancing participative planning, 
developing conservation alliances with the private sector, and 
improving the use of valuable natural resources. 
 
¶2.  Ecuadorian Ministers Marcela Aguinaga (Ministry of the 
Environment) and Veronica Sion (Ministry of Tourism) and USAID 
Mission Director Alexandria Panehal welcomed the group to Ecuador. 
The workshop included lectures, meetings, roundtables, training 
courses, and a field trip to the Cayambe-Coca Ecological Reserve and 
Kichwa communities in the upper Amazon watershed.  Meeting 
participants included ICAA's twenty partner organizations, USAID 
staff from the four program Missions and the Latin American and 
Caribbean Bureau, and the State Department Regional Environmental 
Hub office (Brasilia).  END SUMMARY. 
 
SETTING THE CONTEXT: CONSERVATION IN THE ANDEAN AMAZON 
 
¶3. The Andean Amazon is the most biologically diverse region in the 
world, providing critical environmental services for the planet.  It 
is rich with current and potential resources, and is home to 
hundreds of indigenous communities with centuries of traditional 
knowledge in the use of these unique resources.  Deforestation, 
unsustainable farming, mining, and poorly planned infrastructure 
projects damage the region's biodiversity and livelihoods of local 
peoples, resulting in environmental costs for the entire world. 
However, a growing awareness of the role that natural resources play 
in sound development provides a strategic opportunity to address 
these threats.  NOTE: Andean Amazon is defined as the Amazon Basin 
portions of the Andean countries Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and 
Bolivia. END NOTE. 
 
¶4.  According to a recent report by the Andean Community entitled 
'Climate Change has no borders' (CAN: El Cambio Climatico no tiene 
fronteras), the Andean Amazon countries will lose a significant 
amount of their GDP to climate change by the year 2025: Bolivia, 
7.3%; Colombia, 4.5%; Ecuador, 6.2%; and Peru, 4.4%.  ICAA's Support 
Unit plans a meeting on Climate Change and the Andean Amazon during 
the first trimester of 2009 to share information on social and 
environmental adaptation, mitigation, and case studies.  State 
Department's Environmental Hub Office will sponsor a workshop on 
Andean glacier melt related to climate change in January 2009. 
 
¶5.  In most of the Andean Amazon countries, disputes for land tenure 
rights often create conflicts which impede conservation efforts. 
Although indigenous territories account for more land coverage than 
traditional protected areas (e.g., national parks and reserves), 
many indigenous lands overlap with proposed or active hydrocarbon 
exploration lots and/or logging activities.  These and other 
dynamics generate frequent conflicts, environmental and human health 
hazards, rapid social change, and tenure disputes. Furthermore, 
indigenous agencies in most regional governments are lower-level 
offices with insufficient resources and political power to 
adequately manage such issues. 
 
 
BRASILIA 00000770  002.2 OF 004 
 
 
¶6.  The mega-infrastructure development project for South America, 
IIRSA, is a shared concern for ICAA partner organizations.  The 
following are some of the IIRSA projects that will directly affect 
ICAA projects: Interoceanic Sur (road and rail projects in Peru and 
Bolivia); Pucallpa-Cruzeiro do Sul (energy integration in Brazil and 
Peru); hydroelectric plant Coca-Codo-Sinclair (Ecuador); Northern 
Corridor Bolivia (roads); Manta-Manaus highway (Ecuador, Peru, 
Brazil); hydrocarbon extraction in Peru (Lote 107); and hydrocarbon 
extraction in the Bahuaja-Sonene National Park (Madre de Dios, 
Peru).  ICAA partners will participate in a September 2008 event 
sponsored by Conservation International, WWF, and BICECA to discuss 
the impact of infrastructure projects in the Amazon, the second such 
co-sponsored effort with ICAA. 
 
ICAA ACTIVITIES: ORGANIZATION, CONSORTIA, PROGRAM AREAS 
 
¶7.  ICAA consists of four field-based consortia and a Support Unit 
that assists USAID with program management.  The 4 ICAA consortia 
include 20 implementing partners of NGOs, universities, indigenous 
and local organizations, government agencies, and research 
organizations.  ICAA is managed by USAID staff in Washington and a 
region-wide USAID Amazon working group consisting of representatives 
from Missions in all four program countries (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru 
and Bolivia).  ICAA collaborates closely with the bilateral 
USAID/Brazil Amazon conservation activities and DOS Regional 
Environmental Hub Office (Brasilia). 
 
¶8.  The four ICAA field consortia focus on building local capacity 
for conservation.  The four consortia are: 1) Sustainable 
Livelihoods; 2) Indigenous Landscapes; 3) Madidi-Manu Conservation 
Corridor; and 4) Environmental Management in the Madre de Dios-Pando 
Region.  USAID will allocate another four million dollars for a 
fifth consortium, which will be selected by October, 2008. 
 
¶9.  The Sustainable Livelihoods consortium works with sustainable 
coffee, cocoa, forest production, and tourism.  The consortium aims 
to increase the number of areas in the Andean Amazon region under 
good management, especially those areas located near fragile 
ecosystems.  The group also aims to increase sales and cost 
competitiveness of its products.  Members of the consortium include 
the Rainforest Alliance, Fundacion Natura Colombia, and Conservacion 
y Desarollo (Ecuador). 
 
¶10.  The Indigenous Landscapes consortium is led by the Nature 
Conservancy (Ecuador and Peru), Instituto Bien Comun (Peru), and 
Fundacion para la Sobrevivencia del Pueblo Cofan (Ecuador).  The 
consortium supports indigenous groups to define, protect and manage 
indigenous territories in Peru and Ecuador, strengthen the 
organizational and financial sustainability of indigenous 
organizations, and build regional indigenous capacity for outreach 
and collaboration.  Working closely with government agencies, the 
consortium addresses infrastructure, land tenure and other issues 
related to indigenous lands, including proposed new reserves to 
protect isolated indigenous peoples.  NOTE: See recent photos and 
news regarding an isolated indigenous group in the Peru-Brazil 
border area on BBC and Survival International web pages. 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/742 6794.stm    and 
http://www.survival-international.org  END NOTE 
 
¶11.  The Madidi-Manu Conservation Corridor group includes the 
Wildlife Conservation Society, Amazon Conservation Association (Peru 
and Bolivia), Fundacion PUMA (Bolivia), Fondo de las Americas 
 
BRASILIA 00000770  003.2 OF 004 
 
 
(Peru), and Sociedad Peruana de Derecho Ambiental (SPDA).  The 
consortium focuses on protected area management, capacity-building 
for government agencies, local communities and indigenous groups, 
and landscape-level planning within the corridor region between 
Madidi National Park (Bolivia) and Manu National Park (Peru). 
 
¶12.  The Madre de Dios-Pando Consortium seeks to strengthen 
environmental management and local institutions in these regions of 
Peru and Bolivia. Program areas include building environmental 
awareness and knowledge through universities and schools, and 
developing road impact mitigation plans with local government for 
the Interoceanic and other highways. The consortium also intends to 
develop watershed management plans for the Tahuamanu and Abuna 
rivers.  The consortium is comprised of the following groups: 
University of Florida, Universidad Amazonica de Madre de Dios 
(UNAMAD-Peru), Proyecto Especial Madre de Dios (Peru), Woods Hole 
Research Center, Bolivian NGO Herencia and Universidad Amazonica de 
Pando (UAP-Bolivia).  NOTE: As part of the USAID/Brazil bilateral 
program, the Brazil Mission supports complementary technical 
cooperation activities focusing on development of participatory 
environmental management plans with government agencies and civil 
society in the Acre river watershed area and related Acre state road 
corridors.  END NOTE. 
 
¶13.  The Support Unit for ICAA constitutes the fifth consortium and 
includes International Resources Group, Peruvian NGO SPDA, Academy 
for Educational Development, Conservation Strategy Fund, and Social 
Impact.  The Support Unit assists USAID in managing ICAA programs 
through reporting and communications, training and capacity 
building, performance monitoring, small grants, public-private 
partnerships, and cross-cutting working groups on infrastructure and 
territorial management. 
 
MEETING RESULTS: STRENGTHENED COLLABORATION AND COMMUNICATION 
 
¶14.  During the week-long ICAA workshop entitled, "Telling our 
Story," participants heard from ICAA partners, as well as an invited 
panel of recognized Amazonian specialists including: Rosalia 
Arteaga, ex-General Director of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty 
Organization, former Vice President of Ecuador, and current 
Executive Director of the NGO Fundacion Natura Regional for Ecuador 
and Colombia; Jacob Olander, carbon markets expert and Executive 
Director of the environmental consulting firm EcoDecision; and 
Trevor Stevenson, Co-Director of the NGO Amazon Alliance.  These 
specialists conveyed the importance of globalization and regional 
politics, and biodiversity-related markets (e.g., carbon, tourism, 
certified agricultural products, environmental services), and the 
importance of integrating the voices of indigenous groups in shaping 
policy and adaptive measures to climate change. 
 
¶15.  This 2nd Meeting of ICAA offered Consortium representatives 
capacity-building courses on a range of issues including: innovative 
financial mechanisms for conservation; communication instruments; 
Rainforest Alliance and Smart Voyager certification standards; 
informal alert system for climate change in the southwestern Amazon; 
guaranteeing land-tenure in indigenous lands; payment for ecosystem 
services; participatory mapping of indigenous lands; actions to 
influence and improve public policies; gender and sustainability. 
 
¶16.  Meeting results also included region-wide information sharing, 
discussion of improved technical workplans and results frameworks, 
strengthened collaboration within and across ICAA consortia of 
 
BRASILIA 00000770  004.2 OF 004 
 
 
implementing partners, new skills for private sector conservation 
alliances, communication, participatory mapping, and environmental 
advocacy.  Partners and USAID Missions agreed to new targets and 
formats for a forthcoming annual Amazon-wide report of USAID 
conservation activities and program-wide indicators for enhanced 
communication and Congressional reporting.  Participants further 
refined their common vision and their united team approach for 
Amazonian conservation. 
 
¶17.  Future capacity-building courses are planned to include a 
Cost-Benefit Analysis of Infrastructure Projects, and an Exchange of 
Experience within Indigenous Communities.  A long-distance learning 
packet is being prepared that will include instructions for 
training-the-trainer on central issues such as IIRSA, biofuels, 
climate change, etc. 
 
SMALL GRANTS 
 
¶18.  USAID announced a competitive small-grants program within ICAA, 
which will allocate a total of USD 600,000 to indigenous communities 
and organizations in the Andean Amazon region (Colombia, Ecuador, 
Peru and Bolivia).  Projects will receive between USD 5,000 and 
50,000 and must present innovative conservation initiatives that 
strengthen the technical and organizational capacities of indigenous 
communities.  Only non-US organizations currently not receiving ICAA 
funding will be eligible.  Call for projects will commence in late 
June/early July 2008. 
 
NEXT STEPS 
 
¶19.  The Third ICAA Partners' Meeting is tentatively planned for 
March, 2009 in Bolivia.  In the meantime, consortia members will 
work to reach measurable indicators, which can be presented to the 
US congress:  1) number of hectares under improved management; 2) 
number of hectares of biologically-significant areas under improved 
management; 3) number of participants trained; 4) PLAR (policies, 
laws, agreements, and regulations) implemented; 5) Number of 
co-sponsored political dialogues carried out; and 6) resources 
leveraged.  Other next steps include the forthcoming USAID call for 
proposals for a new ICAA consortium, the small grants program 
launch, public launch of the ICAA website, and a capacity building 
course in cost-benefit analysis of infrastructure projects. 
 
¶20.  COMMENTS: Although ICAA is composed of highly-experienced and 
competent organizations from the Andean Amazon region, it is still 
evident that working at a regional level is a challenge, especially 
with the current tension between Colombia and Ecuador and with the 
Government of Bolivia threatening to suspend all international 
cooperation programs.  ICAA offers a unique and timely opportunity 
for USAID regional and bilateral Mission programs in the Amazon to 
fulfill an important role in the global responsibility of reducing 
the impact of climate change.  ICAA partners and USAID are committed 
to the ICAA goal of building local capacity to conserve and manage 
Amazonian resources, as well as to secure a safe and sustainable 
future for the people of the region.  END COMMENT. 
 
SOBEL 
 
 
 
 
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