Approval of $50 million Forest Investment Plan for Peru with key indigenous and community involvement

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Photo courtesy of AIDESEP

Work done by Peruvian indigenous communities and leaders led to an important advance against deforestation on October 30, when the Forest Investment Program (FIP) Sub Committee approved the Forest Investment Plan for Peru (FIP-PE) in a meeting in Washington, DC. A Peruvian delegation of government and indigenous leaders, whose members included AIDESEP (Inter-Ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Amazon) Vice President Daysi Zapata and Forestry Advisor Roberto Espinoza and CONAP (Peruvian Confederation of Amazonian Peoples) representative Victor Sánchez Guimaraes, presented the Investment Plan to the FIP Sub Committee, which approved a total $50 million for projects that will promote the protection of the country’s irreplaceable and rapidly disappearing forests and ecosystems.

The delegation achieved significant process with respect to land titling for indigenous communities, community forest management, and community governance, as well as the participation of Amazonian indigenous organizations in the preparation and implementation of FIP projects, which will take place both on a national level and in the regions of San Martín and Loreto, Ucayali and Madre de Dios.

The endorsement of the Investment Plan for Peru culminated a long preparatory phase that included months of work, delays, multiple letters from indigenous organizations to the FIP Steering Committee, and a week of meetings in Washington, DC for the delegation of Peruvian leaders. After arriving on October 28, the delegation met with the World Bank; the Inter-American Development Bank; the Forest Investment Program; FIP’s Dedicated Grant Mechanism for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities; government representatives of FIP; FIP observers; the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF); and civil society partners like the Bank Information Center, Amazon Watch, Global Witness, and the Environmental Investigation Agency.

As part of the agreement that was reached, representatives of indigenous organizations and communities will directly implement the activities they are responsible for under FIP-PE; additionally, $14.5 million will be allocated to the following three priorities: (1) $7 million to indigenous territorial titling; (2) $4 million to community forest management; and (3) $3.5 million to community governance.