Amazon Alive: A Decade of Discoveries 1999-2009 - WWF

Conclusions
Conservation of the Amazon is central to the future of humankind
The many threats facing the Amazon are increasing pressure on the natural
resources and environmental services that millions of people depend on. Such
major threats are ultimately linked to global market forces as well as the
everyday practices of those who rely on the Amazon for its goods and
services.
The Amazon influences global weather patterns and helps to stabilise the
planet’s climate. So it’s vital to conserve the Amazon forests if we’re to tackle
global climate change.
Any development in the Amazon must be managed in an integrated and
sustainable manner, so that the region’s main ecological attributes and
functions are maintained. Historically, each country in the region has only
considered the part of the Amazon that lies within its national borders –
concerning itself with the benefits that it provides to its citizens.
This has resulted in fragmented policy-making as well as unchecked
overexploitation of the goods and services of the Amazon. It has also
overlooked the viability of the region as a whole.
The negative effects of this approach are exacerbated by the growth of key
sectors such as agriculture, cattle-ranching and energy. These economic
sectors are expanding in response to global demand. They depend on
infrastructure development investments, such as those contained in the IIRSA.
These are the forces currently forming the basis for the ‘integration’ of the
Amazon into the national and global economies. They are generating
short-term income and improving national macro-economic indicators. But
consideration of the environmental and social costs of such developments still
needs to be incorporated into to the mainstream of development planning.
Around the world, the environmental and social impacts of unsustainable
development are frequently borne by marginalised or minority groups within
society, particularly indigenous people and rural communities. The Amazon is
no exception. Conservation of the Amazon, first of all, is crucial for the survival
of the 2.7 million people from more than 320 indigenous groups who have
depended on its riches for centuries.
Given this context, the fate of the Amazon ultimately depends on a significant
shift in the way development is currently embraced by Amazon countries. It
is vital for the Amazon to be sustainably managed as one functioning whole.
A desire to safeguard the region’s functionality for the common good must
become the core business of the Amazon nations.
Responsible stewardship of the Amazon is critical to help the world tackle
climate change. In this sense, it is also in the long-term self interest of
individuals and societies across the globe to keep the Amazon healthy.
WWF’s vision for a living Amazon
For centuries, the Amazon has been regarded as an exotic region that needed
to be dominated, and as an infinite source of resources to be exploited. Today,
the Amazon and its many vital ecological functions are critical to the survival
of humankind, at a moment when people’s enormous demands on the Earth
exceed its capacity to provide for them.
So, protecting the planet’s most extensive tropical rainforest is not only a
priority task for the nine Amazon countries, but a global duty.
Through our Living Amazon Initiative, WWF works with national and regional
stakeholders from the eight countries plus one overseas territory to create the
high-level enabling conditions for the conservation and sustainable
development of the Amazon.
WWF’s vision for a living Amazon is “an ecologically healthy Amazon biome
that maintains its environmental and cultural contributions to local peoples,
the countries of the region, and the world, within a framework of social equity,
inclusive economic development and global responsibility”.
38 amazon alive! I a decade of discovery 1999-2009